Steinway & Sons Model A

Description

Overview

The Model A solves a problem that comes up constantly in real homes: a room with no space for separate woofers and no appetite for loudspeakers standing well out into the floor. It is a full-range in-room loudspeaker in a shallow closed cabinet, voiced specifically for placement against a wall, and the manufacturer points it at living rooms, media rooms, apartments, penthouses and yachts. An Air Motion Transformer tweeter, a 165 mm aluminium midrange and two 12-inch aluminium woofers cover 25 Hz to 22 kHz from a cabinet 500 mm wide and only 270 mm deep.

Design & build

The enclosure is a closed cabinet in aluminium and MDF on a steel base, deliberately shallow so it can go against the wall without dominating the room. Each loudspeaker is assembled and finished by hand in Denmark. The standard finish is matte black with high-gloss black side panels and matte gold details, and polished gold details and other lacquers are available to special order. The tweeter is set into a solid gold-plated base. Overall dimensions including the base plinth are 500 by 1150 by 270 mm, and each loudspeaker weighs 76 kg.

Sound & performance

Two 30 cm anodised aluminium woofers do the low-frequency work, each with a vented double magnet with a copper ring and a 75 mm four-layer voice coil on a moulded aluminium basket. The midrange is a 165 mm anodised aluminium cone with a vented magnet, copper-clad pole piece and 35 mm two-layer voice coil. The Air Motion Transformer tweeter uses Kapton foil and a neodymium magnet. Quoted range is 25 Hz to 22,000 Hz at minus 3 dB, with the manufacturer noting useful bass reproduction even below 25 Hz, and maximum sound pressure is 114 dB at one metre.

Key features

• Full-range from a single cabinet: no separate boundary woofers required.
• Shallow closed cabinet, 270 mm deep, voiced for placement against a wall.
• Air Motion Transformer tweeter, 165 mm aluminium midrange, two 12-inch aluminium woofers.
• 25 Hz to 22 kHz at minus 3 dB; 114 dB maximum SPL at one metre.
• Two amplification channels per loudspeaker, from an A1 or A2 at 2 × 400 W.
• Requires a Steinway Lyngdorf processor as well as the amplifier; there is no version that works with a third-party amplifier.
• Neutrik speakON connection; assembled and finished by hand in Denmark.

Technology

The crossover is split. The handover from woofers to midrange at 200 Hz is done digitally and held in the processor, while the midrange to tweeter transition at 2200 Hz is passive and inside the loudspeaker. Doing the heavy low-frequency filtering in the digital domain means the amplifier drives the woofers with only the band they need. Audio travels from processor to amplifier on the Steinway Lyngdorf Digital Link, the brand’s own CAT 5e based interconnect, which is not a computer network and not an analogue lead, and then to the loudspeaker on speaker cable terminated in Neutrik speakON.

Specifications

• Drivers: Air Motion Transformer tweeter; 165 mm aluminium midrange; 2 × 12-inch aluminium woofers; closed shallow cabinet
• Amplification: 2 channels per loudspeaker, from an A1 or A2, 2 × 400 W
• Other: 25 Hz to 22 kHz at minus 3 dB; 114 dB maximum SPL at 1 m; digital crossover at 200 Hz plus passive crossover at 2200 Hz; Neutrik speakON; 500 × 1150 × 270 mm including base plinth; 76 kg; black piano finish

Who it’s for

This is the Steinway Lyngdorf loudspeaker for a living space rather than a dedicated cinema, and it is the one to choose when the room genuinely has nowhere to put boundary woofers. It is full-range on its own, which keeps the installation simple. It still needs the rest of the system, though: two amplification channels per loudspeaker from an A1 or A2, and a Steinway Lyngdorf processor ahead of that. As with everything in the range, there is no passive option that would let you use an amplifier you already own.

Why buy from Hidden Home Technology

A wall-placed loudspeaker lives or dies by how it is integrated with the room, and often with the joinery. That is the part we enjoy. Hidden Home Technology designs and installs high-performance audio into real homes from our base in Bath, and we are a CEDIA member. Come and hear a system, and we will look at your room, work out the amplification and cabling, and handle the installation and calibration from there.