Bring the performance home
The Reference Series has originally been designed for high-end studio requirements for recording and mastering. Experiencing these in a living space brings you just as close to the artist. In that sense, they are symbolic of NNNN’s vision to provide a consistent sound reproduction through the artist’s workflow. From exploration and composition. to recording, live performance, and finally: experiencing it at home.
“I don’t think you realise what you have made here. This kind of performance doesn’t exist.”
“I don’t think you realise what you have made here. This kind of performance doesn’t exist.”
Kevin Lee Hughes - Designer of Bernie Grundman Mastering Studio, Capitol Records A Studio
The Reference Series
People’s ability to engage in their experiences is closely tied to what feels believable and natural. In the pursuit of this, the Reference Series is a completely different approach to overcome the limitations to what traditional audio systems are able to achieve. It represents a comprehensive and complete approach to eliminating distortions that remove the listener from believing the act of musical reproduction. In that sense, the Reference Series represents a quantum leap of acoustic innovation in the pursuit of natural audio.
A Complete System Architecture
The Reference Series are complete systems, with custom amplifiers and digital signal processing, that together comprise a holistic approach of music reproduction between the input signal and the listener’s ear. At every step, conventional solutions are challenged. Coming from Professional Audio, advanced sound system architectures and signal processing provide an enhanced solution space – while deep knowledge of acoustic design and proprietary audio technologies enable unique advantages to how we approach the challenges of distortion, dynamics, and detail. The result is a comprehensive vision of what it takes to engage in music and what physical principles can manifest this.
Designed for room acoustics
Sound from loudspeakers is usually measured in an anechoic chamber; a sound lab without reflections, but living rooms are very far from this type of acoustic environment. Even professional studios often have challenges with sound reflecting off, not just the walls, but furniture and equipment like the mixing desk. This makes the same sound arrive at the listener’s ear at different times, resulting in a blurred representation of the music. Contrary to most high-end speakers, the Reference Series are designed with room acoustics in mind, and its intelligent acoustic design has an unprecedented sound directivity throughout its frequency range. Even in its deepest bass.
Gage 70 / Devor 23 Gage 125 / Devor 30 Gage 125 / Devor 40
The combination of Gage 70 and Devor 23 provides a “full-size horn system” listening experience throughout the entire bandwidth. The system provides a large sound stage with effortless reproduction of detail and harmonics even in the most dynamic and complex music.
Gage 125 and Devor 30 provides effortless and musical deep bass with more than 30dB of headroom for normal listening levels in a home setting. It is a flexible sound system that works great for both music and home theatre purposes.
Gage 125 and Devor 40 is our smallest horn system in size. However, it is a very powerful sound system with unusually tight sound, low distortion, and a properly defined soundstage.
Top module : Gage 70
Top module : Gage 125
Top module : Gage 125
The full-range drivers are designed to have as much of the high and mid frequencies come from the same point. This ensures that all the crucial details of the music are not only reproduced but also spread seamlessly and consistently in the listening room. In that way, every detail in the music is preserved in a wider listening field, and most crucially – all reflections in the listening room contain all the frequency information.
The three full-range drivers employ an Aluminum dust cap, a HF dome geometry directly assembled to the voice coil. This is formed together with a Curve cone, a woven polypropylene with excellent internal damping. Together with perfectly matched moving parts, this provides a smooth, extended frequency response. The large, open weave fabric spider reflects very little acoustic energy to the cone and offers excellent stiffness linearity.
A 1” compression driver with a newly developed maximum modal suppression phase plug and deep-drawn titanium diaphragm is loaded to a pentagonal high-frequency horn with smooth mouth termination. The maximum modal suppression phase plug ensures that acoustical and mechanical modes are distributed evenly which is why horn honk and distortion become very low compared to prior compression driver designs. The lightweight and stiff titanium diaphragm together with optimized geometry ensure close to perfect pistonic movement within the audible frequency range.
The high-frequency horn design’s directivity and placement significantly reduce the level of doppler distortion that most coaxial loudspeakers suffer from. The pentagonal geometry distributes edge diffraction that ensures a smoother on-axis response than what one could expect from a coaxial design.
