Coincident Speaker Technology
A very special Canadian high-end audio company!

  For many years Enjoy the Music.com has been reviewing gear from Coincident Speaker Technology. The company was founded and is operated by Israel Blume in 1993 for the sole purpose of creating a superior loudspeaker. Being dissatisfied with every loudspeaker he had ever owned or listened to, Israel Blume decided to manufacturer speakers for those seeking high-end performance. Blume put his over twenty five years of audio and music experience to work to conceptualize a loudspeaker that would reproduce music with no obvious or distracting perversions. He understood quite well the inherent limitations of various designs and thus began designing a new loudspeaker combining the best sonic attributes of cones and electrostatics. A daunting task to say the least! The first loudspeaker designed by Blume was the Concentric Monitor and its companion subwoofer, the Super Bass Monitor.

What made this speaker unique was its cylindrical enclosure. Unlike conventional cabinets, the Monitor was constructed out of computer cut MDF concentric rings. The advantages of this design was that its structural strength was typically 15 times greater than a prism shaped enclosure and furthermore rigidity was equal at all points. The fact that the enclosure was round also meant that internal standing waves were dramatically reduced. The Monitor also used the finest tweeter and woofer and in keeping with Israel Blume's philosophy, the crossover was very pure and simple using only the finest tested components. While his first creation received acclaim from reviewers, there were three factors Israel Blume felt he had to address before he could find acceptance in the marketplace with his dream speaker. Firstly, it had to more accessible aesthetically (which many felt the cylindrical enclosure was not), secondly it had to be less expensive to build (the Monitor was exceptionally labor intensive) and finally the speaker had to able to be driven by single ended tube amplifiers (which the Monitor could not).

Coincident Reference Room

The result of two years of design work culminated in the development of the Troubador speaker. Using extensive computer modeling, Blume was able to duplicate the sonic properties of a cylindrical enclosure but with the use of non-paralleled flat plane walls. The most significant advantage of this type of enclosure is the elimination of internal standing. In a further attempt to eliminate the sonic contamination of loudspeaker enclosures, Blume uses enclosure tuning techniques. Instead of using resonant enclosure materials and then attempt futilely to damp them out, all Coincident enclosures are constructed from inherently non resonant materials that need no damping. The enclosures are then tuned to a high fundamental resonant frequency that is sonically undetectable.

The culmination of this arduous, painstaking journey has yielded a series of loudspeakers that offer unprecedented performance in each price category. From the Triumph Extreme to the Pure Reference Extreme, Coincident speakers sound better and are better constructed than competing designs at the same price.

Designer Israel Blume has recently realized his goal of building a true reference speaker that encompasses the entire criterion he initially enumerated. That speaker is named the Pure Reference Extreme. This speaker is the most musically authentic loudspeaker from the company and is capable of reproducing the musical signal fed with very high accuracy. Naturally this lead to more development work as amplification driving his speakers was also very critical for accurate music reproduction.

Electronics
Coincident began designing and building amplifiers in 2001 with the introduction of the MP 300B SET mono blocks and the MIP 300B integrated version of the MP 300B. Both were highly acclaimed and offered build quality and performance unmatched by any other. An intense R & D program and countless hours of aural evaluation lead to the company’s breakthrough M300B Frankenstein amplifiers in 2005. The design goal of the Frankensteins was to manufacture the finest amplifier in the world which meant it had to be a single ended 300B design. The fact that most commercially available loudspeakers were not able to be driven by the purest, low powered amplifiers was of no concern since all Coincident models were ideally suited to this mode of amplification and some other well designed speakers were as well. The Frankensteins were designed and manufactured with no cost restraints. The goal was simple -- it had to be the purest, most transparent, neutral amplifying device in existence. While the goal was simple, the realization of it was not. It took Blume over three years of intense research and development, numerous prototypes and literally thousands of hours of auditioning before the dream was achieved. The M300B Frankenstein amplifiers may sell for a relatively modest price but there is no competing amplifier that is better constructed or compares sonically at any price.

Enter The Dragons
While Blume freely acknowledge that the Frankenstein amplification offered the company’s purest sonic reproduction available, Coincident felt there was a need for a high power amplifier that was capable of driving any speaker no matter how difficult a load. However, not only must this amplifier be so capable it had to come as close to the sonic purity of our reference Frankensteins as possible. The result is the Dragons. They are constructed exactly as the Frankensteins using the same components, circuit philosophy and state-of-the-art construction but instead of being single ended triode it uses a pair of high powered 211 DHT tubes operating in push-pull mode. To approach the sound of the Frankensteins yet offer "unlimited drive ability", the Dragons had to use DHT output tubes in push-pull. The driver tube had to be DHT as well and none better than the 300B. The end result is claimed to be an amplifier that sounds like a 500 watt brute yet with 95% of the Frankenstein's finesse.

