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THE LENEHAN AUDIO PHILOSOPHY
Anyone surveying the current market, with its horde of look-alike
and sound-alike models, would be tempted to ask; "Does
the world really need more 5 or 6 inch two-way loudspeakers?"
Fortunately, the answer to that is quite simple; "Yes
it does - ours!" At Lenehan Audio, we do things differently.
To find out what makes our products unique, please click on any
of the points listed below … or, better still, download our
White Paper (coming soon!)
- Cabinet materials - the composite revolution.
- Crossover design - the heart of the speaker.
- Achieving successful room integration.
- The importance of quality control.
- The "proprietary driver" fallacy.
- Cosmetics vs Performance … and the
role of Marketing.
- Construction to last a lifetime.
- Cabinet materials - the composite revolution.
MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard) is the cabinet material used in
the vast majority of loudspeakers. It is cheap, widely available,
easily machined and makes a reasonable cabinet if implemented
correctly. But, if you want a loudspeaker that really performs,
it is just not good enough!
Lenehan Audio loudspeaker cabinets are constructed from an advanced
composite that offers high rigidity, high self-damping and low
energy retention. In simple terms, they don't vibrate very much
at all. It costs a lot more than MDF, but once you've heard the
benefits there's no going back!
Because the cabinet is no longer "singing along" with
the music, you will hear exceptional macro- and micro-dynamics.
Individual musical notes will have a sharper attack and more natural
decay, and the overall noise floor drops dramatically.
See our Enclosures page for a
fuller examination of this topic.
- Crossover design - the heart of the speaker.
Open up any competing loudspeaker, and we guarantee that you will
not find crossovers like ours! The crossover is truly the heart
of the speaker and, while the design principles are well understood
(though still enormously complex), few are prepared to go to the
time, trouble and expense to get it right.
Our massive, hand wound inductors and audiophile grade capacitors
and resistors are all hard-wired, using cold-weld crimps sealed
with silver solder. Cheap commercial components mounted on a
PCB may be good enough for our competitors, but that's not what
we're about. Our crossovers provide enormous power handling,
superb damping and control of the individual drive units, and
amplifier-friendly impedance and phase characteristics. And
will continue to do so for many, many years to come.
See our Crossovers page for a
fuller examination of this topic.
- Achieving successful room integration.
Most 2-way loudspeakers are designed to optimize their "on-axis"
performance. But the fact is that we listen to speakers in a room
- and it is a speaker's "off-axis" output that largely
determines how it interacts with the living space. That interaction
is a crucial, but often poorly-understood element of a speaker's
real-world performance. Our testing shows that off-axis response
problems are a major contributor towards "digital hardness",
loss of detail and reduced dimensionality and musicality …
not to mention inconsistent results room to room.
Lenehan Audio loudspeakers are designed to mimic a point source.
After years of experimenting, we hit upon an approach for handling
the off-axis response curve that optimizes its integration into
any room. The result was a major advance in detail resolution,
a holographic soundstage and a more natural tonality.
- The importance of quality control.
Our experience of measuring competing loudspeaker designs proves
that they can exhibit very marked sample-to-sample variation -
from what the designer originally intended, and even between the
two speakers supplied as a pair. These variations were clearly
audible. Pair matching is absolutely critical for accurate and
consistent soundstaging and stereo imaging.
As usual, at Lenehan Audio we don't do things by halves! Our
speakers are individually tuned (after the drivers and crossover
have been burned in) back to the reference, typically to within
+/- 1dB over the entire frequency range. Every pair built is
stringently tested, and supplied with their own frequency, phase
and impedance plots.
- The "proprietary driver" fallacy.
Many high-end loudspeaker companies claim to use "proprietary"
drivers - usually modified versions of standard, "off the
shelf" units from companies like Scanspeak, Peerless and
Vifa. In most cases these "modifications" are minimal,
and motivated more by marketing requirements than real performance
gains.
The fact is that modern drivers have improved dramatically
in the last few years. Many standard designs are truly excellent;
certainly far superior to the cost-effective cabinets that house
them and the underspecified crossovers that supply them. At
Lenehan Audio, we will not be drawn into using the latest "exotic"
driver types just because they're in vogue - we use only what
works best. If we need to modify it then we will … usually
we don't. And we won't claim otherwise!
- Cosmetics vs performance … and the role of Marketing.
A substantial proportion of the cost of many high-end loudspeakers
goes towards the finish, rather than on those invisible elements
that will enhance its performance. For some customers, of course,
the visual appeal is as important as the sound. Rounded or curved
enclosures, slanted baffles and polished rainforest hardwood side
panels have all become very trendy of late - yet not, we would
insist, for good performance-related reasons. Curved cabinet shapes,
for instance, can set up strong internal resonances that are difficult
to control - not good.
At Lenehan Audio, we build our speakers to perform, and our
designs cater for those who require the utmost in accuracy and
musicality. We make no concession to the dictates of marketing
or the fads of fashion. But we also understand that loudspeakers
must blend into the living space, so our range of premium finishes
have been chosen to do just that.
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Construction to last a lifetime.
In our disposable society, most speakers are mass-produced as
cheaply as possible with the aim of turning a quick profit.
That never has been, and never will be, a part of our mindset.
We are not interested in building mass-market, compromised models
… nor in designing to a price point. We are, first and
foremost, passionate music lovers and committed audiophiles.
We have never built a loudspeaker that we would not be prepared
to live with ourselves; after all, if we wouldn't live with
it then why should we expect you to?!
Our pursuit of quality has been called "obsessive",
and it probably is … but it's the only way we know how
to operate! Our cabinets are hand-built to exacting standards,
from the finest materials available. The adhesives used in their
construction are the most advanced epoxies, resistant to moisture
and temperature extremes … the same ones used in the construction
of oceangoing maxi yachts, and those things take a pounding!
The components used in our crossovers are of the highest quality
and hugely overspecified, while the security and durability
of the hard-wired connections should all guarantee that it continues
to function exactly as it was designed, almost indefinitely.
There is no commercial justification for all of this. We could
easily adopt some of the mass-market standards, cut a few corners
and pocket the difference, and maybe nobody would notice. But
our pride in our products, and in the pleasure that they consistently
give to our customers, is worth a great deal more to us.
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