Standing 1.2m tall, the cabinet is supplied with a strong stylish painted MDF plinth to support its 50kg weight and spread its footprint for improved stability and mechanical decoupling. Fully adjustable turned aluminium and steel spiked feet can raise or lower the speaker to tilt or adjust the level. To ensure the lowest colouration, the cabinet and bracing have been optimised, following accelerometer measurements and listening tests.

Separate bass, mid-range and crossover sections of the cabinet are hermetically sealed and allow the crossover to be located in a convenient section at the bottom of the cabinet, accessed via the large ventilated terminal panel on the bottom rear with a letter box opening in the plinth. All drive units are separately wired to the crossover section, using custom Epos solid core wire.

The bass enclosure has a volume of 43 litres. Two 220mm woofers are bass reflex loaded by one large diameter 90mm port positioned midway between the woofers and flared at both ends to minimise port turbulence and harmonic distortion. The height and spacing of the woofers has been calculated to minimise ‘floor bounce’ cancellation, optimise bass output and ensure a smooth bass-mid transition in room. The mid-range unit is in its own braced 8 litre sealed box enclosure.

The 2 x 220 mm woofers and 158 mm mid-range cones are made from a Kevlar/carbon fibre/pulp mixture to combine high rigidity with good inherent damping and all feature concave dust caps coupled tightly to the cone. They each incorporate a shorting copper ring in the magnetic circuit to reduce and linearise inductance and therefore reduce harmonic and inter-modulation distortions at high sound pressure levels. The two woofer cones couple acoustically at low frequencies and are port loaded for extremely high power handling.

The tweeter is a specially developed version of the Epos Mi tweeter with anodised aluminium dome, Kapton voice coil former, braided lead out wires and Ferro-fluid damping. The centre pole is damped under the dome and vented into a contoured, felt filled rear chamber to damp the fundamental resonance frequency.

The crossover design of the Encore 50 allows the user unparalleled flexibility to compensate for individual room acoustics without compromising sound quality in any way. The tonal balance may be increased or decreased by 1dB steps by means of hard wire links connected by a plug board on the crossover PCB, accessed through the aperture in the bottom of the speaker and plinth. The passive crossovers use a mixture of Epos custom polypropylene and bypassed non-polarised electrolytic capacitors, air-core inductors, laminated steel core inductors and metal oxide resistors.

The high sensitivity mid-range is attenuated by a tapped auto transformer which doubles as the high pass crossover inductor. The tweeter network also has a variable attenuation via metal oxide resistors. The maximum sensitivity treble position bypasses all attenuation. Passive components are mounted on a high quality glass fibre PCB which is mechanically isolated from the cabinet.

The crossover PCB’s are designed to be completely or partially by passed to enable the user to configure the speaker in passive or active mode. This ongoing development for future user upgrade is currently being undertaken by Epos in conjunction with Creek Audio ensuring the Epos Encore 50 loudspeaker of unparalleled flexibility.