DIDASCALÌA
REFERENCE COLLECTION
BACKGROUND
Alessandro Schiavi and Paolo Tezzon share the spiritual and cultural duty to authentically tribute some of the most fruitful princi ples of what could be defined as the “Italian school of electroacoustic design” for home interiors, in the humble hope of making them further evolve. “Didascalìa” is – eminently – a cultural ope ration: it’s about knowledge transmission. A knowledge that Ales sandro and Paolo strongly believe shouldn’t be lost.
“Didascalìa”, in ancient Greek language, means exactly “teaching”, “knowledge” and it is the result of the creative imple mentation of several lessons coming from the school of Italian electro-acoustic design.
CONCEPT
There is a design concept which has been typical, which always characterized the “Italian school of electro acoustic for home in teriors”: the two-way configuration. Such a set-up is able to provi de the maximum amount of purity, immediacy and musicality to the reproduction.
All the good things such a design choice is able to “bring to the table” come with limitations in terms of size of the soundstage and in terms of extension in the low frequencies. Didascalìa stays faithful to such a configuration but aim to over come those limitations with creative design solutions.
CABINET CONSTRUCTION
The two Didascalìa outside “wings” are obtained coupling together 8 seasoned solid walnut slats, cross grained and jointed with the use of a viscoelastic advanced glue which will allow freedom of movement to the slats themselves.
Each slat has been seasoned for months to remove humidity present in the fibers and then vacuum roasted in order to further stabilize it. They are finished with a “0 gloss” open pore water based natural painting.
The outside wings of the lacquered version of Didascalìa are realized by means of a sandwich construction involving 3 layers of extreme hi-density HDF enveloped by a tulipwood veneer. Such a construction matches the mass and the mechanical properties of the solid walnut version. The lacquering is about 8 layers of coating, each of them finely hand polished by the skilled artisans. An advanced CNC machining gives to the wings their final shape, which is functional in many ways: they are carved inside provi ding a reflection and standing waves free loading volume to the speaker units. They also provide to the overall cabinet a “constrained layer damping mode” construction for a virtually resonance-free enclosure. More, their front part is designed for loading the transducer’s emission, optimizing their dispersion pattern while allowing Didascalìa to sound big and complete.
The Didascalìa cabinet main structure is realized with a combina tion of HDF and high-pressure multilayer Baltic birch wood while sub-structural ribs are strategically placed inside to strengthen the 0verall structure. The Didascalìa cabinet construction is further optimized in its damping/stiffness ratio by means of Aluminum CNC machined “damp-shelves” which acts like collectors and dissipators of any residual vibration while creating an exo-skeleton, enveloping the cabinet’s main structure. A state-of-the-art implementation.
MECHANICAL TIME ALIGNMENT
The eco leather covered baffle has been designed to mechanically time align the tweeter and midwoofer’s emission centers, for an op timal listening distance starting at 2 meters away from Didascalìa, which is the typical set up in any suitable listening room. This solution allows for an amazing phase coherence, for a perfect set up of the impulse response, which translates into Didascalìa’s amazing staging ability.
VIBRATION FREE DECOUPLING SYSTEM
Didascalìa’s spikes are provided with a compliance calibrated ela stomer-based suspension system for a vibration-free interface with the listening environment. This solution has been implemented to decouple the enclosure from the floor, eliminating any acoustic fee dback and any vibration propagation to the listening room.
IN HOUSE DESIGNED SPEAKER UNITS
The Didascalìa speaker units are an exclusive Diapason in house design, optimized for the specific application.
TWEETER
The 29 mm tweeter is based on a Kurt Mueller silk soft dome diaphragm, chosen for its natural sound properties. This diaphragm is then expertly hand coated to optimize its extension in the highest frequencies, creating this way a truly hi-resolution device. It’s mounted on a Diapason designed faceplate, conceived to avoid diffractions and optimize the dispersion patterns. It’s equipped with a large neodymium magnet system and a non-reso nant aluminum rear chamber. Designed by Diapason, manufactured by Scan Speak.
