Illusio Audio is a new high-end loudspeaker company that takes an innovative approach to loudspeaker/room interaction. In effect, we take the wide, uniform type of radiation pattern which consistently does well in controlled blind testing and divide it up into two narrow segments. We aim one segment towards the listening area, and then deliberately fire the other segment in a very different direction which results in a fairly long reflection path length before arriving at the listening position. The result emulates the conditions in a well-treated (but NOT overdamped!) dedicated room: Clean first-arrival sound; followed in time by minimal early reflections; followed by a fairly strong late-onset, spectrally-correct reflection field. The dedicated late-onset reflections are user-adjustable in volume and spectral balance, to accommodate a wide range of room acoustic situations.
The Alana is a two-way 10" stand-mount speaker which is optimized for the range above about 75 Hz, as we have found that a good distributed multi-sub system outperforms in-room anything we could put into a pair of loudspeakers. We will be showing with a subwoofer system based on the four-piece AudioKinesis Swarm.
The "secret weapon" of the Alana is the matching LORAstand, which incorporates a very smooth-sounding horn aimed up-and-back at a 45 degree angle. "LORA" stands for Late Onset Reflection Assist, and the role of its horn is to increase the amount of late-onset, spectrally-correct in-room reflections. The output from the LORA's horn fills in the upper-range energy which is missing from the midwoofer's far-off-axis output below the crossover region. Combined with the output from the front-firing waveguide, the net result is approximately the same in-room direct-to-reflective sound ratio as a good wide-pattern speaker, with the ability to tailor the loudness and spectral balance of the reflection field independent of the direct sound.
(The LORAstand can be used with other stand-mount speakers, and includes switchable circuitry designed to complement the off-axis response characteristic of many stand-mount speakers.)
The critical difference between the Alana/LORA and a conventional wide-pattern speaker is that the "center of gravity" of the reflections is pushed back in time relative to what would normally be the case. This results in a weaker "small room signature" from the playback room's acoustics, while effectively presenting the reveberation which is on the recording. This combination of characteristics tends to shift the perceived spatial quality from "they are here" to "you are there", the latter being arguably the holy grail for spatial quality for a stereo system. And from this heightened ability to create a convincing "you are there" illusion we derive our company name, "Illusio".
My personal contribution to Illusio Audio is in waveguide design and crossover design. The front waveguide is an Oblate Spheroid based on Earl Geddes' equations with the throat entry angle matched to the compression driver's exit angle. Others more skilled than me in their respective areas contributed the overall system concept, selection of the actual parts used in the crossover and elsewhere, and industrial design.
The Alana and LORAstand will be making their debut at the upcoming Capital Audio Fest, which begins on November 11, 2022. We will be in Room 623, paired with Infigo Audio electronics.
(For the record I retain my company, AudioKinesis, but my own products will be aimed at a lower price point and will not include the specific refinements contributed to Illusio by its other team members.)
At the moment all we have is a rendering; the LORAstands we'll be showing at Capital Audio Fest will have a black base instead of the metal outrigger feet, which will be available but not in time for the show:
The Alana is a two-way 10" stand-mount speaker which is optimized for the range above about 75 Hz, as we have found that a good distributed multi-sub system outperforms in-room anything we could put into a pair of loudspeakers. We will be showing with a subwoofer system based on the four-piece AudioKinesis Swarm.
The "secret weapon" of the Alana is the matching LORAstand, which incorporates a very smooth-sounding horn aimed up-and-back at a 45 degree angle. "LORA" stands for Late Onset Reflection Assist, and the role of its horn is to increase the amount of late-onset, spectrally-correct in-room reflections. The output from the LORA's horn fills in the upper-range energy which is missing from the midwoofer's far-off-axis output below the crossover region. Combined with the output from the front-firing waveguide, the net result is approximately the same in-room direct-to-reflective sound ratio as a good wide-pattern speaker, with the ability to tailor the loudness and spectral balance of the reflection field independent of the direct sound.
(The LORAstand can be used with other stand-mount speakers, and includes switchable circuitry designed to complement the off-axis response characteristic of many stand-mount speakers.)
The critical difference between the Alana/LORA and a conventional wide-pattern speaker is that the "center of gravity" of the reflections is pushed back in time relative to what would normally be the case. This results in a weaker "small room signature" from the playback room's acoustics, while effectively presenting the reveberation which is on the recording. This combination of characteristics tends to shift the perceived spatial quality from "they are here" to "you are there", the latter being arguably the holy grail for spatial quality for a stereo system. And from this heightened ability to create a convincing "you are there" illusion we derive our company name, "Illusio".
My personal contribution to Illusio Audio is in waveguide design and crossover design. The front waveguide is an Oblate Spheroid based on Earl Geddes' equations with the throat entry angle matched to the compression driver's exit angle. Others more skilled than me in their respective areas contributed the overall system concept, selection of the actual parts used in the crossover and elsewhere, and industrial design.
The Alana and LORAstand will be making their debut at the upcoming Capital Audio Fest, which begins on November 11, 2022. We will be in Room 623, paired with Infigo Audio electronics.
(For the record I retain my company, AudioKinesis, but my own products will be aimed at a lower price point and will not include the specific refinements contributed to Illusio by its other team members.)
At the moment all we have is a rendering; the LORAstands we'll be showing at Capital Audio Fest will have a black base instead of the metal outrigger feet, which will be available but not in time for the show:
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