Kabuki FANTOM | vikingacoustics

Kabuki

FANTOM

Bass-Horn Loudspeaker

Accurate, Flexible, Powerful, Limitless.

Our Newest Statement Horn loudspeaker...Might best be described as: Mid-Century Danish modern, meets Japanese audio Avant-Garde: add to this, Viking Acoustic's proven acoustic innovations and you have Kabuki FANTOM.

Each and every angle and corner is purposely designed to recreate a live performance in the right scale with the right energy (dynamics), tone and wide-bandwidth...We set out to make another game-changing loudspeaker whilst strictly Not following the status-quo.

Kabuki FANTOM is a large speaker but of the "right" proportions and an interesting audio form to look at from any angle. Fantom will fit into even modest sized listening rooms. The driver placement is optimized for a realistic sound stage; where the players are the right size and scale.

The bass-horn's five drivers are physically and electrically aligned for the best possible coherence and timing. The ribbon super tweeter is loaded within the mouth of the bass-horn on an internal baffle shielded from any bass turbulence and is furthest away from the listening position. At the rear of the large horn is a second solid wood baffle with a by-pass port to the internal resonating damper.

January 2020

SPECIFICATIONS:

Driver Compliment: 5-way true bass-horn design

13" sub-bass driver with 26 pound ceramic magnet (at bottom, vents through top horn)

10" wide-band mid-woofer (at center, vents through top horn)

2.25" midrange to low-tweeter dome

1.25" high frequency dome tweeter

Hidden ribbon super tweeter mounted within the mouth of the top horn (not visible)

Cross-over: First order 6db with 1K frequency overlap

Cabinets: made of void free ply from Finland, joints with wood dowels and hardwood internal bracing.

Horn extension blades fully adjustable and fold back for shipping and or moving and come in two sizes 5.5" and 7.5" (7.5" shown)

Cabinet colors: Near-Black "Just-off-white" Kabuki red, or custom colour.

Semi-active tone-wood baffles: Solid wood (front and back) and horn extensions blades in clear maple, American cherry, and Claro walnut

Internal resonator/damper with rear by-pass port

Binding posts

4 way low-mass tellurium copper

Internal wire: 18awg solid-core copper in cotton dielectric + silver solder (upgrade possible)

Sensitivity: 94.5 db

Impedance: 6 Ohms

Bandwidth:

18 Hz - 40kHz

Recommended Power:

20-100 tube watts per channel

100+ transistor watts per channel

Dimensions:

64.25"H 28"W 26"D

Weight:

118 LBS each

Kabuki FANTOM

David's First Impressions:

My love affair with the original Kabuki runs deep with many fans and sales in many different Countries... The look to me was what I had imagined: a Japanese motif but nothing like what we called a "Kabuki speaker" back in the 1970's which was a dowdy 5-7 way speaker box and a little bit morose.

The original Viking Acoustics Kabuki was very good..though I was never as happy with the sound as the reviewers and customers.. the sound was really good but wanted more and less.. More mid-bass snap less cabinet resonance, wider stage and better coherence (imaging).

The Kabuki Fantom delivers on all counts and bass-heads will be thrilled. My test prototype we played with Viking's Maestro 40 integrated with 40 watts pc and a modded CD deck.

Test music went from subtle acoustic jazz, jazz vocals, some rock and techno, and big, monster classical pieces including one of my favorites: Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini". The sound of Fantom is a bit of an adventure! There really is No limit to it's capabilities: fill a large room with the biggest music ever recorded to subtle female vocals... Dead accurate, flexible, powerful.... Kabuki Fantom...Very happy am I.

Clayton's take.

January 24th 2020

Other than David I've spent the most time with Gottenburg which to me is an untouchable peer-less sound reproducer and possibly the only loudspeaker on earth that can play at concert level full range with such few watts which include deep bass. I've heard several horn speakers which claim over 100db efficiency which had nearly no bass whatsoever so the SPL spec is really not correct and I have the testing gear to prove it!. Fantom is close to Gottenburg unreal, surreal, high def black magic. I was never a horn guy but now I'm only a horn guy. Fantom ..out of words well it's a little wicked a little sinister and I love it.

Kabuki FANTOM 5-way design with optimized time phase alignment. Hidden ribbon super tweeter in mouth of the horn vent at top, massive sub-woofer at the bottom. Both mid and sub woofer vent out of the top of the horn along with the super tweeter.

Rear baffle with by-pass port to internal resonating damper

Kabuki FANTOM's Horn Blades are fully adjustable for near-field far-field and wide-field listening positions as well as different room sizes/configurations and completely fold back for moving or shipping.