MID-WOOFER
The 180mm mid-woofer is a “state of the art” design, based upon an air dried, hand coated, paper/nylon fiber pulp Kurt Mueller cone, a solution used in several historical extreme quality studio monitors and chosen for its transparency and unmistakable musicality. Such a diaphragm is implemented with simply the best in terms of magnet system, the “Air circ” configuration. It is based on six neodymium cylinders providing an amazing flux and avoiding any compression for an exceptionally low distortion behavior. The magnet circuit also incorporates copper rings to reduce non-linear and modulation distortions while increasing overload. Diapason design, manufactured by Scan Speak.
THE “ACTIVE” DRONE UNITS
AND THE ELECTRO-MAGNETIC BRAKE SYSTEM
The side 220 x 260 mm side “active” racetrack shaped drone units – the passive radiators – allow to achieve another specific Didascalìa design goal: enhancing the intrinsic purity of a two-way configuration, overcoming its main limitation, the lack of extension on the lowest frequencies. Those units are sharing the oversized loading enclosure with the front firing mid-woofer which pressurize them. They have been thoroughly optimized in moving mass and compliance so that, in combination with the special set of custom T&S parameters of the mid-woofer, they extend Didascalìa extension way below 40 Hz, a remarkable result. No matter being passive units they are provided with a magnet circuit, which is used as an electro mechanical brake. This way it is possible to select between 3 different drone diaphragms excursion damping by acting on the Didascalìa rear switch knob, obtaining this way different behaviors at the very low frequencies, for a perfect coupling with any listening environment. Designed by Diapason, manufactured by Scan Speak.
CROSSOVER
The Didascalìa crossover network is a balanced design, a solution which provi des a darker background in music reproduction because it allows the network itself being way less sensitive to radio frequencies pollution and also contribu tes to better manage the look back impedance (The impedance seen by the spe aker toward the amplifier). The circuitry is point to point hand wired and uses the best of the best in terms of components: Jantzen C-Coil inductors, Mundorf Supreme EVO silver/gold/oil Capacitors. Mundorf M-Resist. The crossover fre quency is 2.500 Hz. Mounted in a separated sub-enclosure, easily accessible, for mechanical isolation and for allowing for eventual upgrades in the future: a Diapason loudspeakers system is forever.
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Type: Floorstanding 2 way, 4 speakers
Acoustical Loading: Passive radiators, side emission
Cabinet: Constrained layer damping mode construction, obtained by means of a main body equipped with “panzerholtz” sub-structural ribs coupled with CNC machined solid walnut slab/HDF sandwich construction outside wings. Internally carved, providing a portion of the loading volume. Aluminum CNC machined damp-shelves create an exo-skeleton, further optimizing the cabinet damping stiffness ratio. Virtually a resonance free construction. Solid walnut or black laquer finish.
Drivers/Iternal Wiring: Tweeter: 29 mm mechanically decoupled, dispersion optimized, silk dome hand coated diaphragm, non-resonant Alu rear Chamber, symmetrical Drive (SD-2) motor large ring Neo Magnet. Diapason design, manufactured by Scan speak.
Mid-woofers: 180mm air dried hand coated paper/nylon fiber pulp cone, copper rings reduce non-linear and modulation distortion and increase overload margin neodymium SD AirCirc magnet system, absolutely free compression. Diapason design, manufactured by Scan speak.
Passive Radiators: 220 x 260 mm “racetrack” shaped diaphragm, sandwich construction paper/foam/paper for excellent pistonic behavior. Diapason design, manufactured by Scan speak.
Van den Hul CS12 Halogen Free
Frequency Response: 35 Hz – 30,000 Hz
Sensivity (2.83 V @1 m): 90 dBSPL
Nominal Impedence: 8 ohm
