French speaker manufacturer Cabasse has launched its first fully digital system, L’Océan, with 2,250 watts of digital amplification per channel.

Cabasse L’Ocean system

The €80,000 L’Océan, is the result of a collaboration between Cabasse and parent company Canon and marks the latest in the Artis speaker range of loudspeakers. It uses the TC23 23cm three-way coaxial drive unit from the flagship La Sphére, together with a new 38cm honeycomb dome diaphragm woofer along with Canon’s digital signal processing technology.

Digital amplification for the drivers is in the base of each speaker, with 250 watts on offer for the tweeter, 500 watts each for the two midrange drivers and 1,000 watts for the woofer. It’s connected to the preamplifier and CRCS (Cabasse Room Compensation System) controller via optical SPDIF. This unit is fitted with 96kHz digital and analogue inputs, with all analogue signals being digitised before signal processing.

Each loudspeaker is fitted with a phase linear digital filter, which optimises the frequency response using variable cross-over slopes (up to 94dB per octave) and a time alignment system.

L’Ocean is expected to go on sale in spring 2011.