Cinema LTM

Gallery

In the room.
In detail.

Cinema LTM in private rooms, at shows and up close. Select an image to enlarge it.

05 · Sound in the room

Wide where you sit.
Controlled in height.

Horizontally, Cinema LTM opens up across the seating area, so listeners beside the centre hear a similar tonal balance. Vertically, it concentrates its energy around ear height and sends less towards floor and ceiling.

Less sound reaching floor and ceiling means fewer late copies laid over the direct sound. A voice keeps its edge, and the reverberation in the recording stands apart from that of your room. That is the headphone quality: the recording close and intact, at the scale of the room.

06 · One integrated source

Many drivers.
One voice.

Here is why so many drivers sound like one.

“I found it completely satisfying despite the fact that I’m not always into big array transducers.”
Marc Phillips, Part-Time Audiophile

Each loudspeaker carries thirty-two tweeters and fourteen midwoofers. The passive crossover gives each driver its own weighted share of the signal, so their contributions add up along the listening axis and hold back above and below it. What reaches you is one wavefront from one calm source.

Because many drivers share the work, none has to strain, so fine detail and physical energy arrive together.

07 · The right tool

Three ways to fill a large room.

Every loudspeaker has to decide what to do with the room. In a large room, five metres and more from the loudspeakers, that is no longer a question of taste. It is physics, and it can be measured.

Multi-way point sources

A compact multi-way loudspeaker radiates almost as freely upwards and downwards as towards you, and its direct sound falls by 6 dB with every doubling of distance, following the inverse-square law. Close to it, the direct sound dominates.

Move further away, and the energy returned by floor, ceiling and walls grows in relation to it. Every reflection arrives a few milliseconds late and lays itself over the direct sound: what reaches you breaks up into reinforcements and cancellations that change with every seat and every listening height. The further you sit, the stronger that effect, and a large room puts its listeners far away.

Keele measured this in 2016, comparing a high-quality three-way studio monitor with a CBT line array over a reflective floor, at distances up to three metres. The monitor showed a deep floor-bounce notch and rough, uneven responses across distance and height; the CBT array stayed far more even. That was at three metres. Neither brand nor price changes that geometry.

We build compact two-way loudspeakers ourselves. In a living room, at three metres, they are the right tool. In a large room, at five metres and more, a point source is the wrong one.

Large dipole panels

A large planar or electrostatic panel is, acoustically, a straight dipole line: driven uniformly over its height, with no shading and no curving. In Keele’s comparison of seven line-array types, the unshaded straight line came last. A panel adds a rear wave to that. The consequences are not a matter of opinion. They follow from the geometry, and they can be measured:

• Lobing and beaming. Without shading, the line throws strong vertical side lobes, and its treble narrows into a beam. Tonal balance changes with distance and with the height of your ears.
• The rear wave. Equal energy, opposite polarity, sent towards the wall behind. Depending on placement it returns late and overlays the direct sound: comb filtering, smeared timing, an image that depends on the distance to the wall.
• Bass cancellation. At low frequencies, front and rear wave cancel each other. Bass that stays is bought with large surfaces, separate woofers or equalisation.

Part of what is heard as air and openness is the room answering late. At five-figure prices, a loudspeaker should not ask you to accept its errors as character.

The Cinema LTM approach

Cinema LTM solves the large-room problem at the source. Its passive array is broad across the seats and controlled in height, so floor and ceiling receive less energy, and the direct sound keeps its lead over the room further back than a point source can. Its sealed enclosures send no out-of-phase rear wave. And because many drivers share the work, scale does not run into the limits of a single diaphragm.

In short

The right tool for the right job. For a large room, the job is clear: keep the recording ahead of the room, at every seat, at every level. That is what Cinema LTM is built for: the closeness of headphones, at the physical scale of a large room.

08 · Mechanical engineering

Built to stay still.

Precision in the air needs stillness in the structure. The front is a 12 mm cast polymer plate, chosen for stability and low resonance. Every driver is mounted from the rear, clamped, and reinforced with CNC-milled aluminium brackets.

The main cabinet is machined from a 120 mm block of laminated beech: 93 layers pressed into one dense, stable material. Midwoofers and tweeters work in separate sealed chambers, and the crossovers are mounted with vibration isolation.

The structure carries the drivers and stays out of the music.

09 · Passive system

Passive. Documented.
Open to inspection.

Cinema LTM is a fully passive three-way loudspeaker. Array behaviour, filtering and driver integration are developed as one system. The array needs no processing to establish its behaviour; a dedicated bass section gives music and cinema their physical foundation.

Read the Cinema LTM datasheet ↗
Read the design statement ↗

12 · Questions and answers

Questions we are asked.

Short, direct answers to the questions people ask before they listen.

What is the Credo Cinema LTM?

