Introducing the Piega Coax 411, a compact yet formidable loudspeaker that has inherited the exceptional genes of its illustrious predecessor, the Coax 611. In high-end audio, Piega has established itself as synonymous with excellence in craftsmanship and acoustic performance, and the Coax 411 carries this legacy with elegance. Designed for those seeking uncompromising sound quality in a more space-efficient package, this speaker promises to be a true revelation, offering a listening experience that transcends conventional boundaries.
Piega’s dedication to precision and innovation shines through in the Coax 411’s impeccable build quality. Crafted with meticulous attention to detail, this speaker boasts a seamless extruded aluminum profile, setting new dimensions and construction quality standards. Beyond its stunning exterior, the Coax 411 harbors a remarkable technological marvel – the Gen2 coaxial driver. With its ability to reproduce sound with unparalleled clarity, coherence, and phase accuracy, this driver redefines what’s possible in high-fidelity audio. Join us as we embark on a journey to explore the captivating sound and craftsmanship of the Piega Coax 411.
Technical data
| Piega Coax 411 | |
|---|---|
| Concept: | 3-way compact speaker, bass reflex |
| Equipment: | 1 x 16 cm bass, 1 x MHT coax ribbon |
| Crossover frequency: | 450 Hertz |
| Efficiency (@2.83 V/1m): | 84.8 decibels |
| Particularities: | Aluminum housing, particularly impedance linear |
| Colors: | Black, white, silver |
| Dimensions (W x H x D): | 210 × 45.0 × 31.0 cm |
| Weight: | 25.0 kilograms |
Extraordinary Build Quality
The Piega Coax 411, a compact sibling of the highly acclaimed Coax 611, impresses with its remarkable construction. Designed by Stephan Hürleman, the speaker shares the same impeccable aluminum profile and top-notch craftsmanship as its larger counterpart. The housing’s walls boast a substantial 5-millimeter thickness, while the baffle measures 8 millimeters – a testament to its robustness. To combat vibrations, Piega employs “Tension Improve Modules” that put vulnerable surfaces under tension, resulting in a near-perfectly inert cabinet.
The build quality and design of the Piega Coax 411 are nothing short of exceptional, exemplifying the Swiss manufacturer’s commitment to precision and craftsmanship. These aspects are integral to the loudspeaker’s overall appeal and contribute to its acoustic excellence.
Impeccable Build Quality: Piega has left no stone unturned in ensuring the Coax 411’s structural integrity. The speaker’s cabinet is a work of art featuring a seamless extruded aluminum profile. This construction adds to the speaker’s aesthetics and serves a crucial acoustic purpose by minimizing vibrations and resonances. To further enhance the cabinet’s rigidity and eliminate any potential for unwanted vibrations, Piega employs their proprietary “Tension Improve Modules” (TIM2). These modules place surfaces prone to vibrations under tensile stress, combined with strategically positioned metal struts and acoustic mats, creating a virtually resonance-free enclosure. The result is a solid and well-damped cabinet, showcasing the meticulous engineering behind it.
Elegant Design: The Coax 411’s design is elegant and timeless, with clean lines and a sleek, minimalist aesthetic. While smaller than its sibling, the Coax 611, its compact form factor still conveys a sense of sophistication and presence. The slim profile and proportions of the loudspeaker are well-balanced, making it a visually pleasing addition to any listening environment. Whether on dedicated stands or within a bookshelf setup, the Coax 411’s design complements modern and traditional décor. Furthermore, the attention to detail extends to the choice of materials and finishes, allowing customers to select from various options, including different colorways. Overall, the Coax 411’s design reflects Piega’s commitment to aesthetics and achieving acoustic excellence through thoughtful engineering.
Gen2 Coaxial Driver: A True Marvel
The Gen2 Coaxial Driver featured in the Piega Coax 411 is nothing short of a marvel in audio engineering. Building upon an already brilliant concept, Piega’s engineering team, under the guidance of Roger Kessler, has taken this driver to new heights, creating a true masterpiece in sound reproduction.
The heart of the Gen2 Coaxial Driver is its unique mid-high frequency coaxial ribbon design. This innovative approach places the tweeter and midrange driver on the same plane, ensuring a point source for sound reproduction across a broader frequency range. This configuration leads to an incredibly coherent and phase-accurate soundstage, setting new standards in audio fidelity. What sets the Gen2 Coaxial Driver apart is not just the concept itself but the meticulous execution. Piega’s commitment to achieving the purest sound is evident in the fine-tuning and optimization of this driver. The result is a sonic experience characterized by unparalleled clarity, minimal distortion, and immediacy. It’s a testament to Piega’s dedication to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in speaker design.
