The World’s Most Expensive Loudspeakers, Part 2

The World’s Most Expensive Loudspeakers, Part 2

Robert Harley

Continuing our overview of the world’s most expensive loudspeakers, we pick up with the ninth most expensive speaker, the $300,000 Wisdom Audio Infinite Wisdom (Wisdom also has the number three speaker on this list at $700,000). The Infinite Wisdom features a three-section planar-magnetic array coupled to a woofer column housing eight 12” woofers (per channel). The 2400 pound system requires a minimum of six amplifiers.  

Number ten on the list is the Marten Coltrane Supreme at $295,000, a four piece system based on the company’s ceramic drivers. The main loudspeaker houses four 7” ceramic upper-bass drivers, one 7” ceramic midrange, a 2” diamond midrange, and a 1” diamond tweeter. This column is mated to a woofer enclosure featuring four 10” ceramic woofers. The enclosure is made from carbon fiber laminate with a layer of Kevlar between.

Close behind is the Living Voice Vox Olympian at $289,000. The Vox Olympian is a four-way system with three horns coupled to a cone woofer.

For $277,000 you can pick up the Perfect8 The Force loudspeaker, a glass-encased design housing eight cone woofers mated to a line-source ribbon. A separate glass enclosure (per channel) provides deeper bass extension via four 12” woofers. The crossovers are external line level, which requires active multi-amping.

Next on the list is the $270,000 German Physik Gaudi. This unusual system is based on a line array of German Physik’s DDD drivers (four of them per side) coupled to eight 6” mid-bass drivers and four 12” honeycomb flat drivers mounted in stainless steel frames on the subwoofer columns. The DDD driver array is operated from 180Hz on up, meaning that virtually the entire audioband above the mid-bass is crossoveless. The DDD line-source array is mounted on actuators that can move the array by remote control to achieve precise alignment between the array and the woofers. The woofers are reportedly the largest flat-diaphragms ever made, and feature 6” voice coils and double spiders. Each honeycomb laminate of carbon fiber and aluminum is rated to handle 1000W.

For $2000 less ($268,000) you could choose the Goldmund Epilogue, consisting of four separate enclosures (per channel) mounted on a stand that hold it all together. The enclosure is made entirely of aluminum and steel. The Epilogue is based on the proprietary “Velvet Kevlar” drivers found in Goldmund’s other loudspeakers, but with more of them—eight drivers per side with four facing the listener. A built-in Memesis amplifier powers this active system.

Another Wisdom Audio loudspeaker makes this list, the $250,000 Infinite Rush. This is simply a slightly scaled down version of the Infinite Wisdom, featuring three 75” x 3” planar-magnetic drivers per channel coupled to woofer columns housing four 12” woofers (per side).

Our next installment will pick up with another $250,000 loudspeaker, the Cessaro Horn.