Floorstanding loudspeakers — Piega ACE 50

The ACE 50 is the three-way floorstanding speaker of Piega's Ace series, the most affordable aluminium-cabinet range from the Swiss manufacturer, developed at its factory on Lake Zurich. The Ace line replaced the TMicro series and draws on technology from Piega's Master, Coax and Premium ranges. Zurich designer Stephan Hürlemann created the oval cabinet shape, and the series also includes the Ace 30 and an Ace Center.

Key specs that matter

Piega fits one AMT-1 Air Motion Transformer tweeter, one 120 mm MDS midrange and two 120 mm MDS-B bass units. Frequency range is 45 Hz to 40 kHz, sensitivity is 90 dB/W/m and impedance is 4 ohms, with Piega recommending amplifiers of 20 W to 150 W. The tower stands 1040 mm high, 140 mm wide and 160 mm deep on a round base 250 mm in diameter, and it weighs 12 kg.

Engineering and use context

The AMT-1 is a ribbon-type tweeter with a large, very light folded membrane driven by a neodymium motor. Thanks to the folds, the membrane moves air with little excursion, and Piega, whose name means fold in Italian, uses this principle across its ranges. The 120 mm MDS drivers were reworked for long excursion, and the MDS-B bass version radiates almost twice the acoustic power of the drivers in the earlier TMicro models. The braced aluminium extrusion was developed specifically for this series and these drivers. Its oval profile shows no visible seams, angles or fixings, and aluminium achieves high stiffness with thin walls, which keeps the cabinet slim. A stabilising plate is screwed to a central pillar that raises the speaker about 30 mm above the floor, and the round base keeps the narrow tower steady. Multi-connectors take standard speaker cable. Every Ace model shares the same profile, so they look identical in cross-section. Finishes are silver aluminium with silver fabric, black anodised aluminium with black fabric, and white lacquer with white fabric.

Pairing

Any amplifier chosen for the ACE 50 should cope well with a 4 ohm nominal load, and it is intended for rooms of 15 to 25 m2. With the Ace Center and Ace 30 it forms a matched surround system, and because the AMT-1 and MDS drivers are common to the whole range, all channels have the same character of driver.

Alternatives

Piega's Coax 511 is a larger floorstander from the Coax series, using a coaxial ribbon driver.