
In 1981, Marcel Rochet, a music teacher, passionate about music reproduction, filed a patent for an innovative way of getting rid of the radiation of a loudspeaker inside the cabinet, which is a major source of coloration (often more than the cabinet itself...) and also about a new type of load for the woofer, called double quarter wavelength transmission line.
The latest is certainly inspired by the resonator ideo of Joseph Leon, although the implementation is quite different.
You can see from the photo that the time alignment techniques of Elipson are also carried through to the Mulidine designs, including the fact that these two original models, the Clarine (right) and the Mandoline are made out of plaster.
Another interesting characteristic of these speakers is that their crossover is at 5KHz, my favourite...
It was a time when Bextrene membranes were the rage, as they were the new baby of KEF, and that's what is in the Mandoline, with I guess a dome tweeter from Audax.
Mulidine has survived to this day, and interestingly enough, was rescued from oblivion by a good friend of mine and ex-colleague from HP, Marc Fontaine. He is also a neighbour and good friend of Jullien from passion-elipson..
It is a labour of love, as Marc does everything from design to managing a few subcontractors (like the cabinetmaker in Alsace) to the final tuning and measurements (after all, this our trade, as we were selling test equipment at HP...). We are talking confidential levels of production, as it is like a limited edition of a work of art, numbered and signed by the artist! Prices are still kept at an affordable level for the customer.
These speakers have a great reputation for high efficiency, dynamics and timbre accuracy.
The current range consists of three models:Cadence, Allegretto (in its fourth revision) and Bagatelle (in its second iteration). There is also a professional monitor called Harmonie 2.
The only plaster left in the current model is the mechanical filter at the back of the midrange driver. It consists of a thick piece of plater with a multitude of conical tubes moulded in it, supposedly rejecting all frequencies coming back from the cabinet to the membrane lower than 20KHZ
The Allegretto and its ancestor, the Capricio (left) have a second chamber at the bottom acting as a resonator, the port is not quite visible, but is located behind the small panel just off the front baffle. You can see it at the front of the Cadence, in the center photo. On the right, a cut through the Cristal, which needs to be on a stand to clear the port at the bottom of the cabinet.