Scandinavian Audio Labs 08C08 matched drivers now available
The diyAudio Store is the exclusive distributor in the USA for Scandinavian Audio Labs products. The SAL 08C08 drivers are now available for purchase on this page: SAL 08C08 drivers.
Mark Cronander talks about how this came to pass (no pun intended!)...
I first saw the Scandinavian Audio Labs full range speakers at the 2015 Burning Amp Festival when I popped in for a listen at the Pass DIY rooms. Instead of huge open baffles as usual there were just a couple of bookshelf-sized speakers, each with a single attractive driver.
Nelson Pass explained: “Some guy in Denmark sent me a pair of full range drivers and they seemed very promising so I popped them in a couple of speaker cabinets from Parts Express, and brought them. They’re quite special.”
Those SAL speakers were just excellent! All the advantages of a full range driver, with coherent tone and imaging, but the top end wasn’t annoyingly bright like many of this type of driver. They also had surprising bass due to decent Xmax. Efficiency and excursion don’t usually go together but these were rated as having about 94dB at 2.83V which is pretty impressive.
Of course I Immediately wanted a pair, and figured if I got some boxes like Nelson’s, I could start listening to them right away instead of spending months building speaker cabinets and complicated crossovers. Almost immediate gratification
But further investigation showed that there wasn’t a way to get them. So we solved that by becoming the exclusive USA distributor and stocking them in the diyAudio Store. Since they are carefully made by hand in Denmark by Scandinavian Audio Labs, production takes time. They will probably sell out quickly, but we have access to all the production so there should availability within a few months to those on the waiting list.
I plan to see later how they might sound in open baffles, with a bass driver for just the deepest stuff when Nelson Pass delivers his promised design for that in the future, Or check out this review from Dick Olsher, including an open baffle crossover design and construction plans he’s already developed:
Either design should be incredible!