A 1” compression driver with a newly developed maximum modal suppression phase plug and deep-drawn titanium diaphragm is loaded to a pentagonal high-frequency horn with smooth mouth termination. The maximum modal suppression phase plug ensures that acoustical and mechanical modes are distributed evenly which is why horn honk and distortion become very low compared to prior compression driver designs. The lightweight and stiff titanium diaphragm together with optimized geometry ensure close to perfect pistonic movement within the audible frequency range.
The high-frequency horn design’s directivity and placement significantly reduce the level of doppler distortion that most coaxial loudspeakers suffer from. The pentagonal geometry distributes edge diffraction that ensures a smoother on-axis response than what one could expect from a coaxial design.
The drivers in the Reference Series are custom built to NNNN’s demanding specifications by the most quality-driven manufacturers in the industry. They are co-developed to achieve extremely low distortion and very high reliability.
The dual mechanically balanced bass drivers have a Curve cone and dust cap in woven polypropylene with very good internal damping. Combined with perfectly matched moving parts, this gives a smooth, extended frequency response. A titanium voice coil formed with a long copper clad aluminum winding provides excellent force transfer, transient sound reproduction, and large linear excursion. Radial resonances are reduced by a unique radial reinforced rubber surround, and also prevents surround break up at large excursions. This combination results in very low mechanical damping for better clarity and brings out the micro details in the music.
The 8” wide-range driver has a Kevlar-loaded and coated paper cone that is both stiff and has good damping properties together with weather resistance. The inverted dust cap of the 8” drive is following the geometry of the rear side of the compression driver, so in this coaxial configuration, the high-frequency section also doubles up as a phase plug to both increased sensitivity of the 8” and provide proper dispersion characteristics in the crossover region.
The 8” wide-range driver has a Kevlar-loaded and coated paper cone that is both stiff and has good damping properties together with weather resistance. The inverted dust cap of the 8” drive is following the geometry of the rear side of the compression driver, so in this coaxial configuration, the high-frequency section also doubles up as a phase plug to both increased sensitivity of the 8” and provide proper dispersion characteristics in the crossover region.
Bass module : Devor 23
Bass module : Devor 30
Bass module : Devor 40
Specifications
Top Modules
Gage 125
System:
Frequency response ±3dB:
125Hz - 20kHz
Max. cont. SPL (1m, 2Pi)
129dB
Loudspeaker data:
Nominal impedance
HF 8 Ohms
Mid bass
8 Ohm
Power handling
capacity (cont./peak)
250W / 500W
Connections
2 x Speakon 4 pole
Dimensions:
(H x W x D)
390×390×230 mm
Weight
11.5 kg
Gage 70
System:
Frequency response ±3dB
70Hz - 16kHz
Max. cont. SPL (1m, 2Pi)
120dB
Loudspeaker data:
Nominal impedance
HF 24 Ohms
Mid bass
16 Ohm
Power handling
capacity (cont./peak)
460W / 960W
Connections
2 x Speakon 4 pole
Dimensions:
(H x W x D)
650x600x250 mm
Weight
21.5 kg
Bass Modules
Devor 30
System:
Frequency
response ±3dB
30Hz - 125Hz
Max. cont. SPL (1m, 2Pi)
130dB
Loudspeaker data:
Nominal impedance
front/rear 8 Ohms
Power handling
capacity (cont./peak)
1400W / 2800W
Connections
Speakon 4 pole
Dimensions:
(H x W x D)
810x800x400 mm
Weight
60 kg
Devor 40
System:
Frequency
response ±3dB
40Hz - 125Hz
Max. cont. SPL (1m, 2Pi)
120dB
Loudspeaker data:
Nominal impedance
8 Ohms
Power handling
capacity (cont./peak)
200W / 500W
Connections
Speakon 4 pole
Dimensions:
(H x W x D)
600 x 600 x 300 mm
Weight
21.5 kg
Devor 23
System:
Frequency
response ±3dB
23Hz - 100Hz
Max. cont. SPL (1m, 2Pi)
137dB
Loudspeaker data:
Nominal impedance
HF 24 Ohms
Power handling
capacity (cont./peak)
3600W / 7200W
Connections
Speakon 4 pole
Dimensions:
(H x W x D)
1010x1000x500 mm
Weight
72 kg