Diapason
Diapason Didascalìa Reference Floorstander
Diapason Didascalìa Reference Floorstander
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Alessandro Schiavi and Paolo Tezzon share the spiritual and cultural duty to authentically pay homage to some of the most fertile principles of what might be called the "Italian school of electroacoustic design for domestic environments," in the humble hope of further evolving them. " Didascalia " is—eminently—a cultural undertaking: it is about the transmission of knowledge. Knowledge that Alessandro and Paolo firmly believe must not be lost.
" Didascalia ," which in ancient Greek means "teaching" and "knowledge," is the result of the creative application of various teachings from the Italian school of electroacoustic design.
PROJECT
There is one design concept that more than any other has characterized the "Italian school of electroacoustics" for domestic environments: the two-way system. This configuration is capable of ensuring musical reproduction characterized by maximum purity, immediacy, and musicality. All the undeniable advantages of this setup are counterbalanced by some limitations in terms of soundstage size and low-frequency extension. Didascalìa remains faithful to this configuration, but aims to overcome these limitations with creative design solutions.
FURNITURE CONSTRUCTION
The two external “wings” of Didascalìa are obtained by coupling eight seasoned solid walnut slats, crossed and joined using advanced viscoelastic glues that allow a gradient of freedom of movement to the slats themselves. Each slat is seasoned for months to remove the moisture present in the fibers, and then vacuum-roasted to further stabilize it. The finish uses a natural, water-based transparent varnish for an open-pore “0 gloss” effect.
The external wings of the lacquered version of Didascalìa are made using a sandwich structure composed of three layers of ultra-high density HDF, wrapped in a tulipwood veneer. This construction essentially replicates the mass and mechanical properties of the solid walnut version. The lacquering process involves eight layers of varnish, each layer then finely hand-polished by skilled craftsmen.
Advanced CNC machining gives the wings their final shape, which is functional in many ways: they are sculpted internally, providing the speakers with a load volume free from reflections and standing waves. They also provide the overall cabinet with a “constrained layer” construction for a virtually resonance-free structure. Furthermore, the shape of Didascalìa's wings is designed to provide calibrated acoustic loading to the front-firing transducers: the front is designed to load the speaker output, optimizing their dispersion pattern and allowing Didascalìa to sound large and full.
The central section of Didascalìa's cabinet is made from a combination of HDF and high-pressure glued Baltic birch plywood, while infrastructural ribs have been strategically placed within it to reinforce the overall structure. The Didascalìa cabinet construction is further optimized in terms of damping/rigidity through machined aluminum caps that act as collectors and dissipators of any residual vibrations while also creating an exoskeleton that envelops the cabinet's main structure. A cutting-edge implementation.
MECHANICAL TIME ALIGNMENT
The faux leather-covered front panel has been designed to mechanically align the tweeter and midwoofer emission centers, starting from an optimal listening distance of 2 meters, which is the typical listening position in any listening room suitable for Didascalìa.
This solution allows for incredible phase coherence and perfect impulse response alignment, which translates into Didascalìa's extraordinary ability to reconstruct the virtual soundstage.
ANTI-VIBRATION DECOUPLING SYSTEM
Didascalìa spikes feature a suspension system based on calibrated compliance elastomers for a perfect interface with the listening room that prevents the propagation of spurious vibrations. This solution was implemented to decouple the speaker from the floor, eliminating any acoustic feedback and any propagation of vibrations towards the listening room.
SPEAKERS DESIGNED AND DEVELOPED INTERNALLY
Didascalìa speakers are an exclusive Diapason design, optimized for the specific application.
TWEETER
The 29mm tweeter is based on a Kurt Mueller silk soft dome diaphragm, chosen for its extremely natural sound. This diaphragm is then expertly hand-treated to optimize its extension at the highest frequencies, thus creating a very high-resolution device. It is mounted on a Diapason-designed faceplate, engineered to avoid diffraction and optimize dispersion patterns. It features a large neodymium magnet system and a non-resonant aluminum rear decompression chamber. Designed by Diapason, manufactured by Scan Speak.
MID-WOOFER
The 180 mm mid-woofer is a cutting-edge design based on a Kurt Mueller-produced cone, a blend of cellulose pulp and nylon fibers, subsequently air-dried and hand-treated. In its basic version, it is a solution historically used in several high-end studio monitors and was chosen for its transparency and unmistakable musicality. This diaphragm has been implemented with the best – literally – in terms of magnetic system: the “Air-circ” configuration. It is based on six neodymium cylinders that provide a surprisingly concentrated flux and avoid any compression phenomena for a performance characterized by exceptionally low distortion. The magnetic circuit also incorporates copper rings to reduce intermodulation distortion while increasing power handling. Diapason design, manufactured by Scan Speak.
ACTIVE DRONE SPEAKERS
AND ELECTROMAGNETIC DAMPING SYSTEM
The lateral 220 x 260 mm “active” drone speakers shaped like a racing circuit – the so-called passive radiators – achieve another specific design goal of Didascalìa: improving the intrinsic purity of a two-way configuration, overcoming its main limitation, namely the lack of extension at the lowest frequencies.
These speakers share the oversized load volume with the front mid-woofer, which pressurizes them. They have been carefully optimized for moving mass and compliance, so that, in combination with the mid-woofer’s special set of customized T&S parameters, they extend Didascalìa’s extension well below 40 Hz for a remarkable result.
Despite being passive units, they are equipped with a magnetic circuit, which serves as an electromechanical brake. This allows you to select between 3 different damping levels for the drone speaker membranes by using the rear knob of the Didascalìa switch, thus obtaining different behaviors at very low frequencies, for perfect coupling with any listening environment. Designed by Diapason, produced by Scan speak.
CROSSOVER
The Didascalìa crossover is a balanced circuit, a solution that gives a sensation of deeper background black to music reproduction because it makes the crossover itself much less sensitive to radio frequency pollution and also helps better manage the “look back” impedance (the impedance “seen” by the speaker when looking at the amplifier). The circuit is hand-wired in air 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 frequency is 2,500 Hz.
Mounted in a separate, easily accessible sub-case for mechanical isolation and to allow for any future upgrades: a Diapason speaker system is forever.
CROSSOVER
The Didascalìa crossover is a balanced circuit, a solution that gives a sensation of deeper background black to music reproduction because it makes the crossover itself much less sensitive to radio frequency pollution and also helps better manage the “look back” impedance (the impedance “seen” by the speaker when looking at the amplifier). The circuit is hand-wired in air 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 frequency is 2,500 Hz.
Mounted in a separate, easily accessible sub-case for mechanical isolation and to allow for any future upgrades: a Diapason speaker system is forever.
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