Ara Be
2-way Bookshelf speaker with SATORI® Beryllium tweeters
2-way Bookshelf speaker with SATORI® Beryllium tweeters
The little one that retired a customer's danish flagship bookshelf speakers. We're not naming names, but he hasn't looked back.
The Ara Be takes the same Danish engineering obsession from the Rinjani — slanted baffle, faceted edges, isolated internal chambers — and shrinks it into a bookshelf that fits on an actual shelf. The TW29BN beryllium tweeter is the same unit used in the floorstanders. No cost-cutting, no compromise, no "bookshelf-grade" version. You get the tweeter that reviewers keep calling the best in the world, sitting above a 6½" Egyptian Papyrus midwoofer in a cabinet smaller than most people's shoebox collection.
AV2Day's reviewer expected the beryllium to sound bright and harsh. It didn't. Extended, smooth, zero fatigue. That's what happens when beryllium is done properly — you hear the music, not the metal.
What's Inside
Tweeter — Satori TW29BN, 29mm beryllium dome. Same driver, same performance as the floorstanders. Breakup past 38 kHz. Transparent enough that you'll hear the difference between your good recordings and your terrible ones.
Midwoofer — Satori MW16P-4, 6½" Egyptian Papyrus cone. Proprietary natural-fibre blend, manufactured in-house. Low damping rubber surround for transient speed. Sits in its own isolated chamber — the tweeter gets a separate one — so neither driver's backwave contaminates the other.
Cabinet — 18mm MDF, slanted 7 degrees for time alignment. Faceted top edges to break up diffraction. Wedge-shaped internal partition kills standing waves. Rear-firing port tuned to 36.5 Hz. Piano gloss finish that photographs well and sounds better.
Crossover — 2300 Hz, pre-assembled. Gold-plated WBT-style binding posts. Plug in, sit down, stop overthinking it.
Advanced High End SATORI® Beryllium tweeter, paired with our unique Egyptian Papyrus midwoofers
Elegantly inclined cabinet for time alignment
Faceted baffle and optimized tweeter position for reduced diffraction
Slanted internal partition for reduced standing waves
Large low noise rear firing vent
Gold-plated WBT-style binding posts
Frequency range: 45-30000 Hz +/-3dB
Sensitivity ( 2.83V/1m ): 87 dB
Nominal impedance: 4 Ω
Max SPL: 105 dB
Recommended amplifier: 40-150 W
Cross-over frequency: 2300 Hz
Enclosure type: Bass reflex
Port tuning frequency: 36.5 Hz
Driver units: SATORI TW29BN & 6 ½” SATORI MW16P-4
Cabinet material: 18 mm MDF
Dimension (HxWxD): 391 x 190 x 388 mm
Net weight: 9.6 kg
"I was quite surprised that the tweeter which has a beryllium dome did not sound bright or hard. I have heard other beryllium dome tweeters that sounded bright, hard and even metallic. Indeed, the SB Acoustics’ treble sounded extended and smooth without any touch of harshness." - AV2Day.com
Two isolated internal chambers — one for the midwoofer, one for the tweeter — so backwave energy from one driver doesn't colour the other. The slanted construction isn't aesthetic indulgence; it time-aligns the drivers without needing the crossover to compensate. Less crossover complexity means fewer components between your amplifier and the music.
SB Acoustics was formed to bring an alternative to the high-end transducer market. Marrying the design talents of Danesian Audio (Denmark), a company filled with industry veterans, responsible for many well known and revolutionary designs, and manufacturing expert Sinar Baja Electric (Indonesia), a vertically integrated company with more than 40 years of transducer manufacturing experience.
Artisan Acoustics was founded with a passion for high-end High-fidelity audio in Singapore, and now distributes SB Acoustics products in Asia (Malaysia) outside of Indonesia. Here at AA, we want to bring the masses to enjoy, and appreciate the art of music and audio, and the amazing engineering that goes behind audio systems.