“Tikandi” is an indigenous Australian word meaning “live”. It has been chosen because we believe this loudspeaker, processor and amplifier system will, given the appropriate sources, enable you to enjoy live music in your home – like being there!
To achieve this level of “liveness” and “like being there” involved the cooperation of two of Australia’s most innovative audio companies, DEQX and Legend Acoustics. Both have a passion for live music and a deep understanding of high fidelity design that comes from long experience and comprehensive knowledge of the physics, engineering, electronics and Digital Signal Processing involved. Thus the Tikandi is designed from the ground up to integrate amplifiers and speakers through the DEQX processors to produce unparalleled fidelity to music as it was recorded.
The full Tikandi system comprises:
- A stereo pair of Legend 3-way loudspeakers in which each driver has been chosen from the world’s best.
- Each high quality driver is connected to its own amplifier leading to greater control and speed of response.
- DEQX’s patented preamp/correction processors that precisely calculate the compensation required for each loudspeaker driver as well as correcting for non-linearities in your room’s response.
Each loudspeaker consists of two modules allowing each cabinet to be tailored to their respective drivers and reduce their interaction. The modules are a truncated pyramid with non-parallel walls to diminish standing waves within the cabinets. This configuration – aided by the extremely solid construction – further reduces the transmission of bass vibrations into the upper mid-treble cabinet.
The lower base module has two 10-inch bass drivers which have almost 1-inch of excursion capability providing bass down to a low 20 Hz. The drivers are located in opposing faces of the cabinet in a bipolar configuration. essentially cancelling cabinet reaction forces; while the heavily-braced and constrained-layer damped cabinet minimises panel vibration as well as providing an extremely stable support for the upper module.
The top module houses the very low-distortion midrange and tweeter drivers. The midrange cone is made from an anodized Al/Mg alloy diaphragm that is extraordinarily light yet exceptionally strong and therefore able to achieve very low distortion across its full operating range. The tweeter’s ultra-strong Be dome together with its multi-magnet voice-coil system achieves equally low distortion.
To provide the direct amplification to each of these 6 drivers required for DEQX-HD’s active implementation there are a number of options including:
- using a multi-channel amp such as by Parasound, Myriad and others.
- using 3 pairs of stereo amps, including your existing amps.
- Legend providing 6 channels of Hypex Ncore amplification, either built-in or attached at the speaker back.
Because the drivers are of such high quality and are connected directly to their respective amplifiers, and not through an (inevitably to some extent) energy sapping and distorting passive crossover, the quality of the amplifiers makes an even more noticeable difference to the final sound quality than with conventional loudspeakers. You might even use different power amps for bass, midrange & treble to optimise cost and performance.
The final key to Tikandi’s unprecedented performance is DEQX’s processors that provides preamp, 3-way active linear-phase crossovers, speaker correction for each driver, room correction and user defined EQ presets. The processors almost eliminate errors in phase, timing and frequency-response – the Achilles heel of conventional ‘passive’ loudspeaker designs – to help produce the ultimate in acoustic reality.
By providing steep linear-phase crossovers, the processor virtually eliminates crossover distortion as well as excessive midrange and tweeter driver excursion, allowing higher and less congested output levels. Simultaneously, the inevitable remaining errors of each driver are precisely measured & compensated by DEQX’s patented, low-latency, inverse FIR filtering, producing almost unprecedented accuracy of plus/minus 0.5dB, compared to the typical high-end speaker performance of plus/minus 3dB accuracy.
The DEQX processor preamp also allows you to measure and correct your room’s acoustic problems including bass frequency resonance. Uncorrected, these resonances result in unnatural bass tonal balance and mask psycho-acoustically our ability to hear detail across the full spectrum.
In addition, the processor’s remote control provides post-DAC analogue output volume control plus switching between 4 inputs, 2 analog and 2 digital, eliminating the need for a pre-amplifier. Please see DEQX for more information. All that’s needed to complete the system are sources of similar high quality.
Notwithstanding its ground breaking technology producing unprecedented accuracy and low distortion, the Tikandis have been designed by people at Legend & DEQX obsessed with musical enjoyment. After listening to a wide range of music, we believe that the name “Tikandi” is entirely appropriate – these speakers arouse the emotional response of “like being at a live performance”.
USA mastering engineer Jim Wilson’s views of the Tikandis are here and here while USA reviews are here and here.
