Caloia has strong views on speaker design in general. As important as he believes quality drivers to be in determining accurate sound reproduction, in his opinion the construction of the enclosure is the most critical element. His designs feature a box-within-a-box construction where the outer solid-wood enclosure becomes exoskeleton to an inner MDF box. Skeleton and exoskeleton are separated by predetermined spacing which is critically damped with an undisclosed mix of compounds and materials. I asked Caloia to describe some of his philosophies and started by asking what the drivers in the TC Towers 2 are; and his thoughts on enclosure construction: "The tweeters are manufactured by Tang Band, model 28-1582S, the woofers are by 18 Sound, model 6ND430 16Ω. They are run in parallel to keep the system at 8Ω. In order to use solid timber as the external material and stop resonance, I developed the concept of the box within a box. To create a dead box, the internal enclosure is constructed of 16mm MDF. Insulation material is placed between MDF and timber to stop transfer of vibration into the wood. The MDF panels connect to the timber boards with wooden dowels, ensuring zero movement whilst securing the internal enclosure to the external. Both are individually sealed to prevent any leakage. The internal enclosure divides into two equal sub enclosures, one for each woofer. This prevents the woofers from interfering with each other.

"The use of timber has some clear advantages over veneer or other materials. Add the fact that Australia has such a large variety of beautiful woods, some of the best in the word. If you know your timbers and are a good craftsman, wood is a superior choice. I only use hardwood for my enclosures. That is the first criteria when I select the wood species. Then come colour, grain and special features followed by durability and stability to environmental conditions. Other important factors to consider are the impact on tools when working with a particular timber and if the wood can be worked into a fine finish. All woods have a certain amount of resonance, hardwood more so than soft wood. For our applications, residual resonance should play little or no part as I am trying to produce a dead enclosure. Still I believe that sound waves are affected in a positive way when moving across the surface of the timber. The other advantage with solid wood is that the edges can easily be rounded over to eliminate edge diffraction. There's so much more to tell about wood of course."


I asked if there is a TC Loudspeakers house sound that falls in line with the designer’s own tastes. "The first and most common comment from people that listen to my speakers is 'they sound so clear’. TC Loudspeakers are at home with any type of music. I remember when I used to shop for speakers. The question I was always asked was 'what type of music do you listen to' and then I would be led to speakers that best reproduce that type of music. The TC Loudspeakers house sound is clear, precise, natural and realistic with an excellent soundstage. You can listen for hours and not get tired. TC Loudspeakers sound great, are pleasant to look at, sensuous to the touch and they smell great. Even the natural oils and bees wax used in finishing the wood is non-toxic. In short, they are designed to excite all the senses."

Caloia has designed the TC-Towers 2—which is a 2-way speaker—with separate sections for the high- and low-pass crossovers which are placed on different boards located away from each other to avoid magnetic interference between their inductors. The crossovers are Caloia’s variation of a 2nd-order Linkwitz-Riley with a Zobel filter on the LF section. High-quality commercial components like Solen and Mundorf Supreme caps combine with air-core inductors wound in-house to the exact values required from 14- and 16-AWG enamelled lead-free OFC copper wire. Drivers are carefully selected to ensure a minimalist crossover topology, "the fewer the components, the more signal to the drivers."