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Does that mean a live event? Unfortunately no; absolutely not! Although this is an incredibly accomplished transmission and to me fully satisfying, live music is still more dynamic. I remember Patricia Barber’s drummer very well.
On the disc the dynamics of his drum kit were clearly manipulated and compressed. This aspect of the music is shown much better by high-efficiency or widebander speakers but mostly with stage equipment. Speakers bigger than the Prince v2 also will still improve the stage height and scale up general dimensions.
This is why the upper models from Wilson Audio, JMlab and Hansen Audio are real monsters. Only then can we talk about real sonic scale. But here and now, the Prince v2 fulfills almost all my requirements for sound at home. I liked it very very much!
Description: The Prince v2 from the Canadian Hansen Audio company is a big three-way bass-reflex design with a 25mm ScanSpeak soft-dome tweeter. The 182mm midrange driver and 269mm woofer are proprietary Hansen issue. Their diaphragms are woven from laminated glass fiber in a characteristic milky color, with dust cups from the same material.
The company talks about the involved technology as Sound Wave Deformation Prevention which I take to imply that the woven fiber patterns prevent standing waves in the diaphragms.
The cast frames are very solid and the magnets very big. In the loaner we could not unscrew the drivers as they were seated with a highly adhesive plastic which is used as an additional seal.
The cabinet too is unusual and formed from three layers like a sandwich, with a fourth layer being the internal damping. The first outer skin is an epoxy resin with added glass fibers, the second Rohacell foam, the third an epoxy resin with different additives than the first. This constrained-layer bonding results in a stone-like shell dubbed Hansen Composite Matrix. Accordingly, the cabinet is incredibly rigid and heavy. A single speaker weights 85kg.
The from factor follows ‘wind-tunnel’ acoustics which mounts tweeter and midrange on a narrower protruding baffle section and the woofer in the lower wider and deeper part. The first two drivers are mechanically time-aligned with the tweeter set back. This solution was developed for the top King model and dubbed Sound Wave Diffraction Distortion Elimination.
The crossover is optimized for minimal phase distortion with a 1st-order 6dB/octave impedance-linearized filter. This also begot a special term—V2 DAT or Driver Assimilation Technology—and apparently instigated the name change of the speaker to v2.
The wire terminal is a single gold-plated pair which should be of higher quality than supplied. Though this is mere jewelry, it is important. Those terminals are affixed to a rigid aluminum plate close to the bottom of the rear baffle. The bass-reflex port is a forward-facing slot at the bottom of the front baffle.
The loudspeaker rests on four very solid spikes and has a chunky compact appearance which dominates the room. To my knowledge two color versions are available – an automotive silver lacquer and piano gloss black. The loudspeaker comes with grilles.
Technical data according to manufacturer:
Frequency response: 23Hz - 23000Hz (+/-2dB)
Efficiency: 87dB
Nominal impedance: 6Ω
Weight: 85kg (piece)
