Dougan Ref. A — by BV Audio
A slim floorstander, one metre tall on a quarter-metre of floor, built around a 30 mm ShtormStone face that carries every driver. Twin 182 mm units share the bass; the music rises to the same tweeter, in the same cast waveguide, as the Ref. K — so the two speakers share a voice. Thirty-four kilograms each. One person, one staircase, no drama.
The design story ↓ Request an auditionFront elevation, to scale, from the working drawings.
01The same conviction
Every loudspeaker has a problem it cannot escape: the drivers are bolted to the panel that is supposed to stay still. On the Ref. A we solved it the same way we solved it on the Ref. K — the front of the speaker is cast ShtormStone, our own granite-and-quartz composite, and every driver is mounted to it on metal inserts bonded into the stone.
The face is 30 mm thick rather than the Ref. K's 40, because the drivers are smaller and the forces are smaller — and 30 mm of stone on a cabinet this size is already far beyond anything a plywood front could do. Eleven kilograms of the speaker's thirty-four is this one panel. Tap it with a knuckle and you get a dull click with nothing behind it. That is what the drivers are mounted to.
“A third of the speaker's weight is the one panel that must not move.”
A 30 mm ShtormStone baffle — about 11 kg02Modelled first
The Ref. A was modelled before it was drawn, the same way as the Ref. K: AI-assisted analysis as a fast, patient engineering partner, every part simulated, questioned and revised before any material was cut. The brief was a speaker for apartments and smaller rooms, so the footprint was fixed early — a quarter of a metre wide, a third deep — and the mathematics worked inside it.
That footprint rules out a big woofer. It does not rule out big bass: two 182 mm drivers moving together have the cone area of a single ten-inch unit, and the cabinet is sized for both. Above the lower midrange the lower driver quietly steps aside, leaving one driver to meet the tweeter. The bass gets the output of two drivers; the midrange keeps the focus of one. That is what a two-and-a-half-way is — and on a narrow cabinet the second driver also gives back the low end that a slim front gives away, without the crossover having to bend anything to compensate.
Just under 50 litres, tuned to 36 Hz through one 75 mm front port: bass to 39 Hz at −3 dB and 33 Hz at −6 dB, with no hump on the way. The flat, conservative alignment behaves near a wall, and the port stays well below the air speed where you could hear it breathing.
The face falls away to the walls through a soft curve: 20 mm wide at the foot, where only long bass waves live, widening to 60 mm at the tweeter and across the top, where a sharp edge would be audible. One continuous surface, defined as a single mathematical sheet and cast in one piece.
The tweeter sits recessed, and the stone continues where its faceplate ends, out to a 180 × 160 mm mouth — the same waveguide as the Ref. K. At the 2 kHz crossover it spreads the treble through the same angle as the driver below, so nothing changes character as you move about the room.
The mouth is cast into the baffle as a wide flare below the drivers, and the tube behind it is set to length on each finished, measured cabinet. A front port lets the speaker stand close to a wall; the flare keeps it quiet.
The modelling is a design aid, and we describe it as that. The final voicing is done the old way, with microphones, in a room, by ear.
03Cast, not cut
The Ref. A's face is made exactly the way the Ref. K's is. The whole front — sculpted edges, driver recesses, waveguide and port flare — is cast as one piece in a mould taken from a hand-finished master, from stone that has been washed, dried and surface-treated so the resin bonds to every grain. It cures for days, is ground back wet until the granite shows, and is sealed in clear polyurethane. What goes into the mould, and exactly how, is ours.
The stone is then drawn onto the birch body on a flexible bond rather than a rigid glue. Stone and wood move differently with the seasons, and the joint absorbs what they disagree about — and it partly uncouples the baffle from the box, a small acoustic bonus we were happy to take. Every fixing lands in a metal insert bonded into the stone. Nothing here loosens, ever.
The body
21 mm Baltic birch plywood, CNC cut, every joint a machined rabbet or dado so the box goes together square. Two window braces break the long walls into short, quiet spans; the tweeter seals its own chamber; the whole cabinet works as a single volume for the two bass drivers. The plinth — wider and deeper than the cabinet, on spikes — unbolts for transport. One pair of terminals. One amplifier. No ceremony.
