Review samples provided by Dimex
Retail Prices:
6.050 euro per pair
Steel Paint option 160 RAL-colors 505 euro
Custom Textile 250 euro
Diptyque Background
The Diptyque company is born from the meeting between two men passionate about acoustics: Gilles Douziech and Eric Poix. From the first prototype made in 2001 as part of an exhibition of contemporary art, they experimented with materials, shapes, components, and assembly processes, to develop a high-end speaker in the service of musical emotion. As a result of their aesthetic and sound requirements, each Diptyque speaker is an artisanal handcrafted object. The loudspeakers are integrally manufactured in workshops in Montauban, the southwest of France.
Gilles Douziech and Eric Poix
Since his adolescence, Gilles Douziech is passionate about loudspeakers and high fidelity. At 19, during his studies of electronics, he decided to cross France to do an internship with Marcel Rochet, designer of Mulidine speakers. This passionate acoustician gave him fundamental notions about harmonic resonances and the design of distribution filters. Then, he continued his studies with an internship at the acoustic laboratory of the Toulouse University. Without ever ceasing to conceive loudspeakers, he realized a ten-year career in medical electronics in a hospital.
Gilles specializes in ultrasound and is trained by the largest companies: Hewlett Packard, Siemens, Philips, and General Electric. Then he chose a teaching career and at the same time created his first ribbon loudspeakers to broadcast his sound creations in the context of contemporary art exhibitions. His meeting with Eric Poix would prove to be crucial in developing the high-fidelity Diptyque Audio speakers.
As a lover of high-fidelity for more than 25 years, Eric Poix has never ceased to evolve his listening system, looking for great musicality without giving into fashions and tricks. His skills and know-how in mechanics and ironwork led him to create high-fidelity loudspeaker and electronics stands with great acoustic and aesthetic quality. Thanks to him, the Diptyque speakers are endowed with a very sophisticated mechanical structure that lends them extreme rigidity. The tension of the membrane is thus perfectly mastered, an essential point for the acoustic quality of these flat speakers.
Diptyque speakers are optionally available with custom textile covers
Sustainable and repairable
Diptyque speakers, with 5 years warranties, are made to last and give you a flawless listening pleasure over several decades. They are designed so that you can pass them on to your children to take advantage of this unique musicality. Diptyque speakers can be renovated at any time in our workshops.
Local artisanal production
Diptyque speakers are fully manufactured in Montauban, the southwest of France. The company masters the entire production line: the melting by digital control, stamping, welding of metal elements, and the manufacture of membranes and circuits. The partners for thermosetting paint and laser cutting of steel parts are local businesses.
The fight against waste
The best way to limit the impact of production is to minimize waste. Therefore, Diptyque reflects on optimizing the use of manufacturing materials. For instance, the timber leftovers from the speaker machining are used to make packaging elements. For all other waste related to the production, the company has set up rigorous selective sorting to give them a second life in recycling channels. The steel used for the speakers is 100% recyclable and the MDF Mediland® wood fibers are made from maritime pine from the southwest of France with classification E1: low formaldehyde content.
Upon delivery, I was surprised to find that both speakers as well as the stands were packed in a single 17 cm thick carton (124 x 67 cm).
Technology
Diptyque loudspeakers work according to the Magnetostatic principle, referred to by the company as Isodynamic Technology, which was developed in 1970 in the United States. Through numerous tests and experiments, the Diptyque has sought solutions to improve this technology and push back its limits, particularly for bass reproduction.
In their basic principle, Diptyque speakers work similarly as the speakers by Magnepan, Analysis Audio, Clarisys and long-gone Apogee Acoustics: a large tensioned planar membrane with aluminum traces suspended in front of a magnet array for the bass and a narrow foil (either a composite with aluminum traces or a pure aluminum ribbon) suspended on the top and bottom hanging freely between side-mounted magnets for the midrange and treble. But that’s where the similarities end. While all the aforementioned designs use ferrite magnets positioned only behind the woofer membrane, Diptyque employs large ferrite “
Diptyque’s “PPBM” Push-Pull Bipolar Magnet technique is an innovative patented architecture that uses large section bipolar magnets manufactured to specification, located at the front and rear of the 12µm thin Mylar membrane. This allows the membrane’s aluminum coil to remain in a constant magnetic field while it moves, allowing a much higher level of control than with a single-ended construction. In addition, the exact same type of diaphragm is used for both bass and treble in an effort to closely match the speed and dynamic behavior across the spectrum.
Like the bass panel, the Ribbon Tweeters are proprietary and made from mylar film with an aluminum coil on it. The tweeter ribbon moves in an intense magnetic field comprised of neodymium magnets positioned on the sides. A simple crossover (6 dB per octave) allows a perfect fusion of the registers, allowing the tweeters to operate over a wide frequency range and mate perfectly with the isodynamic woofers.
Diptyque speakers provide high reliability over time, they are not sensitive to dust or humidity and, unlike electrostatics, they do not have a high voltage circuit. And, importantly, they have a regular impedance (6 Ohms for the DP-107) that does not present a complex load to the amplifier.
Next: System Context, Preface, and Listening
Hi Christiaan ,
You are on the right track to try to test another pair of French brand loudspeakers, from the manufacturer Eric Buy, which are the AtlantisLab AT31! I really want you to have this experience !
Best Regards
Superb review, as always, and I hope this is an appetizer for the coming review of the Diptyque DP 160, which appears to be a real contender for best planar sound, besides great looks. My only concern about the line is their decision to use a short ribbon tweeter, with its typical vertical directionality.
Glad you like the review, Vladimir! I may indeed do more Diptyque reviews down the line, but nothing’s planned so far. The vertical dispersion is not an issue for me and it wouldn’t be any better if the tweeter was longer. It only starts helping when the tweeter actually extends above ear height when standing.
Hello Christiaan. Great review! I admire the quality of your listening reports.
Do you have any insight into the difference in sound signature between this Diptyque model and the Martin Logan ESL X, which are at about the same price level?
Thanks for the kind words:-) Between Martin Logan and pretty much any full-range dipole, there is always the matter of bass cabinet synergy versus bass volume. Please read the various Martin Logan reviews on this site to get the full picture but in short, Logans will outperform many full-range dipoles in terms of bass volume and punch while most full-range dipoles, the DP-107 included, will outperform any Logan in terms of coherence and uniformity.
where are these measurements of the slightly tilted output ?
Good review! My rom is 4,5×6 m. Will the 160 model be to big?
Regards Rolf
Hi Rolf, there’s no reason for the 160 to be too large for a room where the 107 works well. Basically, they are very similar designs with no changes in room behavior. All the 160 adds is more bass extension but I’m sure it won’t overwhelm the room.
Just a request – for us older folks who can have difficulty reading low-contrast text. Links in your pieces are orange – difficult to read for me. Also the test I am typing is also low contrast. I imagine you could maintain the fundamentals of your visual design even with some increased contrast. Thanks!
Hi Joe, I agree the orange links are not ideal. But when making the site, I tried all variables available to me within the software and I even added countless mods to the theme to improve things as much as possible. I tried other colors for the links but they all looked off to me. I also tried using the same color as the normal text but then you easily miss the links. Underlining, finally, is very distracting, especially with the number of links I use. Ultimately, I stuck with orange but made it as dark and saturated as I can for best readability without straying too much from the orange house color. At some point, the website will need an overhaul, something I am not looking forward to as it takes an absolutely huge amount of time and effort. But if and when I refresh the site, I will definitely have this on the list as one of the important aspects to improve.