Alya design

[bikerhifinut]

Originally Posted by john & Jake the dog

hi
just had a poke around in my Rega Alya floorstanders, as you do, and found that they are a sealed box for the top two thirds and the bottom third is a box with a port.
The two boxes are entirely separate and there is no airflow from the rear of the driver to the port.
This seems a strange arrangement to me, has anyone come across this before, or am I missing something?

Have you thought that it could be a void space for mass loading? Is there a plug supplied with it?
I ask because my Monitor audios are of similar construction and the bottom third or so is full of steel shot to give a bit of mass loading to the base and then its bunged.
Give me a day or two John and I'll ask someone who might know.

[john & Jake the dog]

hi, heard you the first time
No there isn't a bung, the only way to see the space is through the port.
The wood partition is visible through the input terminal aperture when removed.

[Nipper]

Originally Posted by john & Jake the dog

hi
just had a poke around in my Rega Alya floorstanders, as you do, and found that they are a sealed box for the top two thirds and the bottom third is a box with a port.
The two boxes are entirely separate and there is no airflow from the rear of the driver to the port.
This seems a strange arrangement to me, has anyone come across this before, or am I missing something?

I have certainly come across this before, because I own a pair of Alyas myself

As is often the case with Rega they have engineered this speaker using physics usually found on far more esoteric (read pricey) systems. The port is tuned to radiate low-frequency mechanical energy produced by the cabinet walls rather than the rear wave of the driver, which is canceled by the sealed and damped upper half of the tower. That's the reason why the port is unusually large considering the relatively modest internal volume of the cabinet. Such a design is very complex to "get" right but Rega "got" it, thanks in large part to the proprietary midbass driver which they designed and built for this purpose, which also allows for a simplified crossover network.

While this approach limits bass response somewhat when compared with a standard bass-reflex system, it allows for far superior midrange performance and imaging that would otherwise be possible and still delivers good tight bass down to about 50Hz in a small-to-medium size listening room. Another limitation which is not really one is that those speakers require good quality amplification. They really shine with Class A/B or tube amps, which unfortunately don't come cheap. I use them with a Sugden A28 II.