Brit audio firm Custom Design has launched high-mass, steel-bodied speakers that promise to minimise cabinet colouration.
Priced at £3,895 (about €4,513 / $5,245 / AU$8,094) per pair, the KS2 speakers are "totally unique".
Custom Design is known for its high-end steel-topped speaker stands, which are designed to reduce resonance and deliver greater clarity from your Hi-Fi setup. Now the UK firm has moved into making steel speakers too.
The Kinetic Sound 2 speakers, KS2 for short, have been developed in collaboration with another Brit-based firm, Falcon Acoustics, to deliver the first speakers including Custom Design's proprietary Infra Specific Isolation Technology (ISIT), which promises to deliver powerful bass and mids without unwanted resonance.
Custom Design claims they are "totally unique", and while they're not the prettiest speakers you'll see in this price range, they're certainly striking.
So why metal, and why aren't other speaker companies using it?
Why these speakers are very metal
On the face of it, steel speaker cabinets make sense: steel is stiffer and stronger than wood. However, metal is also heavier, more difficult to work with and more prone to "ringing" if it isn't damped extremely well. That's one reason it's not widely used in speaker cabinet manufacturing.
What Custom Design has done here is to build its high-mass sealed speaker cabinets with rigid but thin 6mm steel walls in a design that promises to be acoustically inert. That means the sound you hear is all driver and no cabinet.
It also results in extremely heavy speakers – 15kg each without drivers and components.
But, the manufacturer also promised that its process results in a design that minimises any colouration or influence on the audio, compared to traditional wooden speaker cabinets.
The KS2 speakers have an impedance of 15 ohms and a frequency response of 70Hz to 20kHz, and their total weight is 17kg per speaker excluding stands.
They're supplied as standard with OM44 LS35 isolating stands and have a recommended retail price of £3,895 (about €4,513 / $5,245 / AU$8,094) per pair.
