CHINON Legato CH-PS840 Handcrafted Passive Speaker Dock for iPhone

Using natural amplification, the Chinon Legato iPhone dock provides an intimate listening experience for discerning audiophiles who appreciate a truly elegant accessory. Handcrafted from ash hardwood, the Legato is sculpted to acoustic perfection to organically boost the volume of sound collected from the iPhone's speaker up to 6 decibels, perfect for background ambiance or listening in a relaxed setting. Ash was selected due to its stability and sonic performance. Graceful curves and swirling wood grains make the Legato an object of natural beauty.

Being a passive speaker the Legato uses no electricity. Instead, its highly refined resonance chamber channels sound waves through the horn where they're emitted as warm, full and detail-rich music with improved low and mid-high regions. This design serves to both amplify and equalize the sound to perfection. The Legato comes with an attachable base compatible with iPhone 4, 4S and 5, 5S, 5C, 6, 6+, 7 and 7+ models. An USB connector in the base permits re-charging of the iPhone while in use.

The Chinon Legato is one of the most unique, exciting new products for the Apple iPhone! Check out this new video that showcases its many mind-blowing capabilities. Remember: this is completely without electricity... all amplification is done through the natural wooden curves of the speaker itself.

Posted by Chinon Corporation on Monday, August 4, 2014

 

Read the review from eCoustics.com:

http://www.ecoustics.com/products/chinon-legato-iphone-audio-enhancer/

Read the review from Starkinsider.com

http://www.starkinsider.com/2013/12/audiophile-review-chinon-legato-iphone-speaker.html

 

 Features at a glance

  • Beautifully Handcrafted from Ash wood 
  • Play direct from your iPhone speaker
  • Built for intimate listening experience
  • Recharge your iPhone
  • Use as hands free stand
  • 1.5 meter USB cable included
  • Detachable docking to support iPhone 4, 4S
  • Compatible with iPhone 4, 4S, 5, 5S, 5C, 6, 6+, 7, 7+

 

The Legato Concept

iPhone Audio

While the Apple iPhone is widely regarded as one of the world’s premier smart phones, what is less known is that its speaker is  capable of reproducing excellent sound quality. However, although the speaker is very fast in transients and mid-region response, its small dimension weakens low frequency and mid-high response. In order to bring out the best of the iPhone’s audio – specifically for use as a “casual listening” device – a very old concept was employed in the Chinon Legato: a wooden horn “speaker” that increases and equalizes sound.

Development

The Chinon audio engineering team explored several different horn approaches, considering the length of the horn, the mouth to drive unit ratio, the compression chamber, and the flare of the horn mouth, plus many other factors. Various designs, such as tractrix horns and exponential horns, were tested. Eventually a combination of designs was incorporated into the Legato. Plastic audio horns have proven to be very disappointing and were never considered by Chinon. Metal horns provided good mid and high frequency but lacked the required improvements in the much-needed lows and mid lows. Finally, a wooden horn was selected because wood has particular characters in the mid-low and low regions, which is preferred by serious audiophiles. The only downside of wood is that, unlike metals, it can only be machined to a certain degree of tolerance. In order to maximize the performance of the Legato horn, every piece is handcrafted to overcome wood’s tolerance limitation. Ash hardwood was used due to its stable quality and excellent sonic performance. Technically, the Legato is designed to improve and increase the mid, mid-low and mid high region, namely from 150 Hertz to 8500 hertz with an amplification factor of 6db or more. These are important primary notes of musical instruments and human vocals. A precisely calculated horn path located under the iPhone speaker brings the sound wave to the horn where it propagates along the channel and to listeners as superior music.

FRAUD LOOK ALIKE WARNING:

In the past week, Chinon has been made aware of firms marketing fraudulent "look alike" Chinon Legato iPhone products. Although similar in appearance, these illegal "knock offs" do not have the precise engineering, manufacturing or components to create the audiophile-quality sound that has made the Legato one of the world's most innovative iPhone accessories. There are no legally available products that mimic the Legato's patented and copyrighted design. Chinon will not honor any warranty for non-Chinon Legato products. The Legato is only available from Chinon Group. Chinon Group is offering a reward to anyone coming forward with information concerning the marketing of fraudulent Chinon Legato iPhone accessories. Please email fraud_alert@chinonusa.com.