John
“The world’s first high-end plug and play wireless speakers”. At US$40-50K (depending on tweeter option), Estelon’s Lynx would sit well beyond this site’s usual beat. I prefer not to write about audio gear that I cannot personally afford. And let us not forget that these speakers this complete audio system sells for the same as an average Joe might earn in the USA in a single year.
With that out of the way, not only are the Lynx a powered design but they also integrate Roon Core and exploit HQPlayer to have DSD drive the loudspeaker directly. Audio data is sent back and forth between the two loudspeakers using a direct wifi connection.
Running on an Intel board inside the left loudspeaker, Roon Core up-samples all content to DSD64 before sending it to HQ Player running on an Intel board (TBC) in the right loudspeaker. From there, left-channel data is sent back to the left speaker.
For each channel, the digital signal is cloned and amplified with one branch low-pass filtered prior to meeting a 10″ bass driver and the other branch sent to a second order crossover that divvies up its signal between a pair of 5″ mid-bass drivers and a 1″ tweeter (Beryllium or Diamond).
According to the detailed signal path diagram drawn for me in Estelon’s demo room by Andrus Aaslaid (seen in the video below), Estelon’s transistor-powered “Direct DSD modulator” (amplifier) sits before the aforementioned crossover. That makes the Lynx a powered design, effectively confirmed by the absence of the word “active” in the accompanying literature.
Estelon are also working on an outboard version of their patented Roon/HQPlayer/Direct DSD Modulator for use with their passive models. A cloth-wrapped prototype sat between a pair of white Estelon YB at Munich High-End 2017.
DSD’s bitstream cannot be DSP-d without conversion to PCM and back. Instead, Estelon are promoting the format’s purity and how it can be maintained when used to drive the loudspeaker directly.
Take note of the Lynx’s party trick: its black driver column is remote-control height adjustable according to suit listener preference and/or room type:
TL;DR? Estelon’s Lynx is a complete uber high-end audio system. Just add smartphone or tablet for music selection and playback control and a NAS for music storage.
Further information: Estelon
