Diamonds are a Boy’s Best Friend?
Those nice people at Diamond Audio showed all their latest products at the recent CES in Las Vegas. Well the good news is that AVHQ, their UK distributor has taken delivery of it all, and are ready to give Talk Audio the low down on the new gems from Diamond!
HexPro
First out of the black velvet pouch (humour me with the Diamond puns) is the range leader, the HP650. HP is an abbreviation of Hex Pro, a completely new range which carries the very best offerings from the manufacturer. Diamond Audio have invested a lot of time and expertise into the development of the Hex Pro line, and I guess they feel it was worth it, as they claim the Hex Pro is the best sounding commercially available set of car speakers out there – period! The HP650 features a 6.5 inch woofer that utilizes the awesome Hex cone, constructed from an F1 style Kevlar/Nomex sandwich. This results in an extremely light but rigid cone that can play over seven octaves, offering unrivalled sound quality. Driving the cone assembly is a light but powerful Neodymium magnet encased in Diamond Audio’s patented TDX technology. A simple but extremely effective way of cooling the driver, reducing distortion and increasing reliability.The crossovers are truly an awesome piece of engineering. Single piece machined aluminium heatsinks keep the temperature down and make every component work as it was designed to. Sand-free resistors are also used to great effect as these, coupled with the heatsink reduce distortion by 40% when compared to a conventional crossover. The kit utilises a 28mm Ally tweeter with an EPMD (expensive rubber!) surround and TRC (True Response Coating). The tweeter also features a tuned back chamber. This increases frequency response and reduces distortion.Combine all three components together and you get a top of the line bit of kit that promises something special in the way of sonic reproduction! Watch this space as a pair are currently winging their way towards TA’s test rig.
SRP £999.99
D6 Convertibles
The D6 range of components has been completely revised for 2008. They now feature the same Magnesium/Titanium cones as the D6 range of subwoofers which is centred in an all new injection moulded basket. Available in Eurobasket 6.5’s and standard fit 5.25 inch sizes, installation has been much improved over previous models. As the name suggests, these new babies can be converted from components to co-axials, a simple turn of the phase plug removes it allowing the tweeter to be mounted in its place, handy for the more complicated allocations out there.The crossovers contain high end components and feature Allen key headed screws – a nice touch and slightly different. The crossover also features RAF (rear ambient fill) which allows you to connect a rear pair of speakers to the crossover. This circuit will iron out any impedance problems you may have had without the RAF in line, and also attenuates the rear speakers so that they just `fill’ and do not overpower the front stage.The D6 comes with a choice of tweeter dome material, Silk or Aluminium. Silk will be the choice of most, producing an accurate and smooth response while the Aluminium version is for the listener who prefers that more upfront sound.
SRP £269.99 for the 6.5 inch, £259.99 for the 5.25 inch
D3 Components & Co-Axials
The D3 range has been brought up a notch this year. Now that Diamond have a D1 component as an entry level speaker, this has allowed them to take the D3 range up in spec and not be so pressured into falling into that hotly contested price point. The kit has been upgraded from the cone out, with EPMD rubber surrounds and the same injection moulded baskets as featured in the new D6 range.The tweeter is a well made Aluminium dome with rubber surround for excellent isolation. The 2008 range of D3 also sees this tweeter rolled out across all the sizes, even the co-axials. A touch that shows no compromise! The crossovers have been greatly up-scaled for this new model. The same RAF circuit and Allen key bolts have been used as in the D6 models. Higher grade components have also been used to create a completely new crossover point and slope configuration that vastly improves sound quality. This allows Diamond Audio to claim this range as the best sounding model that they have ever produced at this price!SRP £169.99 6.5 inch, £149.99 5.25 inch components. Available in 6.5 inch, 6.0 inch, 5.25inch and 4 inch components and co-axials.
Contact Andy Hefft @ AVHQ for any further details. 01923 233900 [email protected]