Escalante Design will be showing their new Fremonte at CES in a week's time, doing something no other manufacturers dare do: mate a tweeter to a 12" woofer. No small 5" or 6" woofers here, Escalante goes for the big 12" and then adds ANOTHER 12" right behind it. It's called "isobaric" which is latin for "insane bass." Bottom is at 18Hz while the top shoots all the way up to 50kHz (courtesy a modified ScanSpeak Revelator tweeter. You know, the silver Hershey kiss tweeter found in many top designs).
We covered the Escalante Pinyon and Unita subwoofer before and though the e-mail in my inbox says "at 2006 International CES we will unveil the Fremont to the world" I distinctly remember it at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest...
Price is around $15k with a tube-friendly 93dB sensitivity and power handling of 1000 watts. And, yes, a 12" driver means those things are freakin' huge. Go here to see some funny pics of the Fremont next to a real bookshelf speaker.
