audel Nika mkIII – From the wood of the aristocracy…

audel Nika mkIII is the name of the latest creation from the Italian loudspeaker manufacturer audel. Extremely compact in dimensions, designed as a coaxial full-range system, it presents itself with a truly unique design.

It is always astonishing to discover such different biographies when you take a closer look at the people behind a company in the hi-fi industry. In fact, a very colourful picture emerges, as is the case with the company that develops and manufactures its solutions in Casteldaccia, a small town on the Mediterranean island of Sicily, namely the loudspeaker manufacturer audel.

audel, this company was founded in 2008 by Walter Carzan, who is still the owner, but above all the designer of the brand. Walter Carzan is actually an architect, but his professional career also led him into areas where design was the focus, specifically industrial design, with a focus on wood processing. With the founding of audel, he succeeded in combining his passions for music and industrial design in a congenial way. The declared aim of his company was and is to realise the finest handcrafted products with a unique aesthetic appeal and outstanding sound.

Admittedly, one would not expect to find such a company in Sicily, but here Walter Carzan succeeded in finding not only the right environment but also the right people to implement his ideas.

audel pursues the goal of developing solutions that appear as design objects, but at the same time can be classified as high-end hi-fi from an acoustic point of view. The latest product from Sicily, the audel Nika mkIII, is a perfect example of this.

The new audel Nika mkIII follows a concept that was first presented in 2011 as audel Nika, it is a very compact loudspeaker system that can be clearly described as a so-called shelf loudspeaker. A full-range driver and a very special construction of the cabinet are used here.

This does not only refer to the choice of materials, but also to the design of the cabinet, but a very important factor is actually to be found in the interior, in the form of milled grooves deliberately placed at special points and a bass reflex channel that is long in relation to the compact dimensions and which emerges directly from the baffle below the driver.

As we have already mentioned, one of the outstanding features of all audel loudspeaker systems, and thus also of the new audel Nika mkIII, is that a very special wooden construction is used here, modelled on audel’s flagship model, the audel Symphonika Prestige. The developers of the new audel Nika mkIII rely on a cabinet made of elegantly curved birch wood glued in several layers, a so-called multiplex construction. This forms the frame of the loudspeaker construction and, as described above, has elaborate milled grooves on the inside to suppress resonances and standing waves that damage the sound. In connection with the multi-directional bass reflex channel, the manufacturer speaks of a labyrinth, and in the case of the audel Nika mkIII even of a full-range labyrinth loudspeaker.

On the outside, the wood surface has been polished and refined with beeswax alone. The virtues that are used in the exclusive construction of furniture woods have been applied here.

This is also evident in the baffle of the new audel Nika mkIII, where very special woods are used.

This is called luxurious briar or briar walnut finish, and is therefore the wood of the aristocracy, as it used to be called. It is the wood that is still used today for exclusive furniture, sometimes for pipes or in earlier years for gun stocks. The grain is quite unique, especially as it has been polished by hand and finished with shellac, creating a unique contrast with the much lighter birch multiplex of the case.

This contrast is also reflected in the actual drivers, where the frame is in matt black, as is the Santoprene surround, while the diaphragm is beige, with an aluminium/magnesium dome in the centre.

From a purely technical point of view, the audel Nika mkIII is capable of reproducing a frequency range between 60 Hz and 20 kHz, with a nominal impedance of 8 ohms and an efficiency of 87 dB. This means that it is designed for amplifiers with a power output of between 10 and 75 watts.

The audel Nika mkIII measures only 132 mm in height, 210 mm in depth and 198 mm in width and thus weighs 3.5 kg per pair.

It should be emphasised that the audel Nika mkIII is delivered without the usual loudspeaker grill, which can be purchased as an option for € 129.

As an optional accessory, the matching absorber base is available, which is very elaborately constructed and therefore in no way comparable to conventional stands, especially since this is not a floor-standing but a shelf speaker. In this respect, the price of € 399 is very attractive and should be taken into account for an optimal set-up. The speaker systems themselves are priced at € 1,299.

Getting to the point

audel pursues the goal of developing solutions that appear as design objects, but which at the same time can be classified as high-end hi-fi from an acoustic point of view. The latest product from Sicily, the audel Nika mkIII, is a particularly elegant bookshelf loudspeaker system that uses fine, high-quality woods and is designed as a so-called full-range labyrinth loudspeaker.