RMAF 2015: Muraudio, Sound in the Round

Muraudio was a completely new name to me at this year’s Rocky Mountain show, but I was pulled in to the room due to some truly beautiful midrange.

Much like the MBL speakers that use 360 degree radiating drivers, Muraudio has an interesting twist on the approach – curved electrostatic panels, arrayed in an omnidirectional manner. As Muraudio likes to say, “a sweet spot for everyone.” The ESL panels use 3.8 micron thick sheets of mylar, which leads to a super-light panel resulting in very fast response and precision in both the midrange and high frequency regions. Muraudio arrays these long, curved panels in a full circle, for a total of 5,000cm of total surface area. The resulting sound was quite full and rich, and very coherent top to bottom. The 360-degree panels sit around ear level on the top half of the tower.

Muraudio complements the midrange and high-frequency reproduction with a base cabinet stuffed with 250cm aluminum woofers, which give some nice oomph for a very solid low-end foundation. These three woofers are arranged in a sort of triangular configuration, with a radiation pattern much like the ESL panels above, designed to extend out to each corner of the listening space, like a pebble creating waves in a pond. Powerful waves.

Build-quality looked very solid. The woofer enclosure is cast from aircraft-grade aluminum, and the crown and feet are milled from solid aluminum. Paint is applied to a high level of gloss via an 18-step process. It’s an oddly beautiful shape, when all is said and done. Muraudio interestingly offers both a passive version of the speaker, as well as an amplified Class D amplified one with 24 bit DSP processing.

As for specifications, the frequency range extends from 20hz to 22khz and impedence is a nominal 8 ohms, 2 ohms minimum at 20khz. Both passive and active versions use a Linkwitz-Reilly crossover at 450hz.

But the quality of sound from such fine ESL panels is really wonderful. The sound is very enveloping … very present, you might say. It had a natural flow but could also really rock out on a couple of tracks I heard. It’s really great to see ESL technology that has been around for a while being used in new and innovative ways.

Muraudio Domain Omni PX1 speakers: $63,000

Simaudio