Arendal Sound’s new 1528 Series has entered high-end audio to take on the rostrum as the house’s most advanced loudspeaker line. Some of the loudspeakers are meant to take sound fidelity and design to new extremes through such leaps that various boundaries touch, which any serious audiophile craves to experience. Having already made a name with its 1723 THX Series, Arendal has gone one step further: creating a line of loudspeakers meant to produce sound like never before, crystal clear with accuracy and immersive.
Let’s really look at what this 1528 Series does truly differently, what new technologies it brings, and why it’s so special in the opinion of audiophelés. We’re going from every brilliant 3-way design through driver technology and cabinet construction to their rightful place in the broader scope of home audio.
Introduction to the 1528 Series: What Makes It Special?
Arendal Sound has forged a niche by obtaining loudspeakers with uncompromising build quality and sound performance. As a matter of fact, its earlier flagship offering, the 1723 THX Series, received widespread acclaim for its precision, dynamics, and affordability in the high-end audio space. In comparison, the 1528 Series offers an even more prestigious product standing forth as Arendal’s most premium offering to date.
Six models fall under the 1528 Series:
- 1528 Tower 8, $9,500/pair
- 1528 Monitor 8, $5,900/pair
- 1528 Bookshelf 8, $4,500/pair
- 1528 Slim 8, $3,500/pair
- 1528 Center+ 8, $4,700 each
- 1528 Center 8, $2,900 each
The speakers are for the audiophile who wants nothing less than the best in terms of sonic output. While the 1723 series is based on a high-performance 3-way design, the 1528 line is further enhanced with drivers made from advanced materials, Lithium-Magnesium and Carbon-Graphene. The drivers have been chosen by the manufacturer to deliver a performance with minimal loss in the frequency range, so that the listener gets an underlined refinement with an emotional response to the music.
3-Way Design: The Nucleus of the 1528 Series
The 1528 series does boast the biggest upgrade of all: a switch to a 3-way configuration. Most high-end speakers in general, including Arendal’s 1723 THX series, are 2-way or 2.5-way; there are substantial differences between 2-way and 2.5-way and 3-way designs, where three separate drivers handle different parts of the frequency range. This leads to each driver listening to a narrower band of frequencies for reduced distortion, improved clarity and tighter integration between the highs, mids, and low frequencies.
Here’s how 3-way design works in the 1528 Series:
- High Frequencies (Tweeter): With the specific 28mm Lithium-Magnesium tweeter, the high frequencies are very crisp, full of details and dynamic. While Lithium-Magnesium is used here for the first time in home audio, Arendal says it has nuances of detail and dynamics rivaling the exotics like Beryllium, without the associated cost and sourcing headaches.
- Mid Frequencies (Midrange Driver): The new 5-inch Carbon-Graphene midrange driver covers the all-important mid-frequency band, where all the vocal and instrumental detail resides. It’s low-distortion and high-accuracy, ensuring the midrange is both natural and alive and sensibly coherent with the driver above (the tweeter) and the drivers below (the basses).
- Low Frequencies (Woofers): The 1528 Series uses custom-designed 8″ aluminum woofers for bass handling. They are designed as long-throw units featuring an inverted surround with a prism ridge structure and have been optimized for maximum stiffness and minimal distortion for deep, controlled bass that only complements the overall soundstage.
Thus with a 3 way design, Arendal will be able to optimize the performance of each driver, so it sounds more natural and coherent. And this is especially true for complex musical passages or high-action movie scenes, in which separation through a clear separation of frequencies is meant to ensure every detail will be heard.
Advanced Driver Technology: Setting New Standards for High-End Audio
The heart of any great loudspeaker is the quality of its drivers, and the 1528 Series packs a punch with some of the best advanced driver technology available today. Let’s dig a little deeper into this awesome lineup.
Lithium-Magnesium Tweeter
The 28mm Lithium-Magnesium tweeter really caught the eye as the feature of the 1528 Series. It appears to be the first time that the use of Lithium-Magnesium has been made in home audio tweeters, and Arendal claims a unique combination of lightness, strength, and damping, it delivers detail and dynamics unmatched even by the finest of this breed. Within its form is a custom controlled directivity waveguide that maintains the dispersion and axes coloration.
The result is a crisp and sharp high-frequency response that holds up over an extremely wide listening area. This is important, especially in constructing large, enveloping soundstages where listeners throughout the room can hear the same sonic quality without regard to their position in the room.
Carbon-Graphene Midrange Driver
The 5-inch Carbon-Graphene midrange driver is another technological step forward for the 1528 Series. This one focuses on the critical midrange frequencies where human hearing is most sensitive and much of the musical and vocal detail resides. Carbon-Graphene is well suited to the application, with superb stiffness-to-weight ratio and low distortion.
