Fidelia

A 2-way bookshelf monitor with reference class acoustic accuracy. Capable of delivering a fine-detailed, open, and vivid soundstage. The well-extended and articulate bass might surprise you given its compact format.

Fidelia comes in as a flat-packed DIY kit, so you can enjoy high-end performance without a high-end price tag. Easy to build and doesn't really look like a DIY project.

Place an Order

£950 / Pair

If you are interested in purchasing multiple units for building a multi-channel system, please email contact@audiofirstdesigns.co.uk for a discounted quote.

Tax and shipping fee not included

What are you actually hearing when listening to speakers in a room?

The sound you hear is a combination of the direct sound from the speakers and the reflections from the walls. The radiation pattern (Directivity) of the speaker determines the intensity and the spectrum of the reflections, which dominantly affects the timbre and the accuracy of the imaging of the music you experience.

Directivity, done right.

Unlike traditional speaker design implementations which often result in an uneven directivity, Fidelia incorporates an in-house developed low diffraction front baffle with an integrated waveguide that yields a wide and consistent directivity (120°), as shown in the horizontal polar graph below. It delivers superb timbre accuracy (as the spectrum of the reflection is similar to the direct sound) while creating a wide and well-defined soundstage. This performance remains the same in different room conditions with exceptional consistency.

Pistonic magic!

We believe an ideal loudspeaker driver should behave in the most simple manner - Pure pistonic motion - To deliver every impulse and all the micro-dynamics within the music accurately. Therefore, we have selected drivers with ceramic-aluminum diaphragms for Fidelia. The rigid material ensures that the diaphragms are undeformed under excursion and non-resonant in their operating bandwidth, maximizing the time-domain fidelity. Together with their impressively low distortion motor design, you will be amazed by the transparency and the smooth yet crisp details Fidelia offers.

Brace. Brace.

Nope, the plane is not going down but the level of cabinet vibration certainly does. To keep the assembly of the Fidelia kit simple, we designed the most effective single-piece bracing for this cabinet. The location and geometry of the bracing frame are optimized for reducing unwanted cabinet vibration while not causing any internal acoustic issues.

A good bass port does only one thing...

The bass reflex ports have their problems - They can make a chuffing noise under strong bass output, and cause a pipe resonance at the frequency corresponding to their length (Quite often in the mid-range for this type of bookshelf speaker). The Fidelia bass reflex port has an in-house developed flare profile which keeps chuffing noise inaudible during music playback. The position of the port entrance is also optimized in order to suppress the pipe resonance, so it outputs just one thing - Clean bass!

So, so coherent.

Thanks to the ultra-low distortion tweeter and the boosted output due to the waveguide, we are able to push the crossover frequency in Fidelia to an astonishingly low 1560Hz. Apart from perfectly matching the directivity of the tweeter to the woofer, it also keeps the driver transition completely out of the sensitive range of human hearing around 2-3000Hz. Together with the close spacing between the drivers, it tricks our brain into recognising it as a single acoustic point source.

Fidelia might be one of the most coherent 2-way designs you've ever listened to.

Reassuring quality, easy to build.

The crossover of Fidelia only consists of high-quality film capacitors (Jantzen Audio, Denmark), air-core inductors, and non-inductive wire wound resistors, to ensure the design has minimum component distortions to begin with. The crossovers are all assembled, checked, and matched. No soldering is required.

We have also pre-installed the tweeters to the waveguide baffles before shipping to take the worries of driver damage out of your mind. The design of the internal wiring is fool-proof, no mistakes should happen unless you decide to do something crazy deliberately!

Finnish birch plywood has been selected as the cabinet material for its desirable mechanical properties and nice raw appearance, CNCed here in the UK at a workshop we teamed up with. Do feel free to wax, paint, or veneer the cabinet in any way you want!