Furthermore, the Gen2 Coaxial Driver’s performance is marked by its ability to render audio with exceptional transparency, revealing intricate details and nuances in the recordings. Whether it’s the delicate overtones of guitar strings or the subtleties of a vocalist’s timbre, this coaxial driver excels in faithfully reproducing the essence of the music. Its contribution to the Coax 411’s sonic signature is undeniable, making it a standout feature that places this loudspeaker in a league. The Gen2 Coaxial Driver is not just a technological achievement; it’s a genuine triumph for audiophiles seeking the purest, most engaging listening experience.
Usability
The Piega Coax 411 speaker’s usability is essential for anyone looking to integrate it into their audio system. Usability encompasses several factors influencing how easy and convenient it is to set up, operate, and enjoy these speakers. Here’s an in-depth look at the usability of the Coax 411:
- Ease of Setup: Piega has designed the Coax 411 with user-friendliness in mind. The speakers arrive well-packaged with clear instructions for setup. Their compact and manageable size makes them relatively easy to position in your listening room. Whether you’re placing them on stands, shelves, or wall mounts, the Coax 411’s adaptability ensures a straightforward installation process.
- Positioning Flexibility: The Coax 411’s compact dimensions and elegant design allow for versatile placement options. This flexibility makes integrating them into various room layouts easy while optimizing sound dispersion and imaging. You can experiment with speaker placement to achieve the best possible soundstage.
- Single-Wiring or Bi-Wiring: The option for single-wiring or bi-wiring offers usability benefits. Users can choose their preferred wiring configuration based on their amplification setup and sonic preferences. Bi-wiring, in particular, allows for further customization of the speaker’s performance, accommodating different tastes.
- Compatibility: The Coax 411’s compatibility with a wide range of amplifiers, including both solid-state and tube models, enhances usability. Users can select an amplifier that matches their sonic preferences and power requirements without limitations. This adaptability ensures that the speakers can be integrated seamlessly into different audio systems.
- Speaker Cable Options: The ability to choose and connect appropriate speaker cables adds to the usability. Users can select high-quality cables that suit their system and listening preferences, contributing to sound quality and performance.
- Maintenance: The Coax 411’s build quality and durable materials minimize maintenance requirements. The extruded aluminum cabinet is robust and resistant to wear and tear. Regular cleaning to remove dust and occasional checks for cable connections are the main maintenance tasks, keeping usability hassle-free.
- User Experience: The most critical usability aspect is the listening experience. The Coax 411’s coaxial ribbon driver design, which offers exceptional clarity and phase coherence, ensures an enjoyable and immersive listening experience. Users can expect precise imaging, detailed sound reproduction, and a wide soundstage, all contributing to a highly satisfying usability experience.
- Room-Friendly Design: The Coax 411’s design takes into account room acoustics. Its balanced sound characteristics in smaller to medium-sized rooms make it easier to achieve optimal sound quality without extensive room treatments, enhancing usability.
In summary, the Piega Coax 411 speaker is designed with usability in mind, offering ease of setup, positioning flexibility, compatibility with various amplifiers, and the option for customization through wiring configurations and speaker cable choices. Its low maintenance requirements and exceptional sound quality provide a highly satisfying and user-friendly audio experience.
Connections and Connectivity
The Piega Coax 411 is designed to be versatile in terms of connections and connectivity, ensuring it can seamlessly integrate into various audio setups and systems. Let’s delve into the details of its connections and connectivity options:
- Speaker Terminals: The Coax 411 features high-quality binding posts for speaker connections. These binding posts are robust and allow for secure and reliable cable connections. They are compatible with banana plugs and spade connectors, allowing you to choose your preferred speaker cables.
- Amplifier Compatibility: The speaker’s relatively undemanding impedance characteristics make it compatible with many amplifiers. While it may benefit from a quality amplifier, it doesn’t require a particularly powerful or specialized one, which enhances its versatility.
- Single-Wiring and Bi-Wiring Options: The Coax 411 offers single-wiring or bi-wiring configurations. Bi-wiring involves using separate speaker cables for the high-frequency (tweeter) and low-frequency (woofer) drivers. This feature allows you to tailor the speaker’s performance to your preference and setup.
