Richter launches Harlequin S6
Australia’s Richter has had to overcome COVID-19 delays and disruption to complete its Series 6 family, the new Harlequin S6 finally cleared for travel and ready for its Australian launch.
The Harlequin S6 is Richter’s affordable floorstander, plugging the gap between the Merlin S6 bookshelf models and the larger Wizard S6 floorstanders (reviewed last issue). And Richter promises a level of build and sound quality well above what the price of $1899 suggest. The rear-ported 2-way bass reflex cabinet houses the company’s new low-distortion soft-dome tweeter partnered with an also newly-developed lightweight but extremely stiff paper-coated 6½-inch (165mm) mid/bass driver.
“The tweeter has its resonance well below 900Hz and the desired phase characteristics of a gently-inclined soundpressure-level frequency response to over 30kHz,” says Richter’s Brian Rodgers.
The quoted frequency response for the Series 6 Harlequins is 31Hz to 30kHz at -6dB, with their nominal impedance being six ohms with a minimum of 4.6 ohms. The development of the new proprietary drivers also allowed designer Dr Martin Gosnell to take a new crossover design approach, focusing on a new minimal design using high-quality acoustic polypropylene caps, air cored and ferrite-core inductors.”
The cabinets are 90cm high and just 22cm wide, with a depth of 29cm. Being such a slim tower floorstanding design Richter is shipping the new Harlequins with its S6H speaker stabilisers included. These add 4cm to the height but more importantly 8cm to the width of the base, designed to avoid the ‘tip issue’ of sideways and forward instability, which is common with many tall narrow speaker designs; the stabilisers also improve acoustic performance, says the company. Both metal spikes with floor-positioning discs and rubber spikes are included. These outrigging stabilisers normally sell separately for $249.
As for the sound, Richter promises four big Es — an “Exciting Engaging Entertainment Experience to make you want to start digging through your favourites”, says Richter. More info: www.richter.com.au