Preamplifiers
While there is no shortage of line stages available, Israel Blume felt that absolute transparency of the best passive units operating was his design goal. Because of this, Coincident recommended the avoidance of active line stages whenever possible. Thus the company set out to overcome the deficiencies of existing active preamplifiers because of what they felt were inherent advantages of these designs. The Statement Line Stage involves a new way of thinking of preamplification design. Blume felt that existing circuit topologies have proven to be inadequate whether they were solid-state or tube based. A completely new paradigm had to be created. At the heart of this new design was the 101D directly heated triode tube. It has been recognized as the most linear amplifying devise ever made.

To fully exploit the inherent superiority of the 101D, Blume knew it would take a state-of-the-art design utilizing only the finest components executed to the highest standards. After years of research and experimentation, the Statement Line Stage was born. The unit, outside of the tubes, is all transformer coupled, from the input, volume control and right through to the output. There are no capacitors in the signal path and the power supply is huge (41 lbs). The end result is a line stage that is almost noiseless, not prone to hum and passes the musical signal with virtually no perversion. For the company it represented a sonic breakthrough since it combined the best qualities of passive designs with the inherent advantages of an active preamplifier.

The Coincident Sound
Mr. Blume is often asked, "What do Coincident Speakers sound like?" Their answer, "We try our hardest to make them sound like nothing. The theoretically perfect audio component would sound like nothing. It would simply transmit the signal it is being fed with no alteration, enhancement, subtraction or distortion. Our goal with all Coincident models is for them to pass as much musical information with the least possible coloration. Coincident speakers do not editorialize or attempt to glamorize the sound.

For example, there is no intentional boosting of the midbass to provide the illusion of more bass, nor the rolling off of the high frequencies to make the resultant sonics more pleasing. Coincident Speakers are designed to be as musically accurate as possible. We attempt to create an open window on the musical event, with nothing interfering between the music and the listener. Consequently, Coincident Speakers are very revealing of the musical source, the room in which they are placed and the ancillary components used. It must be emphasized that high resolution does not connote low musicality. On the contrary, the better a component is at revealing the information it is sent, the more accurate and by definition, the more natural it will be since it will closer approximate the live music listening experience." Coincident Speaker Technology is proud to still state that unlike the majority of current speaker companies (i.e. Revel, Aerial, Von Schweikert, Red Rose etc.) all its speaker models are designed and completely manufactured in Canada.

More Details About Coincident Speaker Technology
All the crossovers are meticulously hand soldered in Canada, matched to within 1% tolerances using the finest Canadian and American components. Coincident does not use poor quality overseas-sourced crossovers that are pre-built and cost a couple of dollars. The price of one capacitor used in a Coincident speaker crossover exceeds the cost of these entire crossovers that are finding their way into very expensive competing speakers.

All internal wiring is manufactured in Canada using American 6N copper. Only the finest Canadian dielectrics like polypropylene and air Teflon are used. Coincident Speaker Technology’s wire is very expensive to manufacture and labor intensive to terminate. There is no use of off shore cables that Blume feels are sonically inferior and costs only a few pennies.

All Coincident speaker enclosures are meticulously CNC and hand crafted at their facilities in Canada. Only the highest quality Canadian made hardwood MDF is used, all wrapped with furniture grade cherry wood veneer that is carefully pressure applied on both sides of the board. Coincident chose to build their enclosures in Canada to ensure high quality.

All the drivers of Coincident speakers are sourced from only state-of-the-art manufacturers such as Scan-Speak, Vifa and SEAS. Coincident does not use any knock-offs cheaply manufactured drive units that are copies of the above noted brands. Only the very best drivers sourced from the finest manufacturers are chosen.

Coincident Speaker Technology is committed to providing the high-end audiophiles with the finest value components in the world. Coincident, therefore, will never sacrifice quality. No detail is considered too trivial if it enhances the sonics or build quality of their products. "Coincident will never offer an inferior product in pursuit of greater profits" says the owner Israel Blume.

Israel Blume continues by saying "Coincident components exist for only one purpose: to provide the discerning music lover with the finest sounding, best built products that above all else, enhances the musical experience."

Company Information
Coincident Speaker Technology
19 Strauss Road
Thornhill
Ontario, Canada L4J 8Z6

Voice: (905) 660-0800
Fax. (905) 660-1114
E-mail: iblume@coincidentspeaker.com
Website: www.CoincidentSpeaker.com