2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

journey to musical evidence

Passion & Precision

2008-2012 Experimental work…

During year 2008, I started to seriously delve into the subject, first by reading almost everything available on the subject (books, Internet), in order to complete my knowledge as an electronic engineer with the specificities of loudspeaker design. This subject immediately fascinated me, partly because of its technical richness, but also because of the more creative aspects of loudspeaker design.

During this period, I invested in measuring equipment, but also a format saw, router, and everything needed to make cabinets. These 5 years were devoted to deep experimenting on cabinets, on damping materials, on drivers, on crossovers, port tuning, with the aim of correlating technical solutions with the impact on the listening experience. So I bought 2 tweeters and 4 18 cm mid woofers from Scanspeak, and I made countless versions in 2-way, 2 1/2-way, and finally 3-way. This period was a trigger and it was clear that I wanted to make it a full-fledged activity, in one form or another. So many evenings and weekends spent on this in-depth work, with lots of sawdust and also hundreds of measurements... The work on understanding the measurement was very important, by testing different measurement protocols, and above all by learning to extract the maximum amount of information from them and always working on their correlation with the listening results, witch is finally the most important to make high quality speakers.

First Prototypes

2013 bookshelf speaker design

In the end, 2 projects were validated, one with Seas drivers, the other with SB Acoustics drivers. These achievements made it possible to work on the impact of baffling, on the time alignment of the drivers, on the different cone materials, and of course on crossovers, an eminently complex subject if ever there was one. In summary, small boxes, handcrafted with a very average finish quality, but very rich in terms of learning!

Bookshelf, SEAS divers

Bookshelf "large baffle"

2014 T-One project

This project is mainly dedicated to experimentation, but the T-One speakers found their place in the family living room and stayed there for several years.

The concept, with an internal volume of around 50 litres, is based on Scanspeak drivers, in a 3-way configuration: 2 x 18 cm Revelator series mid woofers, 1 x 12 cm Illuminator series midrange and a soft dome tweeter also chosen from the Illuminator series.

The chosen design has a 5-sided front panel to obtain progressive baffling of the drivers. The bass design is ported, with a very extended bass response down to 33 Hz at -3 dB. The cabinetmaking work is copious and is entirely carried out with basic tools. The development of the crossover has been long, difficult and rich in lessons! But the result was at least interesting, with good performance, and a restitution that involves you into the music by placing you right in front of the musicians! This type of design is not very represented in major brands, witch is probably a wrong thing if we think of all these floor standing speakers that are installed stuck against the walls, with the very well known awful consequences on the sound.

T-One project

T-One, prototype

2015 November: JOY (first version)

A word about the choice of this aluminum membrane, which required a lot of research and attention in the way of designing the crossover, but conversely this project has clearly highlighted the enormous advantages of the aluminum membrane if we manage to make the right crossover design! The rigidity of the cone and the very accurate piston work provide transparency, detail and dynamics. The (difficult) challenge is to properly treat the strong resonance modes in the treble range, without harming the rest of the bandwidth restitution.

Joy, first prototype

CNC machining

Raw cabinets

2016 first public outings

Vince large baffle

First local shows

2016 August : Vince

The T-One large baffle concept generates interest around me, and I am asked to design a speaker using the same concept, but more compact. This is the birth of Vince, with an identical configuration except for the replacement of the bass speakers by Dayton Esoteric drivers, which require less load volume. 15 liters less, we arrive at a speaker a little less wide, a little less high and slightly less deep. This project is an opportunity to further refine the exploitation of the concept, deepen the understanding of measurements, experiment further on the crossover design, as well as the internal damping. 2 pairs of Vince will be sold.

Vince

Twin colors mat finish

2016 November : first commercial premisses

Still in addition to my job in the industry, I decide to open a small place in the city center of Valence to increase my visibility and test the interest of the people of Valence. Very modest in size (20 m2), this room allows me to offer my first listening sessions. My first amplifier for these listening sessions was a Hegel H80, which brings me to a kind thought for Olivier Roger, who was at that time Hegel distributor for France, and who accompanied me during these first years, and with whom I worked very well. So 2016 is indeed the year of the first steps in public, the year of the first sales, and it becomes more and more clear that the motivation is there to go further…

First premises

Place Saint-Jean

2017 - A very dense year

Nora (first version)

