Floating Systems is a Belgian speaker manufacturer, known best for their hand made Floating Synthese “telephone horn” speakers. Speaker designer Ivan Schellekens and his speakers gained a lot of popularity in the eighties and the nineties and for the moment still have “cult status”. Typical about these speakers is the “floating tweeter” design, a decoupling of the tweeter from the bass unit and the cabinet to avoid vibration and achieve a more open and 3d stereo image. This “floating tweeter” design has always been further developed in new speaker designs with the Floating Synthese “telephone horn” as it’s quintessence. To achieve further reduction of vibrations the speaker cabinets have several sand-filled chambers.
As a follow-up to the other improvements in my setup, I wanted to get rid of those awfull custom retro speakers. To maintain balance between all components in my setup, I went looking for the Floating Two, a charming column speaker which for it’s modest second hand price (+- 300 euro) performed way beyond that budget. Finally I found my two units in The Netherlands.
When I got home with my “new” speakers I was in for a surprise. From the moment I hooked on these babies they sounded very nice, even with my rudimental cabling at that time. What struck me most was a kind of natural presentation I never before heard from any type of loudspeaker. Later I learned this was one of Floatings trademarks: Ivan Schellekens uses only one reference upon building his speakers: the real instrument. Furthermore music was presented in a clear and detailed form, with a nice balance in the frequency spectrum (low – mid – high), a beautiful stereo image with exact placement of the instruments in space, air between the instruments, and the whole presented in a very 3D/holographic way. This was another trademark of these loudspeakers, and is achieved especially thanks to the technique of seperating the mid/high speaker units from the bas unit. This so-called “floating tweeter” principal was further developed in the higher segment Floating loudspeakers. In the Floating Synthese the mid / high speaker units are literally floating in the space between the upper and lower part of the speaker cabinet.
Floating Synthese 2 loudspeakers with “floating tweeter” principal
At last I was going the right direction, at last my system started to sound decent. But there still was a long way to go. If you are interested in the rest of my hifi history, please click here to read more.
Technical specifications of the Floating Classic II loudspeaker:
System: two way bass reflex with floating tweeter design and sand-filled chambers
Sensitivity: 87 db
Impedance: 8 Ohm
Frequency response: 30 – 20.000 Hz
Crossover frequency: 3.000 Hz
Measurements: 95 x 21 x 24,50 (centimeters)
Weight: 19 kg
Power handling: 100 W, automatic, self-sustained protection circuit
Official website: http://www.floating-systems.be
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