- Amplifier Selection: Given the speaker’s impedance characteristics and efficiency, you can choose between solid-state and tube amplifiers, depending on your sonic preferences. Whether you prefer the warmth of tubes or the precision of solid-state amplification, the Coax 411 can accommodate your choice.
- Placement Flexibility: The compact size of the Coax 411 and its elegant cabinet design make it easy to position in various locations within your listening room. Whether you place it on dedicated stands, shelves, or speaker brackets, its unobtrusive form factor ensures it can fit seamlessly into your room layout.
- Speaker Cable Selection: The choice of speaker cables can further tailor the speaker’s performance to your liking. High-quality, well-matched speaker cables can enhance the Coax 411’s ability to deliver accurate and dynamic sound.
- Room Acoustics: While not a direct connectivity feature, it’s worth noting that the Coax 411’s versatility extends to room acoustics. Its ability to excel in smaller to medium-sized rooms allows you to optimize your listening environment without requiring extensive acoustic treatments.
In summary, the Piega Coax 411 offers a range of connection options and excellent compatibility with various amplifiers, allowing you to fine-tune your audio setup to suit your preferences. Its versatility in placement and room-friendliness further enhances its appeal for audiophiles and music enthusiasts seeking a high-quality and adaptable speaker solution.
Acoustic Performance and Practical Considerations
The acoustic performance of the Piega Coax 411 is a testament to its exceptional engineering and attention to detail. It strikes a delicate balance between delivering audiophile-grade sound quality and addressing practical considerations catering to real-world listening environments.
One of the standout qualities of the Coax 411’s acoustic performance is its ability to reproduce music with astonishing clarity and precision. The Gen2 Coaxial Driver plays a pivotal role in this achievement by ensuring that sound emanates from a single point source. This results in a cohesive and well-integrated soundstage where each instrument and vocal is precisely placed within the mix. Whether listening to intricate classical compositions or intricate jazz arrangements, the Coax 411 allows you to discern even the most subtle nuances in the music. This level of acoustic accuracy creates a truly immersive listening experience that can transport you to the heart of the performance.
Practical considerations are also well-addressed in the design of the Coax 411. Despite its compact size, this speaker delivers a surprising amount of bass, thanks to the 16-centimeter woofer with a stiff, ceramic-coated aluminum membrane. While it may not rival larger floor-standing speakers in sheer bass quantity, it strikes an impressive balance between bass depth and agility. This makes it versatile enough to handle various musical genres without compromising on its compact form factor.
Additionally, the Coax 411’s seamless extruded aluminum cabinet construction enhances its acoustic performance and ensures that vibrations and resonances are kept to an absolute minimum. This meticulous attention to detail results in a speaker that remains sonically neutral, allowing the listener to hear the music as the recording artist intended it.
From a practical standpoint, the Coax 411’s compact size and elegantly designed cabinet make it a suitable choice for various room setups. It can be easily integrated into smaller to medium-sized rooms, providing audiophile-grade sound without overwhelming the space. Its relatively undemanding impedance characteristics ensure compatibility with a wide range of amplifiers, making it a versatile choice for different audio systems.
In conclusion, the Piega Coax 411 offers a remarkable acoustic performance that combines precision, clarity, and coherence. It excels in real-world listening environments while retaining its compact and stylish design. Whether you’re an audiophile seeking uncompromising sound quality or a music lover looking to elevate your listening experience, the Coax 411 delivers on both acoustic and practical fronts.
A Sonic Marvel: Listening Experience
Listening to the Coax 411 is a revelation. Its exceptional clarity, low distortion, and lively presentation make it a standout performer. It enriches recordings with a captivating sense of airiness and effortless detail retrieval. The speaker’s midrange, in particular, shines with lifelike guitar string overtones. Compared to some competitors, it offers a slightly warmer tonality but excels in midrange liveliness, spatiality, and phase accuracy. The result is a captivating and immersive soundstage.
The sound test of the Piega Coax 411 reveals a loudspeaker that lives up to its promise of delivering an exceptional listening experience. Its sound quality is characterized by a blend of precision, coherence, and remarkable fidelity that sets a new benchmark in its class.
One of the standout features during the sound test is the Coax 411’s ability to reproduce audio with outstanding transparency. It excels at revealing the smallest details and subtleties in the music, offering a level of clarity that is nothing short of impressive. Whether listening to a classical orchestra, a jazz quartet, or a rock band, the Coax 411 ensures that every instrument and vocal is presented with lifelike precision. This attention to detail immerses the listener in the music, allowing for a deeper and more engaging musical experience.