Wallmount speakers

2017 February : birth of NEL

With the experience of the JOY bookshelf speaker, I set out to create a compact, elegant, stylish, versatile floor standing speaker, with high-level performance. The specifications were demanding, so I spent a lot of time to freeze the concept, select the drivers that would allow me to obtain the result I wanted. From the first prototype, NEL received a very enthusiastic welcome, pushing me to work on the development even more. NEL benefited from titanic, long, exhaustive work on the construction details of the cabinet, on the internal damping and also on the crossover design. In my mind, this speaker had to be able to do everything (ambitious?), so it was tested on a very wide variety of music, tracking down any sign of imbalance, stress, or loss of control. The New concept, like JOY, was based on an aluminum cone driver, so the crossover required a lot of work and testing, with 4th order configurations tests, and then after much research, we came back close to 2nd order slopes, which participates to the openness, the naturalness and this effortless dynamics that listeners appreciate in this speaker

The very first NEL

2017 April : birth of the current company

Consequently, the positioning will be rather high-end, and in small series, given the local high manufacturing costs; indeed, a very important point is to be able to propose something different and a strong identity to the speakers. The strategy is therefore to offer a limited product range, but extremely accomplished in terms of development, with a rewarding quality of finish, and without compromising my perception of what should be the musical reproduction.

In April 2017, an enriching experience was the participation to the Top Marques show in Monaco with the Apurna brand (amplifiers)

Top Marques show, Monaco

2017 October : Alhena project

This project matured in my head for a long time and finally came to life in October with the Alhena speaker. The concept in summary: 2 24 cm bass drivers mounted in a sealed enclosure, 1 16 cm midrange driver in aperiodic sealed enclosure and a beryllium tweeter, all mounted in a hyper-rigid cabinet, relatively lightweight, fully made of plywood, including extensive reinforcement with internal brackets. The total internal volume is just over 100 liters, and this load volume combined with the substantial emissive surface of the drivers brings an ease and facility in the reproduction that delights the ears. The danger with a "big" speaker is losing the instantaneity of a small 2-way, and also losing the realistic scale of the instruments, with spectacular big sound, but not reflecting real acoustic instruments and voices.

This is a pitfall that I absolutely wanted to avoid. The technical choices go in this direction: For example, fast bass drivers, mounted in a cabinet that is both very rigid and relatively lightweight (therefore storing less energy) contribute to very good behavior on transients and a speed worthy of a small bookshelf speaker. This speaker, whose main purpose was research and development, participated in a few local trade fairs, then remained sleeping in the workshop... But I kept my interest in this concept completely intact and its 2nd life would begin 7 years later...

Rosewood veneer cabinet (raw)

Alhena

2017 December : inauguration of new premises bourg les valence

Cramped in my small room in the historic center of Valence, I quickly started looking for premises as soon as the company was created, and here we are in December 2017 at the inauguration of the new premises (120 m2 with mezzanine) which will allow me to work (R&D, assembly, mounting of passive filters, etc.) CNC work, like finishing and painting work will be done in my partner’s premises, so the space was enough for me. The target was also to offer a quality listening space for the entire range of speakers. An area of approximately 40 m2 is dedicated for listening, the rest being dedicated to the workshop and storage. This atypical premises with its brick vault is very popular with visitors. Easy access 10 minutes from the motorway exits and parking in front of the store are also significant advantages

New place !

Inauguration

2018 MaY : meeting Alain Yzembar (Absolue Creations)

A few weeks later, here is Alain arriving at the workshop, to listen to the brand new NEL speaker… Not very talkative, but visibly he likes what he hears, he confirms to me that the product interests him and he starts to talk to me about internal wiring, to boost the performance of the speaker. At this point, I am not particularly convinced of the relevance of putting such an amount of money into internal wiring, but we nevertheless agree to arrange a test without commitment on either side…

And that's how this collaboration began, which gradually became a very solid partnership, with a very strong and healthy emulation, in the search for the most intense possible access to musical emotion. Logically, I develop the speakers with Absolue Créations cables and Alain develops his cables on heavily doped NELs (crossover, internal wiring in particular). But it goes further, with a spontaneous sharing of the progressions that one or the other was able to unlock. The advances of one are immediately integrated and lead the other to push the evolution of his own products in the same direction, and vice versa.

