GOLDMUND - Swiss Made High-End Audio Equipment

Facing the rapid development of the Home Theater market and the insisting request from its best customers to acquire a very high-end Home Theater system, Goldmund decided in 1992 to develop a top speaker system to replace the Goldmund Apologue. Designed to benefit of the same subtle sonic quality, but also to be able to reproduce realistic theater levels, the Goldmund Epilogue had to become the absolute top speaker in the Audio and Video marketplace.

For users who cannot invest at once in the full system, and for users who do not need the full system performance, the Epilogue can be acquired in several configurations which each constitute a step toward the full system.

The first available element is the Epilogue 1 satellite system, a full range small speaker of extreme quality, sufficient for a small to medium-sized room.

The second element is the Epilogue 2 bass enclosure. Associated with the Epilogue 1 satellites, it can be used for a full-range high level audio or video system.

The third element, the Epilogue 3 sub-woofer, may be added to increase the bass response level, mostly needed in high-level Home-Theater installations. It can also be coupled as a single mono or a stereo sub-woofer to a pair of Epilogue 1 satellites if wanted.

The full Epilogue system is made of 2 pairs of Epilogue 1 satellites, one pair of Epilogue 2 bass units and a pair of Epilogue 3 sub-woofers.

To progressively build the speaker system, a modular frame may be acquired separately. The parts of the frame used to attach one pair of Epilogue 1 satellites with a pair of Epilogue 2 bass speakers will be kept and only extended by additional parts if the system is built-up to the level of the Full Epilogue, avoiding trade-in costs.

In addition to the possibility of building-up the full system progressively, the modularity of the Epilogue extends to the enclosure parts themselves. Separate elements like drivers, crossovers or optional built-in amplifiers can be exchanged easily. The user will be able to upgrade his system by changing easily between options and he will also be able to upgrade if a component of better quality is made available in the future. All this without changing the other mechanical parts of its system, which remain the most expensive ones.

This is why Goldmund claims that the Epilogue could become the user's last speaker (an EpilogueÉ) because the modularity will allow him to upgrade it up to the latest state of the art without the usually costly process of trading-in the precedent version.

To insure perfect enclosure rigidity under extreme internal pressures, all the Epilogue enclosures are totally built in metal. A construction of brass and aluminum, with internal steel bracing is used to capture the vibrations and evacuate them to the center Mechanical Grounding evacuation bar.

In addition to its internal perfect rigidity, this full-metal construction allows any of the internal parts to be replaced without degradation of the speaker's integrity, each of these parts being attached by mechanical screws without any gluing or painting.

A neoprene joint system guarantees the enclosure's perfect sealing even after several dismounting.

Constructed around a vertical steel bar, which connects each of the four enclosures to the ground, each Epilogue enclosure concentrates the vibration evacuation towards this steel bar. The choice of metals in the assembly is optimized to fully benefit of the mechanical diode effect, avoiding external vibrations to be communicated to the sensitive parts. Driver's mounting in the Epilogue 1 are made of a sandwich of brass and aluminum with a total thickness of 20mm in order to avoid the baffle of the driver to be excited by the heavy vibration of the driver itself.

The external frame holding the enclosures together and insuring the speaker's stability receives 24 Teflon insulators to avoid vibration transmission, leaving the central steel bar play its full role of Mechanical Grounding transmission.

120dB above 150Hz, and 130 dB below, are sound pressure levels usually encountered in the very best Theaters only, when sitting very close to the screen. The full Epilogue system can be driven to such peak levels without distortion.

The system bandwidth extends from below 20Hz to more than 28kHz with extreme time accuracy.

Each enclosure and even each tweeter of the Epilogue 1 enclosures can be individually adjusted in position with extreme precision to align the system in phase depending on the listener position.

The full Epilogue system, thanks to its inherent modularity, can be multi-amped, multi-wired, in a very large variety of solutions.

The Epilogue 1 and 2 are delivered in standard with an internal crossover, optionally combined with other driver modules like built-in amplifier, separate amps for each driver, etc...

They will also be available without passive crossover for inclusion in the digital-domain crossover system developed by Goldmund inside its Chiasma line of central controllers.

The Epilogue 3 Sub woofer has a built-in 500W Mimesis power amp and high frequency cutoff electronic crossover. It may be added to any system without further modification. The built-in crossover is provided with variable frequency cutoff point , a 24dB per Octave cutoff slope and the level of each of the Epilogue 3 provide its own level adjustment.

A future option will be the built-in digital power amps providing direct connection of each driver system of the full system to the central Chiasma controller. With Goldmund Firewire link to the Chiasma, the system will receive independent signals from the central computer and will be able to provide to perfect time alignment to any listener position.

In the full Epilogue system, if installed with the Goldmund Chiasma and special driving electronics, the lower satellite system may be switched automatically to semi-mono when the signal received is multi-channel, advantageously replacing the center channel with much better coherence.

The standard finish of the system is in silver aluminum, matching the famous Goldmund electronics metal finishing.

Several different kinds of finish for the frame and the enclosures will progressively become available through the Goldmund "Custom Shop", to match special decoration needs.