Party like it's 1961 – Then French inventors Georges Gogny and Georges Poutut created a flat-panel polystyrene driver called Ortophase. Soon forgotten in the mists of audio Avalon, many decades later Frenchman Thierry Cirot rediscovered it, acquired 20 raw drive units and between 2013-2017 managed to reverse-engineer and resurrect the technology. In Hong Kong meanwhile, Wango Lee had heard an original Ortophase system in his youth and never forgotten the experience. In 2021 he learnt of Thierry's work online. Today the Thierry & Wango Audio brand is dedicated to a modern interpretation of this technology assisted by owning an original 32-cell 1960's Ortophase cabinet. Their modern open-baffle hence dipole line-source V12.1 stacks twelve 1.5g/ea. full-range planar membranes in a crossover-less vertical array which claims 5Hz-40kHz response at ±3dB. It reads like the ultimate widebander but adds cylindrical wave propagation for reduced room interaction and distance loss. Unlike other planar drivers say Manger, Ortophase requires no LF assist from dynamic drivers; nor a mix of planar units for different frequency bands patched together by an electrical filter. One multi-paralleled driver does it all, hence V12.1.
