Zellaton Reference Ultra

Description

The Zellaton Klassik range of loudspeakers have established themselves as one of the very finest loudspeakers available in the world. For those few that have had the opportunity to experience them personally in a well set-up system, there’s an honesty and purity to their sound that can give you instant goosebumps and completely captivate you within seconds. So why is there a need for another range? Well, there’s no need at all but the small team of perfectionists at Zellaton never rest, always looking for opportunities to improve and progress performance to new levels. After a long development period, in late 2023 they finished development of a new driver membrane structure along with a few other improvements and the Ultra range were introduced to the world.

Before we go any further, it is important to pause and gain an understanding of who ZELLATON are because this is no ordinary high-end speaker company. In fact, to the best of our knowledge, there is simply no other speaker manufacturer like this group of highly passionate, quality driven, uncompromising, talented specialists. Can you think of any speaker company in existence today that can trace their lineage back to 1900? Over a century of history, heritage and pedigree!

Every speaker manufacturer has their philosophy, ideas and methods. None are right or wrong as everyone creates their individual interpretation of the way a speaker should sound and the world is richer for the existence of these ideas, designs and products. We as the consumer are very fortunate that so many people express their ideas and give us so many choices. To survive in a super-competitive global market, manufacturers have to find ways of offering price-competitive offerings while still making the profit needed to survive. Therefore, even very expensive speaker models have a necessary level of compromise.

Zellaton somehow do not quite fit into this paradigm. Imagine if you had a vision for how a speaker should sound and how it needs to be constructed for it to achieve one primary goal – to offer the very best performance possible. Now imagine that to achieve your goal, the driver technology that is required is so difficult to make that only a handful of people have the know-how that was passed down from over 100 years ago. Imagine that this driver technology takes months to manufacture and has a significant rejection rate, leaving you with a small number of available drivers. Imagine that the cost of parts alone for your unique crossover design is more than most other company’s finished speakers. Now imagine that the cabinet technology and hand-crafted fine tuning of the drivers matched with their cabinet takes months to hand-build by a highly skilled specialist. Would you bother to build such a speaker? We know of no company that would attempt this level of difficulty. Welcome to Zellaton.

The ZELLATON Ultra speakers are a truly bespoke speaker design with three models in the range. The Reference is the company’s second offering, designed for medium-large listening spaces.

The drivers used in the Ultra series are extremely costly and take a very long time to manufacture. The manufacturing process is elaborate and requires utmost precision and skill. For example, the diaphragms are baked for two to three weeks with precise timing. Even after each production phase is completed, there is a high rejection rate as the specific requirements for these drivers is at a standard which even utilising the most modern manufacturing methods, is difficult to achieve. ZELLATON’s triple-layer, full cone, sandwich diaphragms are one of a kind and perhaps the most obvious feature that differentiates them from other loudspeaker manufacturers. The purpose of using a three-layer sandwich design is to reduce the sound of the material. The hardened foam consists of millions of various sized, small air bubbles. In fact, 80% of the foam is actually air and that gives the cones their desired lightness and stiffness. Another benefit to this design is the reduction of distortion.

Another somewhat unconventional aspect of the Reference’s design is the crossover. There’s no tuning of the crossover to linearize the speaker. This is instead done with the drivers themselves which consequently eliminates phase shifting issues. After an extensive testing process, ZELLATON selected Duelund’s new proprietary CAST capacitors made at Duelund’s new factory. Everything inside the speaker is connected with Duelund wiring and all internal connections are hardwired. Mundorf M-Connect Silver plated copper binding posts are used on the back of the speaker. These binding posts provide excellent grip when using cables terminated with a variety of spade lugs.

Due to the Zellaton driver technology, the midrange driver is capable of handling a far greater bandwidth than in conventional designs. Therefore, the tweeter is crossed over much higher up the frequency range and the bass drivers are crossed over much lower down the frequency range. This means that one driver handles most of the sonic presentation with no crossover in the path of the most critical frequencies. When the cross over does come into play, it is one of the most sonically invisible crossovers that we have ever heard, so the effect is that you are listening to a super high performance wide-bander with top and bottom augmentation. The resulting cohesion, speed and accuracy is simply stunning. This is one of Zellaton’s prime philosophies – make the most capable drivers and use the least amount of them as necessary. This is impossible to do unless you have a driver that is extremely light, stiff and distortion free.

Cabinet fit and finish is nothing less than spectacular. The Reference are finished in the finest quality lacquered piano finish ever used on a speaker. The cabinet design is seamless with no joins, seems, nuts or bolts in sight, a sculpture that anyone would be proud to place in their home. The Reference cabinet is made of a complex sandwich design that incorporates many different layers of materials that result in an unbelievably inert cabinet. Each cabinet is individually measured and tuned. You can tell that the know how to create this level of enclosure has taken generations of development to get to this level. Coupled with serious internal bracing, cabinet vibrations are virtually non-existent. ZELLATON uses a special Laser Doppler vibrometer to measure the speaker’s vibrations down to the square centimetre. ZELLATON eschews conventional philosophy of spiking speakers and prefers instead to use coupling in concert with energy draining. Many custom paint and metal finishes are available.

The ZELLATON Reference Ultra breaks new ground in bringing you closer to the feeling of unfiltered, unadulterated sound. There’s an incredible purity, a reach-out-and-touch-you transparency and remarkable timbral realism through music’s entire range. It also expresses nuanced detail along with the structured, propulsive, macro-dynamic architectural elements of music. There’s presence and three-dimensionality with instruments, voices and spatial cues appearing more fully fleshed out. It is uncoloured, coherent and pure, particularly in the critical midrange where they have a rare ability to convey music that simply sounds like the real thing. All veils are removed between you and the performer.

The ZELLATON Reference Ultra is designed to operate in medium to large listening spaces and offers greater low frequency energy than the Stage. There’s a totally seamless integration of its five drivers and is often compared to full-range electrostatics in this regard. It reproduces live performances with incredible immediacy and dynamics, often compared to horns in that regard. It communicates music with presence and transparency – fully communicating the excitement of the performance. Its stunning clarity helps one understand the words being sung and feel the instruments being played. It makes you feel like you are sitting in the best seat in the house. Vocals are grain-free, palpable and you experience the illusion of live performers in your listening room.

These loudspeakers are a truly special experience and in many ways in a class of their own. For those lucky enough to experience the ZELLATON Reference Ultra, they are a memorable, visceral experience often described as breathtaking. This is a collectable, heirloom quality, artisan crafted piece of high-end audio exotica.

Product Specifications

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