Avalon Acoustics OPUS Ceramique Loudspeaker manual Introduction

1 Introduction

The Opus Ceramique was conceived as an alternative to our award winning original Opus. Designed specifically for moderate sized listening rooms, the Ceramique presents a taught and coherent soundfield, free of stored energy. Staging of exceptional clarity and harmonic structure is achieved through innovations in crossover technology and the use of low mass drivers, all utilizing the same ceramic diaphragm material.

“Purity of musical communication”, was the touchstone phrase that we kept foremost in our minds while designing the Ceramique; to bring the listener closer to the intent of the

musicians while preserving the sonic illusion of the performance. The recovery of ambient spatial information within an extremely quiet background transports the listeners into the acoustic space in which the recording was made. Dynamic contrasts blossom from a “black” background, filling the performance with a visceral realism. All of these virtues from a transducer of modest size, able to project a palpable soundstage well beyond the boundaries of the listening room.

Meticulous engineering employing proprietary electronic and acoustic measurements with the extensive use of CAD modeling has provided us with the ability to predict and manipulate the most ubiquitous of variables. Dynamic testing has yielded unsurpassed octave-to-octave energy balance, without compression, under the most demanding program conditions. Proprietary construction methods utilizing precision components have led to our defining achievement of low noise ambiance retrieval and soundstage focus, revealing the most subtle detail of the recording site and the artists performance.

Built entirely by hand, our craftsmanship demands comparison not with the audio industry, but with the finest cabinet makers of the 18th and 19th centuries. Modern materials, assembled to the most stringent tolerances, have created a “classic” that will endure the test of time. Individually crafted, we treat each pair of loudspeakers as a unique work of art unto itself.

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