Meeting Alain also led me to broaden my research scope, beyond the well-established theoretical framework, by digging into different and neglected directions that sometimes lead to unexpected progresses in terms of sound reproduction : think out of the box ! To improve products, to innovate, to create breakthroughs, you need a vision: a shared vision, and if you add strong emulation to that vision, then you get a formidable driving force and an accelerator in this process of seeking the musical grail. Meeting Alain is undoubtedly one of the highlights of this great adventure.

Alain Yzembar
Absolue Creations

2018 June : Wall mount speaker

An interesting project with an unusual request from a customer in his brand new apartment: a pair of on-wall speakers to be installed in the corners of the client's living room. The development was extremely interesting, with significant constraints, but it once again highlighted the advantages of on-wall speakers in terms of performance and musical immersion. The speaker was based on a 19 cm bass-midrange driver with a reinforced paper cone, made of neodymium magnets. Limited bass extension, very shallow slope to cope with the installation constraints. The tweeter was a 29 mm soft dome.

Wallmount speaker

2018 august : Nel Ultime

As a logical follow-up my meeting with Alain Yzembar, Nel Ultime is the first speaker resulting from the collaboration with Absolue Creations. The tests with the brand's internal wiring exceeded my expectations! During the validation process, I carried out several tests, particularly on the crossover components, to come to a version that was consistent in terms of quality/price ratio. Nel Ultime was born. This version will also benefit from small adjustments to the cabinetwork and internal reinforcements, an optimization of the internal damping and the port tuning. The crossover assembly process has also evolved. All these improvements were immediately also applied to NEL in the same way. The arrival of this « ultime » version clearly highlighted the potential of the NEL concept, which I had quite honestly underestimated.

Nel Ultime

Listening to Nel Ultime

2018 October : first show with Absolue Creations

Following the development of NEL Ultime, Alain proposed to share a booth together at the PAVS show, and here we are in Paris at the Novotel Tour Eiffel Hotel for my first time PAVS show! First show for T&T, in a small 20 m2 room with Atoll electronics! This first real public outing is an emotionally very involving event: the exhibition of one's work to others, get the feedback from the public... It is also the first important step to make a place for oneself into the hifi business, the beginning of the construction of the brand's reputation and credibility. This show was a real success, with a very high attendance in the room and an enthusiastic welcome from visitors! This sharing of good times with visitors but also with professionals is a huge factor of motivation and confidence to develop the brand! A big thank you to Alain Yzembar who trusted me for this show, which will be the first in a long series of shows as partners!

First national show
Paris Audio Video Show

2018 October : 3 way speaker NORA

In order to ensure this ability to integrate into large volumes of rooms, the 3-way concept becomes necessary. An important point for me on this project is to create a fast and agile speaker, I want at all costs to avoid the pitfall of "big sound", certainly demonstrative, but not very respectful in terms of fidelity of reproduction of real instruments (both balance and real size of instruments). The first choice that will freeze the concept is the choice of the bass driver, a 23 cm with reinforced paper cone that is both rigid and light, and which offers an interesting sensitivity of 92 dB. In the same spirit, I will choose for the midrange a 15 cm from Audiotechnology, slightly modified by Per Skanning for the project, among other things for its extraordinary acceleration capacity and for its absence of marked resonance modes in the high end of the spectrum.Finally, to finish, the choice of the tweeter will go on a Beryllium dome, which brings this very physical perception of materials (brass, strings, skins, etc.) with an exceptional wealth of details and timbres. The base being now fixed, the development of Nora will be able to begin, and this will be long and difficult, because there is one point that is close to my heart: I absolutely want to keep the coherence and spontaneity of the 2-way in this speaker, which will prove to be a major challenge! After a long period of successive developments, NORA will be released at the end of 2018.

Nora prototype

T&T family (2018)

2019 December : "Haute fidélité" show with Hegel

There are a few people who have been with me since the beginning of the story, and Olivier Roger, at that time HEGEL distributor for France, is one of them. In September, Olivier offered me to expose to the High Fidelity show with him, which I obviously accepted!

With his large experience of shows, Olivier organized a very beautiful room for us, with very nice reception conditions for visitors. The objective for me this year is to develop the image of Nel and Nel Ultime, which represent the majority of sales. But I admit my stress during the first tests in this 85 m2 room, I was really afraid that the NEL Ultime would struggle... In the end, the speakers behaved magnificently and the listening was of a very good quality, with in particular vinyl listening on AMG turntable of all beauty! It was a beautiful experience, both human and professional, with the feeling of having done good work, of having been able to share beautiful listening moments in a pleasant setting and with quality acoustics. I thank Olivier for this truly unforgettable experience!