According to Arendal, it comes with a rich, natural sound that brings vocals and instruments alive with extreme realism. The Carbon-Graphene ends allow for a reduction in cone breakup and distortion, thus ensuring that the midrange is clean and detailed even at high volumes.
Aluminum Woofers
Custom 8-inch aluminium woofers for the low end have also been planned by Arendal, optimized for deep bass extension and low distortion. The woofers utilize a prism ridge structure and inverted surrounds to better structure the cone and allow for longer excursion without distortion. This results in not only deep, impactful bass but in addition tight and controlled.
Among other curiosities, two enormous aluminum trim rings catch one’s eye, weighing approximately 1kg (2.2 pounds) each. Alongside with the steel gratings closing the woofers, they are to reduce the vibration and give an illusion of “floating” by the grille-another way towards beauty and acoustic quality of the speakers .
Cabine detail: Beauty Meets Functionality
The prime characteristic of Arendal Sound speakers for numerous years has been high-quality manufacture-and the 1528 Series successfully takes it further. Every single speaker from the 1528 series comes in an HDF cabinet, specially built for this end. High-density fiberboard is more efficient in acoustic properties compared to traditional MDF.
The cabinets have an advanced compound curved design, meaning it is curvaceous in two axes. This curving provides aesthetic value as well as functional value:
- Aesthetic: The curves provided make the 1528 Series look more refined and elegant, apart from the chunky shape of the more utilitarian 1723 series.
- Acoustic: The curves also are designed to reduce internal standing waves and cabinet resonance for a cleaner, more accurate sound. But what’s more impressive is the decoupling from the front baffle itself. 3.15 inches thick for better phase coherence, it time-aligns the drivers for an overall more immersive, coherent soundstage.
Bass Reflex Ports and Sealing Options
All models in the 1528 series, except the Slim 8, offer the option of closing the bass-reflex ports with the use of caps. This gives you the flexibility to correct the bass response if you take into account the acoustics of the room and placement of the speakers. For example if the speakers are placed near a corner, or against a wall, closing of the ports offers an option to limit the too abundant bass output on an even balance.
Arendal challenges users to try out both sealed and ported configurations to determine the best configuration for listening space. It would be of most value to custom seekers wanting to make fine-tuning adjustments to their systems.
Input Terminals and Level Adjustment: Complete Options
The Series 1528 has high-quality, rhodium-plated-copper input terminals that boast better conductivity along with resistance to corrosion. These also facilitate bi-wiring and bi-amping settings where users can adjust their amplification method.
For the Tower 8, Monitor 8, and Bookshelf 8 models, Arendal has added Level Adjustment jumpers on the back. These jumpers enable the output to the tweeter and midrange drivers to be added or subtracted by 2 dB, so users can match the acoustics of their room as closely as possible; this can be very useful in tailoring the performance of the speaker to particular environments: like rooms with hard surfaces are too bright, or rooms whose heavy drapery soak up too much of the high frequencies.
This provides the user with the ability to achieve the right balance of tones in his listening room without having to rely on an external equalization.
1528 Series Crossovers: Accurate at Every Frequency
The 1528 series crossover networks are designed with utmost care in order to provide the fullest possible integration between the drivers. Each crossover is supported by high-fidelity film capacitors and air-core inductors, characterized by low distortion and exceptional electrical performance.
The concept of Arendal in designing its 1528 Series crossovers is to maintain as much coherence as possible in phase for a more natural and spacious sound. This is further enhanced in the 3-way design of 1528 Series that enables steeper crossover slopes between drivers, hence reducing overlap between bands as well as distortion.
As the crossover points have been designed to let each of the drivers operate in its best range, the midrange has been assigned the job of dealing only with those frequencies between 300Hz and 3kHz so that it could concentrate on producing vocals and instruments full of incredible fidelity and detail. The tweeter and woofers, on the other hand, take their respective frequency ranges and do not overlap at all, which makes the sound less phased and jittery as such.
Sound Performance: What’s in It?
Of course, all that great engineering is worthless unless there’s the most important of it all: the 1528 Series sounds. In fact, early review reports and feedback from audiophiles who had a chance to audition these speakers claim that the 1528 Series totally delivers its touted quality in sound.
Tower 8: The New Benchmark in Full-Range Performance
Its flagship 1528 Tower 8 houses four 8-inch woofers, the 5-inch Carbon-Graphene midrange driver and 28mm Lithium-Magnesium tweeter. The biggest and most powerful speaker of its lineup stands tall at 53.1 inches and weighs 174 pounds each.
