METIS

When we founded TriangleART in 1999, our mission was to create the finest, most musical turntables in the world. Our purpose was not to embarrass the rest of our reference equipment, but that was an early consequence. First, we couldn’t find a commercially available cable that was as good as what we had made for our own use in the lab. We decided to refine our designs and materials into a product line so our friends and customers could reproduce the same rich, full sound they heard in our demos. Next, we worked on electronics. Obsessively. The stable grew with our progress: phonostages, control amplifiers, power amplifiers, cartridges, and power filtration. This journey culminated with the mighty Metis loudspeaker. We invested many years of research, design, construction, and evaluation to achieve the Metis, the final link between vinyl and an ecstatic listening experience.

In our evaluations, ribbon tweeters were best able to reproduce high-frequency elements of the music we used for voicing, and they performed best in our objective (measured) laboratory tests. Ribbon tweeters use an electromagnetic field to vibrate a ribbon held under tension. We only considered true ribbons, meaning that the ribbon is composed exclusively of conductive material and hence all of it responds equally to signals. Ribbon tweeters have extremely fast transients because the ribbon itself is very lightweight and because—in a true ribbon—all of the ribbon responds to electromagnetic fields. (By contrast, in a dome tweeter only the voice coil responds to current to generate air pressure waves, which in turn drive the dome. In expectation, domes are always slower because the air pressure transmitting sound needs time to compress and expand on its way to the dome.) Ultimately, we selected the RAAL true ribbon to cover the frequencies from 1.6kHz to well past the limit of human hearing (60Hz).

On the other end of the audio spectrum, we chose a monstrously large 15” high-efficiency woofer from Acoustic Elegance. We housed the drive unit in a solid walnut vented enclosure with proprietary internal dampening for exceptional transient response, easily able to match those of the mid-range and treble units. Matching was one reason for the very large woofer. Although ribbon tweeters are fast, they are more finicky than domes in sound dispersion. Some create a very narrow soundstage and others are extremely wide. In both cases, the high frequencies occupy a soundstage differently sized from that of mid-range and bass cone drivers. Since the RAAL has a very wide soundstage, we required a woofer that would match seamlessly. The physically imposing 15” woofer does that in a way that cannot be replicated with an array of smaller bass drivers. Neither two 10-inch drivers, nor three 8-inch drivers can match the area of our 15-inch titan. With bass, size matters.

The solid walnut horn, mounted above the bass cabinet, is driven by a Beyma 6.5-inch wide-bandwidth cone driver and covers the frequency range from 200 Hz to 1.6 kHz. We horn-loaded the midrange because it was the optimal way of matching the enormous soundstage of the ribbon tweeters and the 15” bass drivers. For this duty we developed a spectacular solid walnut horn.

This trinity of carefully selected drivers and their associated loading techniques synergistically results in a high-efficiency, ultra-wide loudspeaker with exceptional transient response and a clarity unmatched by any other loudspeaker in or anywhere near its price range.

The TriangleART Metis is suitable for operation with solid state or vacuum tube power amplifiers, or both! The mid-range and treble drive unit inputs are separate from the low frequency driver input through the crossover and individually accessible for either bi-wiring or full bi-amp/bi-wire operation, if desired. An electronic external crossover is not required. The internal passive crossovers are constructed of the highest quality Mundorf components. Due to the unusually low crossover points for the mid-range and treble drivers, Metis is configured as a fourth-order type (24dB/octave) for safe operation with high-power amps. Metis comes with jumpers installed for normal single-pair cable operation.

Technical Specifications:

Full range 3-way loudspeaker
Frequency response: 20Hz to 60kHz
Nominal Impedance: 8 Ohms
Efficiency: 95dB SPL @ 1W/1m (using input 2.83 rmsV)

Drivers
      Woofer: Acoustic Elegance 15-inch
      Mid range: Beyma 6.5-inch wide band cone
      Tweeter: RAAL true ribbon tweeter

Loading
Woofer: Reflex loaded
Midrange: Horn loaded
Tweeter: Direct

Crossover Type: 3-way, 24 dB/Octave
Crossover Points:  200Hz and 1.6kHz
Dimensions: 64” high x 20” wide x 20” deep (160cm H x 50cm W x 50cm D)
Weight: 210lb each

Press:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/triangleart

https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2023/02/27/triangleart-flax-2023/

https://www.audiokeyreviews.com/capital-audio-fest-2023/triangle-art