Haute Fidélité Paris

2019 June : Home theater system

After listening to the Nora speakers, a customer asked me for a 5.0 system of the same quality, but with main speakers in a "bookshelf" format, to fit the (very beautiful) interior line-up. A beautiful project, with a lot of time spent adapting the Nora design to the bookshelf format, then developing the center channel and rear channels. A very beautiful system in the end, which will be integrated into a high level home automation system controlling the entire apartment.

before installation

High end HT system

2020 May : bookshelf speaker JOY

The drivers are chosen from the same ranges as NEL, for absolute product range consistency. The cabinetmaking required a lot of work: in particular, the internal construction is very careful for optimal rigidity and neutrality. The bass-reflex tuning is also very well worked for an extended and natural bass response, the vent outlets are lateral to facilitate the integration of JOY into different support/stand configurations as much as possible. The crossover is also very neat, with a totally inaudible junction between the mid woofer and tweeter when listening. The final result goes beyond my expectations, with exceptional spontaneity, naturalness and coherence. If JOY can deliver very good results in rooms of significant volume, it is nevertheless specifically designed for small rooms (ideally 15 m2- 25 m2), this is where it will give the best of itself.

Joy prototype

Marakesh mat finish

2021 February : JOY Extrême

JOY Extrême is the first achievement resulting from the respective emulation between Absolue Creations and T&T. The discovery of Absolue Creations cables pushed me further in my quest for the ultimate sound reproduction, it opened new doors for me. Conversely, Alain has always been a privileged tester of my new speakers before any public presentation. When he heard the JOY, Alain spontaneously offered to test an internal wiring, something totally new that he was working on for a future range of cables. This wiring is not a simple evolution, but represents a breakthrough in the sound rendering. The tests carried out with this new wiring design will open new doors in terms of naturalness, realism, and feeling of emotion. Combined with developments on crossover design, and with the adoption of NORA's beryllium dome tweeter, here comes JOY Extrême, which opens a new door to the pleasure of listening to music. This speaker marks an important milestone about my understanding and my vision of musical restitution: less hifi, less sound, and more music!

Joy Extrême

Furutech binding posts

2021 July : SPEC amplifiers at the auditorium

The fact that these amplifiers are class D design has long cooled my enthusiasm (because of several inconclusive experiences with this technology) but I still ended up accepting to listen to these amplifiers… If this anecdote appears in this blog, it is because this test was important and impacted my perception of the search for the holy grail of musical restitution. To be honest, the first listening sessions confused me, there was something fundamentally different in the listening experience, and it challenged me. After several long listening sessions and several back and forths with other electronics, I realized that these devices added virtually nothing to the music, that we had access to something more "true", more pure, with no pollution.

I would compare this experience to someone who is used to drink his coffee with sugar: if he takes the sugar away, first he will have a lot of trouble drinking, missing the taste of sugar. But if he perseveres, after a while, he will better perceive the aromas of the coffee, and the sugar will become a "pollutant" altering the raw taste of coffee. I am not saying that SPEC holds "THE" truth, nor that they are the best devices in the world, but, as far as I am concerned, they have had the merit of making me understand that, in the majority of cases, we get used to sugar in coffee... This feeling has further consolidated in me the direction in terms of R&D: the search for "like real life", naturalness, realistic, rejecting all the artifices which can sometimes be pleasant, demonstrative, even sensationalist, but which do not serve the music itself.

Spec M99

Spec 777 & M99

2021 December : NEL Extrême

Logically, after JOY Extrême, NEL Extrême had to join in the catalog! It uses the same internal wiring, the same beryllium tweeter, as well as the Furutech terminals. The crossover remains on the same basis as Nel Ultime, but is optimized for the beryllium tweeter. The level of the components is also revised upwards, similar to JOY Extrême.

Once again, the result is surprising, because even if the base of the speaker is identical, Nel Extreme seems to box in a heavier category, both in terms of richness of information, sound stage, but also in terms of dynamics and amplitude felt! The carnal, emotional aspect of the music also comes out with astonishing clarity.

