Zellaton Emotion Evo

Description

ZELLATON inhabit a bespoke place in the world of high end loudspeakers. Their unique speaker designs are characterised by their hand-made and individually tuned drivers, specially made to order Duelund capacitors and exquisitely finished multi-layer constructed cabinets. Their Klassik and Ultra speaker series are acknowledged as among the most sonically accomplished loudspeakers available in the world. However, the extreme specifications of those speakers demand high manufacturing costs and extremely time consuming build times.

The EVO series was designed to deliver much of the ZELLATON fabled sonic performance in loudspeakers that are more accessible in terms of production time and cost. By developing new drivers and changing the way the cabinets are built, ZELLATON were able to achieve this brief while still remaining faithful to the ZELLATON sound.

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. Another benefit to this design is the reduction of distortion. The manual tuning of the drivers is done in many steps until the frequency response is linearised as much as possible. Everything, down to the glues used, is honed and tested. It is important to note that Zellaton have a lineage and heritage that dates back over 100 years so there’s a lot of information, know-how and wisdom that has been passed down through many decades of development.

The Emotion is a very special speaker indeed and is the ‘entry level’ speaker into the world of Zellaton, although referring to the Emotion as ‘entry-level’ is relatively comical as it is a far more capable and accomplished speaker than the top of the range speakers from many other brands. At the heart of the speaker is a special 9 inch driver which operates as a ‘wide-bander’, covering most of the frequency range with no interference from a crossover and is supported by a high quality proprietary soft dome tweeter for the high frequencies.

Another somewhat unconventional aspect of the Emotion’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. Zellaton employ custom designed Duelund’s full cast flat VSF capacitors are used with the tweeter. 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.

The Emotion Evo cabinet is made of three different types and layers of wood to reduce the material’s sound. The woods are of different thicknesses and key positions in the cabinet are reinforced with metal plates. Internal reinforcements and bracing are asymmetrical throughout to reduce cabinet vibration to an absolute minimum. ZELLATON eschews conventional philosophy of spiking speakers and prefers instead to use coupling in concert with energy draining. The Plural Evos opted to use rounded feet on the bottom of the speaker in concert with discs reduce energy, which also happens to work better with carpeted floors. Cabinet fit and finish is nothing less than spectacular. Up to 20 coats of polyester paint are used of the cabinets. 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 Emotion is designed to integrate well into smaller rooms and placed closer to walls. With most of the sound being produced by one driver, the speaker has perfect cohesiveness. Essential musical elements such as melody, harmony, dynamic accents, length of notes, etc are reproduced accurately and sound ‘whole’. There’s a stunning transparency which results from a reduction in driver and cabinet distortions/colorations and the ability of the speaker cabinet to stay quiet and allow the drivers to perform optimally. This transparency communicates cues such as hall acoustics and subtle timbral qualities that allows the listener to effortlessly discern the differences between similar instruments. They have that elusive ability to present a performance in a way where you can discern what is going on in the back of the soundstage as easily as the front of the stage. Musical details are portrayed with transient speed, wild dynamic swings, explosiveness and slam – this speaker has real ‘jump factor’. Instruments pop up out of silence.

Sonically the Emotion Evos are a true reference for their price range. The combination of openness, transient bass attack, micro and macro-dynamics, seamlessness, treble purity, low coloration and transparency is impeccable and it all combines to feel effortlessness & natural. This is not a hi-fi sound in the traditional sense, it is beyond that… it is purity & engagement. This is a speaker that is completely captivating from the first moment, hard-wiring your attention into the musical story. We’ve never experienced this level of immediacy from a speaker at this level. Stunning!

Product Specifications

Documents/Links