Design Parameters
Sound Stage: Not being satisfied with having to sit in one spot to truly enjoy the music, I wanted the Home Series speakers to sound great in a real living environment, to have a large sweet spot. The idea is to be able to move around the room while maintaining the image of a realistic soundstage/concert hall. The offset dual-tweeters, selection of speaker cone materials with proper dispersion characteristics and the cabinet shape and construction all help to achieve this goal while maintaining precise imaging and depth of stage.
Listener Fatigue: One thing that is clear to me is that I will not build a speaker that emulates other stereo speakers or focuses on showroom wow. Being a musician and coming from the pro-world my final reference is the source, real musical instruments. Not surprisingly by following this criterion, we have a speaker that is very musical and has virtually no listener fatigue.
Cabinet Design: I wanted to build cabinets of a timeless elegance that would befit virtually any home. They are constructed of solid hardwood with dovetail joinery and a natural, old-world style, hand-rubbed oil varnish finish. This finish process takes three to four weeks of application and buffing to produce a deep, fine furniture luster.
Solid Hardwood: In 1992 when I founded Daedalus Cabinets, I experimented with many cabinet materials, and found solid hardwood to be the most musical. This does not mean that it unduly colors the sound. Any wood material cabinet will have some effect on the sound, and the very small contribution a hardwood cabinet makes to the sound is simply a more musical one than man-made materials. Years ago JBL tested various cabinet materials and found a concrete culvert to be the best. It seems that stiffness, not just density is the criterion. For any wood product to work it has to be very carefully braced for stiffness, and solid hardwood is at least three times as stiff as MDF with a similar density. One could easily argue that our 100lbs. hardwood cabinet can be at least as stiff and 'neutral' as an MDF cabinet weighing 300 lbs!
Frequency Response: All our systems have an excellent bass extension, while still being exceptionally tight and detailed. I opted to not sacrifice clarity just to get a deep booming bass that's better handled by a separate sub. Don't get me wrong, these will shake the walls, (they rock the concrete slab here!). The concept is to keep the bass tight with lifelike transients, and if you have a room large enough and want extreme bass near the limits of hearing then you can get a good sub and have it all....more.
Efficiency: Our systems have a sensitivity of 95db to 99db 1w/1m; this is 6-12db more efficient than almost all other home speakers. This doesn't only mean that you can play music at full concert levels, but that with typical listening levels, the system has a huge reserve of headroom. The power handling of these systems is also considered with recommended amplifier ratings of over 500watts per channel. What this translates into is incredibly low distortion, exceptional detail, and unrestricted dynamics. Dynamics like this can draw you into the music as if you were at a live performance.
The measured anechoic chamber response of all our systems is virtually flat but more important, the typical room response is also smooth and detailed; these are shall we say, user-friendly speakers made to be lived with.
Details, Details Our hand-built passive x-over networks are designed and built by Guy Veralrud. Guy is one of the behind the scenes gurus of speaker design. He has taken great care to ensure that all engineering parameters are correct for a stable impedance and flat frequency response. Most importantly he has transmuted engineering into an art, bringing real musical tonality and imaging to these systems.
All systems feature our unique wire harness designed to maintain proper phase relationships across the frequency band. The dome tweeters are the finest available and made by Eton and our midrange driver is a full-range modified to our specifications. The 8" and 10" Daedalus woofers are made in the United States to our specifications and design. We have been refining the design of these drivers since the early 90's and they are the heart of our systems with a speed and life that brings that true sense of being there. These paper cone/ cloth surround drivers are treated to resist moisture and will last for decades. . The binding posts are the Rhodium Cardas posts. To complete the music reproduction chain we recommend our Daedalus speaker cables which are based on the same wire harness inside our speakers. All these details mean no weak links in signal chain from the amplifier to your ears.
Wood choices are solid renewable North American hardwoods only, Cherry is standard. (please don't ask for a Rosewood cabinet). Our complex internal bracing and voicing cancels almost all resonances while maintaining optimum acoustic energy. The finish is at least seven coats of hand-rubbed oil-varnish applied as a French Polish style, buffed to a rich fine furniture finish. A true "Old-World" style finish that is durable, repairable and has a deep lasting beauty.