Nel Extrême

5 mm Stainless steel plate

2022 October : Soulnote 3 series

Listening to these devices was a revelation for me and validated, reinforced my vision of what musical restitution should be: while delivering the smallest details of the music, the atmosphere, with an extremely realistic perception of space, these electronics have this ability to never signal themselves as a device, they completely disappear, leaving only the voice, the instrument, the space...Again, none of this is sensationalist, or even demonstrative, but we feel this sense of accuracy, the music speaks to us without us needing to intellectualize anything. Alain Yzembar once told me: "to do better, you have to know what to look for, you need to have an idea of what you can get more"

Well, these listening sessions help to give a clear, obvious direction: I know where I want to go. In my opinion, we cannot develop staying stuck in our own environment, if we want to progress we need external stimuli, we need sensory experiences that show us the way forward. Listening to this Soulnote series 3 range was one of the most important of them.

Soulnote S-3/X-3

Soulnote Z-3

2023 October : PF2 Signature

The approach is as follows: capitalize on all previous achievements, take inspiration from the most beautiful listening experiences, and then seek to go even further, and this for each aspect of the speaker: drivers, cabinetwork, internal damping, crossover design, components, internal wiring, ground connection, etc. PF2 Signature required 18 months of development, with in particular a huge research work done on the crossover typology, but also on the design of the cabinetwork, sober on the outside, but very optimized in its internal construction.

In the end, PF2 Signature sets a new benchmark in terms of neutrality, transparency, and richness. The optimized design in every aspect and the exceptional quality of the components give direct, exact, pure access to the music. The most complex recordings are understandable without any effort, one has the impression that everything is simple. Of course, with such transparency, we are in the spirit of "Formula 1", and it is not a mass market product, and the coherence of the system will have to be perfect, but if this condition is met, then comes the pleasure to have access to the musical piece of art without interference, without distortion of any kind…

Pf2 Signature

Our Flagship

2024 February : listening session PF2 Signature/Soulnote/ Tim-Absolue

So we installed the new Tim-Absolue cables on the entire system. To say that we were blown away is an understatement! The first word that comes to mind is « ultimate transparency": when we listen to the playback of a piece of music on a system, it's a bit like having a window between us and the music, we access the show trough a window that's more or less wide, the glasses more or less clean...The feeling here is that we had not only enlarged the window and cleaned the glass, we had literally removed the window, we had never had such an experience, neither Alain nor I! The virtually limitless soundstage, the abundance of micro-details, the dynamics, the ambiance, the feeling of space, the naturalness and the general balance left us speechless. Following this session, I could not listen to any other system for several months, so far was I from this experience engraved in my memory… The important thing about such an experience is obviously to validate our respective creations and we got an intense satisfaction from that. But above all, this feeling, which does not fade away, will guide our steps for future projects, and will set an extremely high level of expectation to try to get as close as possible to this reference.

Pf 2 Signature listening

The big show

2024 October : NORA EVO

But, looking at it positively, this timing triggered a very high level of requirement: indeed, it was obvious that Nora Evo could not compete with PF2 Signature given the price difference, but I wanted to find part of that, I wanted the lineage to be obvious. So, Nora EVO is a very important overhaul of NORA, with many significant changes: midrange driver, cabinetwork, internal damping, completely new crossover, vent design...

Considering the crossover, the application of the EVO concept was not as direct as for JOY and NEL, because of the 3-way concept... It took a lot of time to work on adapting the EVO principles and achieving a perfect fusion of the 3 drivers, and to keep the spontaneous, obvious sound of the 2 way speakers, but with the additional power and drive of the 3 way design. In the end, when listening, NORA Evo logically takes its place between NEL Extrême Evo and PF2 Signature, delivering a very open, balanced and natural sound.

Nora Evo has been rewarded with a ‘Diapason d’Or » by Diapason magazine upon its release

Diapason d'Or

Nora Evo

2025 JANUARY Alhena EVO

Alongside the other projects, one that has been started since early 2024 is the update of our large 3-way Alhena loudspeaker to the EVO version. This project was triggered by a customer order: the general architecture of Alhena has been retained, as well as the two 24 cm woofers in sealed enclosure and the beryllium dome tweeter. The midrange driver has been upgraded to a more advanced version with a TPCD cone, the internal damping has been reworked, and the crossover is completely new, developed from scratch following the EVO principles implemented on the rest of the range. The cabling is provided by Absolue Creations. Alhena EVO is an exceptional product, manufactured exclusively to order. The listening result is a synthesis of the transparency of the TPCD midrange, the richness and palpability of the treble register, the exceptional readability of the bass and the very high level coherence of the EVO filter, with an ease and facility made possible by the large emissive surface.

Alhena Evo

Alhena Evo

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