TAD Evolution One Loudspeaker

Technical Audio Devices Laboratories, Inc. (TAD Labs) has released its long-anticipated Evolution One loudspeaker, a high-end floorstander incorporating many design and engineering technologies trickled down from the company's state-of-the-art Reference One and Compact Reference flagship models.

Previewed to the hi-fi trade in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and demonstrated last month to visitors of the High End exhibition in Munich, TAD Labs' Evolution One ('E1') is a three-way, bass-reflex design employing the company's CST (Coherent Source Transducer) driver in which the tweeter is placed at the acoustic centre of the midrange unit. The advanced design of TAD Labs' coaxial CST driver provides ultra wide range reproduction from 250Hz to 100kHz, accompanied by a consistent directivity pattern that results in extremely clear and stable imaging over a wide frequency range - for incredibly vivid and natural sound reproduction.

The 3.5cm tweeter in the E1's CST driver is made of beryllium, formed by TAD Labs' unique vapour deposition technique – worlds apart from the beryllium foil tweeters found in many other high-end loudspeakers. In TAD Labs' ground-breaking, ultra-high-end Reference One and Compact Reference speaker models the 16cm midrange cones are also beryllium. In this less expensive E1 model the CST's midrange cone is made of magnesium – still extremely lightweight and durable, with excellent self-damping of unwanted resonances to minimise colouration – and at 14cm diameter it is 2cm smaller, thereby allowing a narrower front baffle.

The CST driver is married with two 18cm woofers to deliver tight, controlled and expressively detailed bass that extends to 28Hz in an appropriate listening room. The woofers employ powerful, hand-crafted motor assemblies and a one-piece dust cap/cone construction to increase strength and dynamic efficiency. The E1's woofers are made by laminating many layers of aramid fibres and non-woven fabric for low mass and extremely high rigidity to resist back pressure from the cabinet.

The Evolution One (E1) is a breathtaking high-end floorstander, modestly-sized and with a compact footprint to make it ideal for the living rooms of many high-end audio enthusiasts and music lovers. As with TAD Labs' Reference designs, the cabinet of the E1 has a teardrop shape, made of Baltic birch plywood and MDF to form a supremely stiff and non-resonant enclosure – with a choice of wood veneer or piano gloss black lacquer finishes.

The speaker's base plinth is machined from a billet of aircraft grade aluminium in which the hand-built crossover nestles in a separate chamber. This is to ensure that the networks' passive components are mechanically and acoustically isolated from the main enclosure, protected from deleterious vibration. Two sets of binding posts, machined from brass, are mounted at the rear on an aluminium plate, allowing independent drive of the separate CST driver and woofer networks.

TAD Evolution One Specifications

Design: 3-way bass reflex floor standing loudspeaker

Drive units: 18cm woofer x 2; coaxial midrange/tweeter - 14cm cone/3.5cm dome

Freq responce: 28Hz to 100kHz

X/overs: 250Hz, 2kHz

Sensitivity: 88dB (2.83V, 1m)

Required amp output: 50-250Wrms

Dimensions: 334mm x 1167mm x 512mm (W H D)

Weight: 54kg