Test of TRIANGLE Antal Ex speaker system

Renewed Antal speakers in Esprit Ex version are even more detailed in all working range, preserving and even more accentuating signature feature of TRIANGLE speakers – rare sound transparency at the top. At the same time, the models lost some of the emotionality of their predecessors and the nice warmth of the bass sound.

Design

At the end of 2007 the French company TRIANGLE updated its product lineup with two lines: the 5th generation of its popular and “long-playing” Esprit series was released new speakers got the EX suffix , and Genese retired the Stratos line.

In both cases, the reason for the switchover was the success of the top range French Magellan SW2, which technology began to gradually penetrate the “junior” series. New version of Esprit series consists of 6 modules: Antal and Altea floor-standing speakers, Comete, Titus and Heyda shelf speakers, Voce “center”.

TRIANGLE engineers developed completely new drivers for the Esprit EX. The TZ2500 compression tweeter comes with a 25mm titanium dome and an upgraded PVC Polyvinyl Chloride horn. The power of the tweeter was raised with a composite magnet of neodymium-iron-boron alloy.

Not only is the directionality of the tweeter controlled by the horn, but above the dome is the vault with a spiked copper cap. Diffraction from the outer edge of the horn is eliminated by a wide rubber ring.The 130mm T13EF84SMD1 midrange driver is specially designed for Antal Ex models. It has a center hard rubber phase cap and a paper diaphragm on a corrugated fabric suspension. The midrange driver’s proprietary suspension is now slightly shortened, becoming an M-shaped.

The T16EF100SGC1 woofers have a diameter of 160mm and come with fibreglass diaphragms with inverted semicircular rubber surrounds.

The Antal Ex cabinets have not undergone any significant design changes: it is built from MDF with a curved frontscreen and has a dark, almost black frontscreen finish with a cherry or black ash vinyl overlay for the rest of the cabinet. The French called these two scales, respectively, Cognac and Black.

Inside the cabinet is held together by two horizontal braces and a solid bulkhead separating the upper midrange compartment from the woofer cabinet. MF driver compartment is closed, the bass drivers are acoustically loaded on the front reflex port. On the back panel there is a terminal block with connectors for dual cable connection. Underneath the speakers are SPEC Single Point Energy Conduction pedestals, optimized for the Esprit EX.

The Antal EX crossover is assembled on two boards and attaches directly to the speaker input jacks. To separate the low-frequency part of the signal the 2nd order filter is used at frequency of 250 Hz, the high-frequency part of the signal is cut off with the 4th order filter at frequency of 2,5 kHz.

Sound

The Antal EX Frenchman has a distinctive sound, the sound is very fast and controlled almost everywhere, a little laziness is added only in the lower octaves. The sound is presented in a kind of neutral-cool, mentor-like manner. Perhaps the predecessors were more emotional and warm in the middle, but the EX versions show better microdynamics.

At the bottom we note quite accentuated upper bass with dense punch, below the sound is still intelligible, but its energy decreases smoothly. The top is subjectively the most interesting range of Antal Ex, there speakers give a lot of light and air, clearly showing all the patterns of treble, smoothly and seamlessly form the transition between the timbres of instruments at midrange and treble.

If not tonally, the dynamic balance of sound of Antal Ex is clearly shifted in the direction of HF, sometimes speakers effectively, though to the detriment of realism, emphasize overtones or nuances of the recording at the top of the audible range. The midrange is conveyed in many ways similar to the glossy treble, but without as much smoothness and with somewhat less articulation.

The airiness does not leave the sound of the Frenchwomen in the construction of the musical scene. The picture is slightly tilted back, but very wide open to the sides, the localization of images is not spoiled neither on the edges of the scene, nor in the background, although the bass objects are sometimes moved further away from their usual dislocation. But for all the play with the positions of the stage itself and separate sources the speakers retain high resolution of the sound field, even playing orchestral compositions for the Antal Ex is not a problem.

Price: 72 000 Dollars.

Measured at

The impedance of the Antal EX drops below 4 ohms only in the upper bass, with a minimum of 3.3 ohms at 95 Hz. In the MF/HF range, the impedance experiences modulation, but not critical, ranging from 4.2 to 13 ohms. MSS inverter is tuned to 34 Hz. There are “roughnesses” on the graph of impedance at the low and midrange, however, most of them do not lead to implications on the frequency response, except for resonance just below 600 Hz, where the sensitivity “jumps” by almost 4 dB.

Apart from this feature and the uplift in the upper bass and top octave around 11.5kHz, the AFC curve is smooth and the range of 50-10500 Hz is within +/-3dB. The directivity diagram of the speakers is wonderfully wide, the measurement diagram at an angle of 30° is almost flush with the axial one, losing to the latter only 3-5 dB in the upper octaves.

The TZ2500 tweeter comes with a 25mm titanium dome and an improved PVC horn