It’s capable of producing very deep, authoritative bass without losing one iota of clarity and control. Those extremely few speakers that can extend their frequency response down to 21Hz cannot have anything near this level of low-end extension. But that Tower 8 does not play showy low-end at the expense of midrange and treble.
Part of how naturally lifelike and full-bodied the voices and instruments are is due to the accuracy of the Carbon-Graphene midrange driver. Hitting highs has great clarity and no harshness, while control of the tweeter directivity means the sound will always follow through in a coherent manner within a room. The Tower 8 justifies its tall stature by easily handling the sensitive and dynamic passages that come with orchestral pieces as well as extremely energetic rock tracks.
Monitor 8 and Bookshelf 8: Excellent Sound in Compacts
The Monitor 8 and Bookshelf 8 are almost cousins of the Tower 8 but deliver their performances in smaller sizes. They are targeted at an audiophile who wants full-range performance but cannot accept the size of a floor-standing speaker. The Bookshelf 8 is an ideal fit for accommodation where space proves to be a limiting factor.
Both of the speakers maintain the same 3-way layout of the Tower 8. The Monitor 8 features two 8-inch woofers, whereas the Bookshelf 8 is fitted with a solitary 8-inch woofer. Incredibly for speakers this size, both of these speakers display impressive bass extension that extends down to 25Hz on the Monitor 8 and out to 30Hz on the Bookshelf 8.
These are midrange and treble performance that are the same as the Tower 8. In other words, both show exactly the same kind of clarity, detail, and dynamics for mid and high frequency. A top choice for anyone desiring high-end sound but does not want to use large speakers on the floor, the Monitor 8 and Bookshelf 8 are the best options.
Slim 8: Versatile and Space-Saving
The 1528 Slim 8 is the most versatile in the line-up; it’s a surround or height speaker for a home theatre setup. Designed to be wall-mounted, with an impressively slim profile, and fit in places in which larger speakers mightn’t make practical sense to place, the 1528 Slim 8 brings home-theatre-quality sound to rooms that didn’t previously exist.
Though smaller, the Slim 8 still sounds superior. This is because of its identical use of the 28mm tweeter and 5-inch midrange driver used in other 1528 Series speakers. It doesn’t offer quite as much extended low-end as either the Tower 8 or Monitor 8, but it does provide very solid, balanced, detailed sound without overpowering levels, making it work very nicely for surround or height channels in a multi-channel audio system.
Center+ 8 and Center 8: Best Dialogue Clarity
The 1528 Center+ 8 and Center 8 are at the top most list of the home cinema enthusiasts. Both of the center speakers are focused on being clear and articulate in providing dialogue so that the weak voices would not get drowned by the background noises.
However, it has four 8-inch woofers in the larger Center+ 8, while the Center 8 offers just two 8-inch woofers. Both models retain the same Carbon-Graphene midrange driver and Lithium-Magnesium tweeter of the rest of the 1528 Series speakers to ensure uniform sonic signature for the entire system.
The decoupled front baffle design helps time-align the drivers for better phase coherence and improved clarity, especially for dialogue-heavy content such as movies and TV shows. With everything from blockbuster action flicks to quiet drama, the Center+ 8 and Center 8 can ensure every word is clear.
Amplification Requirements: Powering the 1528 Series
Even though the 1528 Series can produce very great sound performance, there is an important note to set down here, and that is that these speakers are power gluttons. Although its sensitivity rating falls a little below that of the 1723 THX Series, the 1528 Series will need a powerful amplifier to achieve fullness in its sound.
While for the Tower 8, rated at 1,000 watts, a very minimum of an amplifier of at least 200 to 300 watts per channel would suffice in order to ensure proper headroom. Similarly, for Monitor 8 and Bookshelf 8 the amplifiers shall ensure 150 to 200 watts per channel.
For audiophiles who will want to have better performance, the speakers should be bi-amped or bi-wired. It enables both high and low-frequency drivers to be powered separately, thereby improving dynamics and clarity as well as providing control.
Conclusion: Overall it Was the Pinnacle of High-End Audio
The Arendal 1528 Series is the absolute statement in high-end audio to provide cutting-edge driver technology, perfect build quality, and overall sound performance that stands up to the best speakers in the world. Whether for the stereo system with reference grade or for the home theatre sound enthusiast, the 1528 Series has something for you.
With prices to $2,900 and $9,500, the 1528 Series is certainly targeting serious audiophiles who’ll pay for the best. Still, for those who can afford it, these speakers represent a new standard for what’s possible in high-end audio.
