Italian loudspeaker maker Diapason has unveiled the Diapason Didascalìa, a new flagship for its Reference Collection: a floorstanding two-way design built by Alessandro Schiavi and Paolo Tezzon. The name comes from the ancient Greek word for teaching, and the two designers describe the project as a tribute to the so-called Italian school of electro-acoustic design — a two-way philosophy long prized for its purity and immediacy, but historically limited in soundstage size and low-frequency extension. Diapason Didascalìa keeps the two-way configuration while engineering around those two constraints.
Diapason Didascalìa’s Cabinet: Solid Walnut and CNC-Machined Aluminium
The Diapason Didascalìa’s outer wings are built from eight seasoned solid-walnut slats, cross-grained and jointed with a viscoelastic glue that lets the slats move independently; each slat is seasoned for months and vacuum-roasted before receiving a zero-gloss, open-pore water-based finish. A lacquered version replaces the solid wood with a three-layer HDF sandwich wrapped in tulipwood veneer and finished with eight hand-polished coats. CNC machining carves the wings from the inside to create a reflection-free loading volume for the drivers and gives the cabinet a constrained-layer-damping construction. The main body combines HDF with high-pressure multilayer Baltic birch, reinforced by internal ribs, while CNC-machined aluminium “damp-shelves” wrap the structure as an exoskeleton that collects and dissipates residual vibration.
In-House Drivers and an Electro-Mechanical Bass Brake
Diapason designed the Didascalìa’s drivers itself, with Scan Speak handling manufacturing. The 29 mm tweeter uses a hand-coated Kurt Mueller silk soft-dome diaphragm on a diffraction-optimised faceplate, a large neodymium magnet system and a non-resonant aluminium rear chamber. The 180 mm mid-woofer pairs an air-dried, hand-coated paper/nylon fibre-pulp cone with a six-magnet “Air Circ” neodymium system and copper rings that reduce non-linear and modulation distortion.
To extend bass response without abandoning the two-way layout, Diapason Didascalìa adds side-firing 220 x 260 mm racetrack-shaped passive radiators that share the mid-woofer’s loading volume. Despite being passive, the radiators carry their own magnet circuit, used purely as an electro-mechanical brake: a rear switch lets owners select between three different levels of diaphragm-excursion damping to match the speaker to the room, extending response below 40 Hz. A balanced, point-to-point hand-wired crossover with Jantzen C-Coil inductors and Mundorf Supreme EVO capacitors crosses over at 2,500 Hz, mounted in its own accessible sub-enclosure for future upgrades. An eco-leather-covered baffle mechanically time-aligns the tweeter and mid-woofer for an optimal listening distance from roughly two metres, while elastomer-suspended spikes decouple the cabinet from the floor.
Pricing and Availability
Diapason has not published pricing for the Diapason Didascalìa; as with much of the brand’s hand-built Reference Collection, interested buyers are directed to Diapason’s dealer network for a quote. The loudspeaker is available in solid walnut or black lacquer finishes, with delivery times set by the brand’s small-batch, hand-finished production process.
Diapason positions the Diapason Didascalìa as a statement piece rather than a volume product: every cabinet passes through months of seasoning and hand-polishing before assembly, and the crossover is deliberately housed in its own accessible sub-enclosure so the loudspeaker can be upgraded rather than replaced. For a brand built on the Italian two-way tradition, Diapason Didascalìa is presented as the clearest expression yet of that philosophy, scaled up without losing the immediacy the format is known for.
Key Specifications
- Type: floorstanding two-way, 4 drivers (tweeter, mid-woofer, 2 passive radiators)
- Tweeter: 29 mm silk soft dome, hand-coated, Diapason design / Scan Speak build
- Mid-woofer: 180 mm paper/nylon fibre-pulp cone, Air Circ neodymium magnet system
- Passive radiators: 220 x 260 mm racetrack, 3-position electro-mechanical damping brake
- Crossover: balanced, point-to-point hand-wired, 2,500 Hz, Jantzen and Mundorf components
- Frequency response: 35 Hz – 30,000 Hz
- Sensitivity: 90 dB SPL (2.83 V @ 1 m)
- Nominal impedance: 8 ohm
- Finishes: solid walnut or black lacquer
Diapason Didascalìa joins the brand’s existing Reference Collection alongside models such as the Diapason Àstera. Further information is available directly from Diapason.