Cinema LTM is a fully passive three-way line-source loudspeaker by Credo Audio Switzerland, designed and built in Switzerland for large listening rooms, private cinemas and reference stereo systems. Each loudspeaker stands 187 cm tall with a 27 cm wide front and carries thirty-two 22 mm soft-dome tweeters and fourteen 4-inch midwoofers, with a dedicated bass section as its foundation. Its aim is the closeness and detail of headphones at the physical scale of a large room.

Which loudspeaker suits a large room where I sit five metres or more away?

In a large room, a loudspeaker has to keep its direct sound ahead of the reflections from floor, ceiling and walls. A compact multi-way point source loses 6 dB with every doubling of distance and radiates almost as freely towards floor and ceiling as towards the listener, so the further away you sit, the more the room shapes what you hear.

Cinema LTM is a line source with controlled vertical radiation. Within its near field, which for a line of its height reaches several metres from the midrange upwards, its direct sound falls by around 3 dB per doubling of distance instead of 6, and floor and ceiling receive less energy across the midrange and treble. It was designed for exactly this situation. For smaller rooms and listening distances of around three metres, Credo also builds compact two-way loudspeakers.

How does Cinema LTM compare with large planar or electrostatic panel loudspeakers?

A large planar or electrostatic panel is, acoustically, an unshaded straight dipole line: driven uniformly over its height, without shading or curving, and radiating a rear wave of opposite polarity. In D. B. Keele’s comparison of seven line-array types (AES, 2010), the unshaded straight line ranked last; it produces strong vertical side lobes, and its treble narrows into a beam. Depending on placement, the rear wave returns from the wall behind and overlays the direct sound, and at low frequencies front and rear wave cancel each other.

Cinema LTM shapes its vertical radiation with passive shading and delay-curving, and its sealed enclosures have no open rear.

Is Cinema LTM a CBT (constant beamwidth transducer) loudspeaker?

No. Cinema LTM is not a copy of D. B. Keele’s CBT designs, but it builds on the published research behind them: Legendre-based shading weights each driver’s contribution along the array to suppress side lobes, and delay-curving shapes the vertical coverage of the straight array. In Cinema LTM both are implemented passively, as part of a three-way system developed by Credo.

Does Cinema LTM need DSP or digital processing?

No. Cinema LTM is a fully passive loudspeaker. Shading, delay-curving and driver integration are built into its proprietary passive crossover, which uses Mundorf CFC air-core coils and MCap Supreme EVO capacitors. The array needs no processing to establish its directivity, and it is driven by power amplifiers like any passive loudspeaker.

Does Cinema LTM work in rooms with glass, stone and concrete, without acoustic treatment?

Cinema LTM was designed for such rooms. Because it sends far less energy towards floor and ceiling than a loudspeaker that radiates in all directions, its clarity depends much less on acoustic panels, curtains or rugs. In a 35 × 40 ft (about 11 × 12 m) space without acoustic treatment, the in-room response measured ±2.75 dB from 30 Hz to 10 kHz at the listening position, with ⅓-octave smoothing, as documented in a published setup report. Every room is still planned individually.

Can several people listen at the same time?

Yes. Horizontally, Cinema LTM radiates broadly and evenly, so listeners across a seating area hear a similar tonal balance, which suits rows of seats in a private cinema and open living spaces. As with any stereo system, the most precise stereo image remains at the centre.

Does Cinema LTM sound good at low volume?

Yes, that is one of its design goals. Because the work is shared across many small drivers and the direct sound stays ahead of the room’s reflections, dialogue stays clear and the inner voices of an ensemble remain readable at late-evening levels. At high levels, the same principle keeps instruments in place and stops the sound from hardening.

What have reviewers said about Cinema LTM?

Cinema LTM received Best Sound of Show at AXPONA 2024 from Stuart Smith of HiFi Pig. Michael Lavorgna of Twittering Machines reviewed a complete Cinema LTM system with EMM Labs electronics and wrote that it “provides as clear-eyed a view onto the sonic proceedings as I’ve ever heard.” Jason Victor Serinus of Stereophile described “the midrange beauty” of a singer’s voice and an “awesome” soundstage at a show with EMM Labs, Meitner Audio and VPI.

How is Cinema LTM built?

The main cabinet is machined from a 120 mm block of laminated beech made of 93 pressed layers. The front is a 12 mm cast polymer plate, chosen for stability and low resonance. Every driver is mounted from the rear, clamped and reinforced with CNC-milled aluminium brackets. Midwoofers and tweeters work in separate sealed chambers, and the crossovers are mounted with vibration isolation.

Where can I hear Cinema LTM?

Demonstrations are arranged directly with Credo Audio Switzerland. For listening rooms, private cinemas and architectural projects, Credo plans the system with you, including positions, sightlines and integration into the design. Contact: credo-audio.ch/contact.