This merely isn’t a facelift to somewhat generate new attention for the brand, but a radical advancement of the technology used in the "old" Epoque Fine model. Oliver Goebel reported that he completely redesigned the bending wave transducer, which to me is the very heart of the loudspeaker: Optimized motor units ensure an improved linearity as well as an enhanced loss and distortion behavior, a better thermal management and a higher maximum power rating. He stated that he improved the coupling of the membrane and the flow design of the rear basket, thus increasing the loss-free operation of the driver. However, this also required an outright re-tuning of the membrane’s resonance behavior. Subsequently, he had to adapt the Thiele-Small parameters of the woofers to the changed behavior of the bending wave driver, causing all moving parts such as the centering, voice coil carrier and surround to be reworked to optimize the loss behavior.

The enclosure has undergone major changes as well: The plinth hosting the crossover has been completely redesigned, but despite being a bit too voluminous for my taste, it’s jam-packed with components instead and therefore not to be made smaller. A different material and more bracings are used for a better resonance control. In order to enhance the visual quality of the new Epoque Aeon series, only high-quality, genuine polyester piano lacquer is used. Even the stainless steel feet designed for optimal coupling to the floor are now in-house made featuring silicon nitride ceramic balls. The filter slopes and qualities have been changed in the course of adapting the crossover to the further improved bending wave and bass drivers. The quality of the components has once again been improved. In the plinth of the Aeon are now to be found Mundorf Supreme Silver-Gold-Oil- and Duelund Silver-Bypass-capacitors as well as Duelund resistors.