“Troika” speaker system

The goals:

We have set out to design a small speaker, which is neutral in tonal balance and very accurate. The base should be fast and tight, without higher base boom to compensate for lack of lowest end extension, due to size. It should retrieve low-level details, heights should be airy and imaging must be exceptional. Speakers have to disappear into the acoustic space. They also should look good enough to be accepted in the modern living spaces.

Drivers

Audience A3 is a unique 3” wide-range driver, built like a subwoofer, but easily reaching tweeter frequencies. It is capable of 12mm peak-to-peak excursions and uses light weight inverted aluminum dome and Neodymium motor.

The speaker uses two of these drivers, in separate compartments. The upper is in a closed enclosure, tuned to Q=0.5 (critically damped). This one is the “single-driver” of the system. It is crossed by a first order series crossover to the LCY-K100 ribbon supertweeter, located in the same compartment.

The second Audience driver is located in the lower ported enclosure. This one is only “helping” the upper driver below 400 Hz and rolls off through the “baffle-step” region up to about 1000Hz. This improves low-end extension and keeps Troika flat down to about 60 Hz. It is connected in parallel to the main speaker, which also has an additional electrical damping effect, so that Troika’s impedance is very well behaved never drops below 7.5 W

Inside

The cabinet is constructed from highest grade Baltic Birch Plywood with solid MDF corners. Walls are treated with vibration damping materials and sound absorption. The composition and amount of acoustic staffing are carefully adjusted through extensive listening tests.

The crossover of Troika contains the absolute minimum of components possible. Therefore, the quality of parts is very important. We highly recommend the deluxe crossover edition, which contains:

• 12 gauge foil inductor


• Mandorf Supreme M Silver/Gold/Oil cap


• Mills 50W non-inductive resistors

It is possible to construct the crossover from less exclusive (and less expensive) parts. Although it will result in some savings, the difference is unambiguous and will be heard.

The shape of the cabinet is not just for looks. It is essential in reaching the design goals!
The cabinets are manufactured by a professional wood shop in USA.
The final finish of the cabinets, assembly of the speaker and crossover and final tuning and verification are performed in Princeton, NJ, USA.