French loudspeaker manufacturer Waterfall Audio–the company that recently introduced its dramatic floorstanding glass speakers to the U.S. audio marketplace–has unveiled its latest creation, the breathtakingly different Ultra Flat Line.
The ultra compact Ultra Flat Line Hurricane Evo is designed to be part of an audio or home-theater system loudspeaker array, whether as freestanding speakers or placed on walls, or on optional stands. And Hurricane Evo features Waterfall’s utterly unique, visually arresting glass-loudspeaker concept.
“The success of Waterfall’s glass loudspeakers has been proven by our flagship tower models, the Victoria EVO and Iguascu EVO,” says the company’s founder and managing director Cedric Aubriot. “The Ultra Flat Line positions us to provide the exceptional beauty of our design to an entirely new segment of home-theater and high-performance audio enthusiasts.”
The Hurricane Evo features striking glass baffles–each less than 3 inches in depth that create a unique, “floating” appearance of unparalleled lightness and beauty. Thanks to its advanced drivers and innovative enclosure technology, the new Hurricane Evo produces astonishingly transparent, detailed, musically articulate sound whether installed as part of a wall-mounted, flat screen based home theater, or placed on a bookshelf or stand.
The Hurricane Evo is a two-driver, two-way design. Its die cast aluminum cabinet eliminates internal reflections and provides an exceptionally rigid, nonresonant enclosure that is available in white, black, or silver. Matching magnetic grilles that attach to the front of the speaker are available in white, black, silver, and two optional fashion colors, green and orange. For easy mounting, each speaker is shipped with two wall brackets, one flat, one angled. Waterfall offers optional shelf or floor stands in three colors to match the speaker’s body.
The Hurricane Evo is carefully engineered to combine smooth, accurate response and very high power-handling abilities, yielding transparent and impactful dynamics. Another element of Waterfall’s unique enclosure design is the Heatstream™ technology, which eliminates the heat buildup that usually occurs during long listening sessions at high volume levels. With Heatstream technology, the Hurricane Evo provides levels of power handling and sound quality, previously unheard of in such a compact design.
The proprietary transducers are created for Waterfall by Atohm, a French manufacturer of high-end drivers. The Atohm LD100 Absolute Series bass/midrange driver features an FEA optimized motor that incorporates a powerful 60mm neodymium ring and a copper eddy-current ring both to reduce for distortion. The stiff cone features Low Diffraction Surrounding (LDS) technology which offers improved linearity and greater protection against harmonic and Doppler distortion. This driver extends the speaker’s bass response to 95Hz which allows the Hurricane Evo to be used without a subwoofer in most multiroom installations.
The new Atohm SD20 tweeter offers an extended frequency response to 28kHz, and has a neodymium magnet and a treated silk dome that uses Anamorphic Dispersion Pattern (ADP) technology which provides better off-axis dispersion and limits reflections of the high frequencies. The ferrofluid-filled gap and aluminum voice-coil former provide very good heat dissipation, resulting in very high power handling without audible compression.
The Ultra Flat Hurricane Evo ideally complements both acoustically and aesthetically, any of Waterfall’s new High Force subwoofers. The result is an array of multichannel home-theater or two-channel audio systems of unequaled visual appeal and sonic refinement.
- Availability: September 2009
- Suggested Retail Price: USD $750.00/each
About Waterfall Audio
Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Carces, France, Waterfall Audio has become a brand prominent throughout Europe and Asia for its unique handcrafted glass loudspeakers, which have won numerous international awards. With distribution in over 30 countries, the company officially entered the U.S. in May of 2009. The brand is distributed throughout the U.S. by AVR Distributing of Marietta, GA.
