Castle has introduced two bookshelf speakers Duke and Earl

27/03/202327/03/2023 hifinext.com 53 Views Castle

The English acoustic company, which is now a subsidiary of the Chinese IAG, has been absent from the market for over a decade introduced two bookshelf speakers at once, Duke and Earl. Both models in the Windsor series are made in the UK, specifically in Huntington, in a factory spanning over 800 square meters.

Both speakers were designed by Karl-Heinz Fink, an acoustics designer, and his FinkTeam. Fink previously created the Richmond 3i speakers for Castle several decades ago and more recently contributed to the construction of Wharfedale Diamond 12 speakers.

For the Castle Duke and Earl models, Fink’s team used low-to-midrange polypropylene composite diffusers. Strips of this material are woven in a specific pattern, pressed at a high temperature, and formed into the required shape. This technology creates a construction with variable stiffness that is evenly distributed around the circle and excellent anti-resonant properties. The Earl’s bass driver measures 16.5 cm, while the Duke’s measures 20 cm.

The Windsor series’ overall tweeter is also impressive, consisting of a 28mm polyester dome. The system employs a set of assembled ferrite magnets, and the tweeter’s resonance frequency is below the fourth-order Linkwitz-Riley crossover frequency of 800 Hz, which was created using air-core inductors.

All of this is housed in double-layer MDF cabinets with a thin layer of special adhesive between them for added stiffness. For additional rigidity in critical locations, the cabinets are fitted with “point-to-point” braces. The speakers are finished with hand-polished veneers made of walnut or redwood.

In the UK, the Castle Duke and Earl bookshelf speakers in the Windsor series cost £4,500 and £3,850 per pair, respectively. Duke’s branded stands cost an additional £500, while Earl’s cost an additional £400.