French ‘Pro Audio’ manufacturer Amadeus announced during the 38th edition of the Paris HI-FI Show on October 17 and 18 that their new ‘Philharmonia’ speakers are shipping. The Philharmonia was displayed as a ‘concept-speaker’ during the last Frankfurt Prolight + Sound and Munich High End Society trade shows.

The new speakers were initially created specifically for the Philharmonie de Paris recording and mastering studios and designed by Michel DeLuc, Amadeus’ Director of Research & Development, along with world-renown architect Jean Nouvel, who designed the new Philharmonie de Paris concert hall.

Bernard BYK, co-founder and CEO of Amadeus, says, “Imagine a reference sound system with exceptional design, ergonomics and acoustics, as a kind of consecration! Jean Nouvel’s imagination, exuberance and creative genius, combined with Michel DeLuc’s engineering, brought a brilliant solution to life. Amadeus especially praises tradition, and the new speakers combine innovation as well as timeless beauty; christened ‘Philharmonia’, they embody the know-how, the creativity, and the values with which Amadeus has been building its history for more than 35 years.”  

The new Philharmonia 2-way, self-powered speakers feature a 28-mm soft-domed tweeter and a custom 8-inch woofer, and boast analogue and digital inputs with a customized integrated DAC and an amplitude linearity range (±2dB) from 43 Hz to 22 KHz. The high-frequency driver features very low dielectric losses and high thermal conductivity, loaded behind a fast exponential waveguide machined in wood.

The cabinets are custom manufactured from layered Birch and stand 1.6 meters tall, the casing contains the electronics inside the lower part of the speaker enclosure. Each speaker is comprised of 547 wood veneers. Each speaker features a unique hybrid laminar port using progressive termination for reproducing low frequencies.

Philharmonia is bi-amplified using two dedicated digital custom-built amplifiers, each amp delivers 700 Watts under 8 ohms. These proprietary PPM-PWM fixed frequency class-D amplifiers are equipped with a high-efficiency switched mode power supply. Each speaker channel is under control by a powerful, 64-bit digital processing unit capable of a 118 dB dynamic range. Each of these on-board DSP units include a module dedicated to managing core system parameters including system EQ, time alignment between sections, limiting, transducer thermal protection. This level of control makes Philharmonia fully protected and able to operate at the full extent of its abilities. 

With line-level XLR analog input, Philharmonia lets users choose their own DAC, while at the same time, given that digital-to-analogue conversion should happen at the latest possible stage in an electro-acoustical monitoring system, Philharmonia also integrates two digital inputs/outputs conforming to the AES3 digital audio data transfer standard. These are coupled with a 24-bit/96kHz converter placed as close as possible to the electronic amplifiers, thus working together in perfect combination. The speakers also feature an RJ-45 network input allowing remote control of its DSP processor for optimal adjustment via dedicated software to match the speakers to the acoustical properties of each listening space. The software is an app that runs on Apple Macintosh and iPad, and Microsoft Windows computers.