After appearances at hi-fi shows last year, Epos’ imposing Encore 50 flagship loudspeaker has finally entered production and will go on sale in early February at £5,000.

Making up the bulk of the 50kgs of the imposing 1.2m cabinet are the composite birch-plywood external panels and the plywood bracing employed to increase the rigidity of the midrange and bass enclosures. These upper hermetically sealed sections house a 158mm midrange unit and a pair of 220mm reflex-loaded woofers, all with Kevlar-paper pulp cones. At the base of the enclosure is a third section, which contains the user-adjustable crossover, hardwired with solid-core cable to the drivers, including the 25mm tweeter with its anodised aluminium dome and a pole piece venting into a felt-lined enclosure.

In traditional Epos fashion, the crossover design is simplified by the natural roll-offs of the individual drive units. Uniquely for the company, however, the tweeter and midrange output can be altered in 1.5dB steps to optimise the in-room response. The crossover components include polypropylene capacitors, air-core inductors, metal oxide resistors, and a tapped autotransformer for the midrange driver. As if that wasn’t enough, the crossovers can be bypassed to allow active operation via a custom DAC with programmable digital crossover, which Epos will make available at a later date.

With a sensitivity of 89dB, a power handling limit of 500watts, and heatsinking where required on crossover resistors, the Encore 50 is clearly intended to reproduce very high SPLs.

Look out for an exclusive review in a forthcoming issue of Hi-Fi Choice!