04At home
The Ref. A was drawn for apartments. Its port fires forward, so a wall behind it is a neighbour, not a problem. Its tweeter sits 895 mm above the floor — seated ear height for most listeners in most chairs — and the waveguide makes it forgiving of where you sit. A little toe-in is all the setup it asks for.
It is deliberately easy to drive: about 95 dB sensitivity into a steady 4-ohm load. A good 30-watt amplifier will run it properly; it will take 150. In the lowest octave it reaches about 109 dB at one metre before the bass drivers run out of travel — more than an apartment will ever ask — with the amplifier delivering barely 60 watts at that point. The speaker spends its life well inside its limits, which is exactly where music sounds effortless.
One honest note: below its tuning, any vented speaker stops holding its cones, so we specify a subsonic filter around 18 Hz — many amplifiers and streamers provide one, and we will gladly check yours. With it, the full 150-watt programme rating applies. Without it, records with rumble ask only for common sense.
05Family
The Ref. K is a three-way with a 275 mm woofer in its own chamber, a midrange in a stone egg and a 25-kilogram face, and it weighs 85 kg. The Ref. A keeps what gives the Ref. K its voice — the tweeter, the waveguide and the stone face — and simplifies everything else. It gives up the bottom half-octave and a few decibels of headroom. In return it stands on a quarter-metre of floor, runs from one amplifier, and weighs 34 kg against the Ref. K's 85.
| Configuration | Ref. K: three-way, bi-amp ready · Ref. A: two-and-a-half-way, one amplifier |
| Stone face | Ref. K: 40 mm, about 25 kg · Ref. A: 30 mm, about 11 kg |
| Bass reach | Ref. K: about 31 Hz · Ref. A: about 39 Hz |
| Weight | Ref. K: about 85 kg · Ref. A: about 34 kg |
| The room | Ref. K: rooms with room to listen · Ref. A: apartments and smaller rooms |
| Price | Ref. K: 800,000 ₽ per pair · Ref. A: 200,000 ₽ per pair |
06Specifications
| Type | Two-and-a-half-way floorstanding loudspeaker, vented, single internal volume |
| Drivers | Two 182 mm bass-midrange units — both carry the bass, the upper one alone above about 350 Hz — and a 30 mm dome tweeter in a cast waveguide extension |
| Baffle | 30 mm cast ShtormStone, one piece, about 11 kg, sculpted edges flowing into the waveguide |
| Face finish | Dark grey terrazzo, wet-ground and polished, clear two-pack polyurethane |
| Body | 21 mm birch plywood, CNC cut, machined rabbets and dados, two window braces |
| Crossover | Passive, one board, tweeter crossed at 2 kHz with fourth-order acoustic slopes, directivity matched through the waveguide |
| Bass tuning | Just under 50 litres, 36 Hz, one 75 mm front port with a cast 107 mm flare |
| Bass extension | 39 Hz at −3 dB, 33 Hz at −6 dB, no bass hump |
| Sensitivity | About 95 dB, 2.83 V at 1 m |
| Impedance | 4 ohm nominal |
| Power | 80 W continuous, 150 W programme; amplifiers of 30–150 W into 4 ohm, subsonic filter around 18 Hz recommended |
| Dimensions | 1,000 mm high, 250 mm wide, 335 mm deep, on a 280 × 365 mm plinth with spikes |
| Weight | About 34 kg each |
| Production | Limited to 100 pairs per year, each pair individually numbered |
| Price | 200,000 ₽ per pair |
The Ref. A was designed on a simulation and finished the old way: the first pair measured, the port set to length on the real cabinet, the crossover voiced in a room, by ear. The figures on this page are from the finished speaker. The model got us close. The microphones took it home.
“We did not shrink the Ref. K. We asked what a smaller room actually needs — and built that, out of the same stone.”
Request an auditionOne hundred pairs a year, each pair numbered. Auditions by appointment — John Dougan, +7 903 220 0175
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