Hong Kong-based Sota Acoustics and specialty driver manufacturer Markaudio today announced the U.S. launch of Markaudio-Sota , a “joint cooperation” between firms that design and build speakers for the audiophile market.

The new company is selling three models through its website with a free in-home 30-day trial period:

• Cesti B ($1,895/pair), a medium-sized, two-way bookshelf speaker that uses a billow waveguide baffle for “optimum dispersion” in smaller rooms. Finish options include black, red, or white lacquer.

• Viotti One ($2,995/pair) a two-way, stand-mount speaker sporting an Italian design and an enclosure made with laminated dual-core panels and polymers to provide maximum strength. Finish options include white with a black grille, all black, and black with wood side panels.

Cesti T ($3,495/pair), an expanded floorstanding version of the Cesti B with two midbass drivers to increase low frequency extension and dynamic range for larger rooms and the same billow waveguide baffle used in the Cesti B. Finish options include black, red, or white lacquer.

All models are designed by a “global team of experts in driver, crossover, and cabinet engineering” and use different combinations of a custom-designed 4.3-inch (Sota 11) wide-range midbass driver mounted in a ported cabinet with an acoustically isolated 2-inch (Sota 5) tweeter in place of a conventional cone-woofer and dome-tweeter combination. The cones of both drivers are made of a low mass, mixed alloy.

Instead of using off-the-shelf components that “aren't always a perfect match to their system design target,” the cabinets, crossovers, and speaker drivers of all Markaudio-Sota speakers are engineered in tandem.

The “all-range drivers” utilize a 2.4 kHz crossover frequency with gentle, 2nd order electrical and acoustic slopes gradually blend the acoustical output of the “symmetric wide-dispersion” drivers. “The result is a two-way loudspeaker without any obvious crossover transition, and a smooth, transparent, yet dynamic and natural musical response especially apparent in vocal reproduction,” according to the company.

“MarkAudio-SOTA started their dream team of designers when they recruited engineer Mark Fenlon of Markaudio, Ltd., a renowned manufacturer of loudspeaker drivers for the custom-build and OEM markets,” the company said. “They then integrated Dr. Scott Lindgren's technical box alignment and elegant crossover design to work seamlessly with Mark's custom dual drivers. These were all built into the elegant styling of Italian designer Andrea Ponti's cabinet concept for the Viotti One, and Ball Chan's designs for the Cesti B and Cesti Tower…”

For more information, visit markaudio-sota.us.