Russell K loudspeakers aim to reproduce sound as realistically as possible. A violin should sound like a violin, a voice like a voice – whilst at the same time conveying the emotion the musicians put into the recordings.

Designer Russell Kauffman has taken a fresh look at all aspects of loudspeaker design including cabinet agility, drive unit loading, internal damping and crossover tuning.

The cabinet is a source of much colouration due to stored energy. Several years ago, the BBC conducted research into cabinet design and found that rigid heavy enclosures coloured the sound making the spoken word sound unnatural. The BBC solution was to use thin walls with heavy bitumen pads attached for damping. Russell K’s own research has found that the heavily damped thin wall cabinet works well for the midrange but too much cabinet flex softens the bass response. Our solution is to keep the cabinet walls thin and to use internal bracing shelves to control cabinet flex. The Red series light cabinet vibrates when the drive units are playing but stops quickly when the drive units stop ensuring near-perfect sound reproduction.

The Red 120 features a misaligned bass reflex with an additional mechanical bass loading and damping system. Either side of each bass unit is a bracing shelf containing multiple apertures with the port under the bottom shelf. The midrange energy from the rear of the bass/mid unit is contained within the two shelves which means only bass escapes into the full volume of the enclosure. The result is a drastic reduction of midrange standing waves and almost no midrange energy making its way out of the port tube.

Most loudspeakers have some form of damping inside the cabinet to absorb the energy radiated from the rear of the drive units. However, Russell K research has found that if the cabinet is well designed with sufficient internal braces and baffles, damping can be detrimental. Damping slows down the sound, making it out of synch with the output of the driver. With the Red series, we’ve removed the damping which allows the cabinet to breathe but in time with the main drive unit ensuring freedom from cabinet distortions.

At Russell K, they’ve conducted thousands of hours of research into the effect that different crossover types have on the sound from 6db (gentle roll off) to 24db (very steep roll off). They’ve discovered that it’s the combination of drive units mechanical roll off and the crossover working in harmony that produces the best sound. They’ve spent hours fine tuning the crossover, adjusting the components for voices and different types of music on various electronics. This lengthy process of fine tuning ensures a speaker that sounds just like the real thing.