Triangle Esprit Comete Ex loudspeaker

Tag: Banana Connectors

The first reference I saw to the Count of Saint Germain was in Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco's dense novel about a man whose paranoid delusions become so overpoweringly real that, by the end of the book, the reader is left wondering whether the protagonist's enemies actually exist. That their number should include Saint Germain was a nice touch: Part cabalist, part confidence man, the real-life Count was thought by some to be immortal (in Pendulum he's pushing 300), and while Casanova wrote vividly of meeting Saint Germain at a dinner party in 1757, so did the English writer and pederast C.W. Leadbetter—in 1926. Like Aleister Crowley, the Count of Saint Germain can be seen peering over the shoulders of countless parlor (but not parleur, or even haut-parleur) occultists: He keeps popping up all over the place.

Still, imagine my shock at receiving from John Atkinson—editor, mentor, friend—a carton whose original return address read "Villeneuve Saint German, France."

Holy blue! If the carton's arrival signaled a curse of some sort—retaliation, perhaps, for the time I programmed vulgar phrases into the Simaudio Moon i-7's digital readout—it was too late to turn back: I had already accepted delivery (think: Jacques Tourneur's 1957 film Night of the Demon). I had no choice but to soldier on. So I did.

Description
Life is full of thoughtless generalities, and here's another: Triangle Electroacoustique is France's version of Mission Audio. Both have been around for a few decades, both have enjoyed commercial and critical success, and both gained fame as makers of domestic loudspeakers that are moderately affordable and often remarkably good. The similarities continue, from the general to the specific: the slim profiles, the proprietary drivers, the generous investments in computer-driven measurement and construction technologies . . .

Here's at least one distinction, which I'm told has become a Triangle calling card: The Esprit Comete Ex ($1295/pair) has a horn-loaded tweeter, which flares from the 1" titanium dome at its throat to a mouth that measures some 2.5" in diameter. A longish phase plug, evidently made of brass and held in place with two radial strips, obscures much of the dark-gray dome. The tweeter's housing is molded from a smooth and apparently sturdy plastic; I at first took it to be sealed, but then noticed a tiny opening at the apex of its rear surface: a resistive load intended to increase output, perhaps, or a vent to equalize the pressure on the thin titanium diaphragm.

The 6.3" bass driver has a pulp cone with a smooth outer surface, and is shaped in a mild flare, as opposed to being straight-sided; its own phase plug is proportionately short, and made of hard rubber. Rubber of a much more pliant sort is used for the half-roll surround. The basket is a light cast alloy, with an integral frame for the textile spider.

Those drivers, which are both beautifully made, are held to the machined MDF baffle with hex-head wood screws, the ones for the tweeter being hidden behind a trim ring of hard rubber. The baffle is also home to a pair of molded reflex ports 1.5" in diameter and 2.75" long, mildly flared. Internal wiring is Triangle's own stranded copper cable, fastened with slip-on connectors. The crossover board, whose capacitors also carry Triangle's trademark, is fastened to the rear surface of the MDF cabinet, which is also home to a relatively thin cover of acoustic foam. The cabinet looks unremarkable except for a series of small braces that apparently serve the same purpose as the ribbon lining inside a stringed instrument: to provide additional gluing surfaces for the front and back.