Sculptured Sound Limited was set up in New Zealand, by Englishman Terry Vine to pursue his life-long passion in the world of hifi. The company has aimed straight for the high-end niche speaker market and certainly seems to have pulled out all the stops in doing so.

Sculptured Sound’s mission was to design a high-performance loudspeaker that is visually unique with complex sculptured curves and classic/retro styling.  The Stratosphere 57, has crafted cabinets that are finished in a high-gloss black polyurethane with fine metallic flakes that offers a subtle sparkle in certain lighting conditions. Italian leather and polished stainless-steel features compliment the Stratosphere 57’s styling.

Cabinet Maker, Boat Builder & Designer

Terry is a qualified timber boat builder, a designer and fine cabinet/furniture maker. He had a great opportunity to build beautiful boats for two of the finest and arguably best-known creators of high-end British Audio in the late 80’s and early 90’s. For a while Terry also ran a small cabinet making business and was contracted to manufacture loudspeaker cabinets for another well-known UK loudspeaker brand. He later sold this business and decided to move to Australia and follow his passion for yacht design and boat building.

Whilst living in Australia Terry set up a boat building company where they specialised in classic and retro boat design and construction. Many years later and after relocating to New Zealand, he decided to follow his hifi passion again.

Bugatti & Fender

The ‘S57s’ also take inspirational design cues from two great creations of the 20th century; the gorgeous 1938 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic Coupe sports car and the world-famous Fender Stratocaster 1957 guitar. With sweeping curves, the cabinets make very stiff and structurally strong ‘boxes’ that reduce vibrations and internal standing waves.

Full Range Driver

At the helm of this ‘grand size’ loudspeaker is a huge 380mm (16”) full-range driver. This driver takes its design and performance DNA directly from the world-famous Voice of the Theatre (VOTT) loudspeaker. The modern-day version of this driver weighs in at a hefty 38lbs (17kgs) with the majority of the weight being the huge Alnico magnet. The driver is housed in a ported designed cabinet with its own custom-made passive crossover set it the back of the cabinet where it can easily be reached for fine-tuning to suit different room acoustics.

The port in itself is machined out of solid Ash timber to match its front solid Ash ‘fretboard’ feature. Think Stratocaster guitar and you can immediately see where the inspiration for this unique design comes from.

Bass Cabinet

The main cabinet sits on a separate bass cabinet via custom Ash turned feet. The bass cabinet features two curved opposing driver enclosures, with each one housing one high-performance 236mm (10”) bass driver. Each bass driver is actively powered by a 500watt D-Class built-in amplifier; making a total of 1000watts. The rear-firing ports are again precision turned solid Ash timber and are both set at a 15-degree angle from the back of the cabinet. This eliminates direct feedback into the ports from a rear wall. Again, the complex curves in the design of the bass cabinet, not only offers a unique style but also adds strength and structural stiffness.

Specifications

Main Drivers:

• Centrally mounted 25mm (1”) high-frequency compression driver/horn and a 381mm (16”) low/mid-frequency driver. These speaker drivers are driven by Alnico Magnets
• Frequency Response: 40 Hz – 20 kHz
• Dedicated crossovers for fine-tuning (on rear)
• Minimum Impedance: 8 Ohms
• Sensitivity: 104dB (2.83 V @ 1m) extremely efficient
• Power Handling (continuous): 100 Watts
• Driver Weight: 17.3kg (38lb) (each)

Bass Drivers:

• 236mm (10”) Subwoofers (2 x drivers per cabinet)
• Frequency Response: 20 – 100Hz
• Nominal Impedance: 4 Ohms
• Sensitivity: 86dB (2.83 V @ 1m)
• Power Handling (short-term) 500 Watts
• Power Handling (long-term) 250 Watts
• Driver Weight: 10kg (22lb) each

Power Amplifiers (for bass drivers only):

• 1000 Watts class-D amplifier (per side). Amplifier is built-in to the rear of each bass cabinet and sonically isolated

Dimensions, (over-all)

• Height: 1620mm (63.7in)
• Width: 890mm (35in)
• Depth: 680mm (26.7in)
• Weight: 142kg (313lb) (per side)

Price

New Zealand export price (FOB). NZD 85,663

This equates to approximately (due to fluctuation with global currency)

EX NZ (FOB) £41,118

EX NZ (FOB) €49,684

EX NZ (FOB) USD50,541

EX NZ (FOB) AUD80,523

The above prices include one pair of Stratosphere 57 loudspeakers, plus four custom-made shipping boxes. Note: Shipping costs, import taxes/duties are extra.

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