Introduction to Seawave Acoustics
Team Ohm Audio is in Munich at the High End trade show. May 2022. 4 halls filled with all kinds of High End audio equipment. There are also a number of corridors upstairs with listening studios on both sides. Sometimes filled with beautiful sounds in a way you've never heard before, sometimes it's a bit disappointing, and sometimes it's just quite poor. The overall impression is that there's still considerable development with ever more beautiful new products. Usually there's nothing new under the sun. Existing techniques are exploited and sometimes you see something new. Next to the High End Messe there's also an additional trade show, the Hifi-Deluxe show in the Marriott Hotel. There we encountered something we listened to with great surprise: Seawave Acoustic.
Seawave Acoustic is the brainchild of South Korean Bo San. Bo San is a Buddhist monk and is very engaged in recording lectures by the Grand Master Gu-san. Inspired by the great influence that technology can have on sound quality, Bo began experimenting with new techniques. The techniques incorporated in the 3 models are: massive cast aluminum housings, custom-made units, in-house developed resistors, coils and capacitors where all connections are not soldered but crimped. NST Non Soldering Technique.
Models
Seawave Acoustic makes 3 models. The Aletheia III, the AM23 and the AM34. In the Marriott Hotel the AM23 was on display. The AM23 is a relatively compact standmount speaker with a number of special features. First there is the enclosure. We know that the enclosure has an enormous influence on the sound quality of the entire speaker. The Seawave Acoustic models are made from cast AC4C aluminum. The enclosures are cast in one piece and are super stable and free from vibrations/resonances. That's already special because most speaker manufacturers still make their enclosures from MDF or something similar.
Seawave makes the midrange and tweeter units themselves, in-house. The AM23 and AM34 are equipped with solid birch horn systems for the high and upper midrange region. The tweeters are driven by a very special, also self-made, compression driver made of Hanji paper. This special Korean paper is extremely light and very stiff and free from annoying resonances. The separate mid horn of the AM34 requires a larger driver that generates much more energy than the tweeter horn, which is why it is made of titanium.
Seawave Acoustic Special Components
Units
The woofers are conventional dynamic drivers, made from a honeycomb diaphragm and an extremely powerful magnet.
The crossovers are very special. The components are made exclusively for Seawave Acoustic. The inductor, the coil that relieves the woofer of high tones, is made with just one-tenth of the wire length of a normal coil. The Nickel Alloy coil and Kapton insulators provide only 10% of the resistance of a typical coil. The quality of these crossovers is very special, and together with the unique enclosure, the Hanji horn and the units responsible for the very high reproduction quality of the Seawave Acoustic models.
Our team was so impressed by the musical qualities and, to be honest, also by the build quality of the Seawave Acoustic speakers that we decided to bring this brand to Europe for distribution in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
Ohm-Audio BV 2022-07