Another noteworthy aspect of the Coax 411’s sound quality is its coherence and phase accuracy. Thanks to the Gen2 Coaxial Driver, which positions the tweeter and midrange driver on the same plane, the sound is reproduced as if emanating from a single source. This results in an exceptionally well-defined soundstage with a pinpoint-accurate placement of instruments and vocals. The listener can enjoy a three-dimensional sonic experience where each element of the music occupies its rightful space. This level of coherence ensures that the music is delivered in its purest form, devoid of any timing errors or phase discrepancies that can detract from the listening experience.
Furthermore, while not overly pronounced, the Coax 411’s bass performance is tight, controlled, and impactful. It strikes a balance between delivering rich, deep bass when called for while maintaining agility and speed in the lower frequencies. This ensures the speaker can easily handle various musical genres, from intricate acoustic recordings to bass-heavy electronic tracks.
In summary, the Piega Coax 411’s sound test reaffirms its status as an exceptional loudspeaker that caters to the audiophile’s quest for uncompromising sound quality. Its ability to faithfully reproduce music with transparency, coherence, and precision makes it a standout performer in its class, offering a listening experience as close to the original recording as possible.
Conclusion
The Piega Coax 411 is an exceptional bookshelf speaker that introduces coaxial technology to listeners. Its unrivaled resolution and flawless aluminum cabinet offer a top-tier audio experience. While it comes with a price tag, the Coax 411’s overall package, including its build quality and acoustic prowess, makes it a compelling choice for audiophiles and music enthusiasts.
Reasons to Buy the Piega Coax 411:
- Exceptional Sound Quality: The Coax 411 delivers an audiophile-grade listening experience with its coaxial ribbon driver and high-quality components. It offers outstanding clarity, precise imaging, and a wide soundstage, making it an ideal choice for music enthusiasts seeking top-tier sound quality.
- Coaxial Ribbon Driver: The Gen2 coaxial ribbon driver is a standout feature, providing a natural, distortion-free, and in-phase sound reproduction. It offers a level of coherence and accuracy unmatched in its class, making it a compelling reason to invest in these speakers.
- Outstanding Build Quality: The speaker’s construction, featuring seamless extruded aluminum, thick housing walls, and innovative tension improve modules, reflects top-notch craftsmanship. Its robust build ensures longevity and minimizes unwanted resonances, contributing to superior sound performance.
- Versatile Placement: The Coax 411’s compact size and flexibility in positioning make it suitable for various room layouts. Whether you prefer stands, shelves, or wall mounts, these speakers offer versatility in integration without compromising sound quality.
- Compatibility: These speakers are compatible with a wide range of amplifiers, allowing you to choose an amplifier that suits your sonic preferences and power requirements. This compatibility enhances their usability and adaptability.
- Usability Features: The Coax 411’s ease of setup, single-wiring or bi-wiring options, and minimal maintenance requirements enhance their overall usability. Users can fine-tune their audio system and enjoy hassle-free operation.
Reasons to Consider Not Buying:
- Price: The Piega Coax 411 is positioned in the high-end audio market, making it a significant investment. If you’re on a strict budget, these speakers may not be within your financial reach.
- Bass Response: While the Coax 411 delivers impressive sound quality, its compact size may limit the depth and extension of bass compared to more prominent floor-standing speakers. Users seeking deep, powerful bass may need to consider adding a subwoofer to their setup.
- Room Size: These speakers are best suited for smaller to medium-sized rooms. Their sound dispersion may not fill the room adequately in larger spaces, potentially requiring additional speakers or amplification.
- Amplifier Requirements: While the Coax 411 is compatible with various amplifiers, it may benefit from a high-quality, powerful amplifier to fully unleash its potential. This can add to the overall cost of your audio system.
In conclusion, the Piega Coax 411 offers outstanding sound quality, exceptional build quality, and versatility in positioning, making it a compelling choice for audio enthusiasts. However, its premium price, potential bass limitations, and amplifier requirements may be factors to consider if you’re on a budget or have specific sonic preferences.
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Want to read more about speakers? Read our background articles. For instance, Know about Bookshelf speakers, Types of speakers and their positives/negatives, Bass reflex speakers, Two-way, 2 1/2-way and three-way speakers types, Buying speakers: which specifications are important, Understanding Loudspeaker efficiency: power, sound pressure (dB) and impedance, What is a Smart Speaker? The function of NFC in speakers, Position of speakers in a surround home cinema set, and Types of speakers available in the market.
