The ZX Series is the latest in a long line of distinguished and revered Mission loudspeakers and joins more recent Award-winning products. The ZX series represents the most technologically advanced loudspeakers in the Mission family, with a distinct ID that will complement the finest electronics and décor.
Mission ZX incorporates purpose-designed bass driver cones, precision engineered motor systems, advanced treble units and more.
ZX-1
ZX-2
ZX-3
ZX-4
ZX-5
ZX-C1
ZX-C2
Music leads, Technology Follows
With the aid of sophisticated modelling tools and software, we’ve been able to maximise the performance of the series using the most modern technology available. Yet Mission’s slogan, ‘Music leads, Technology Follows’, has never been more apt. Ultimately although it’s possible to design a loudspeaker that measures badly, but still sounds good to most.
It tends to be very room dependent and that is not our way. Great sound and good measurements keep us very happy. – Whichever Mission ZX speaker you select, you’ll want to explore your whole music collection all over again.
Mission’s Ring Dome treble unit overcomes the problems inherent in conventional domes. With this technology, the centre of the dome is fixed and the voice coil attached part of the way across the dome. The dome is formed into two rings, with the voice coil in the centre so that it can drive the dome more accurately and efficiently.
The result is lower distortion and superior performance, at frequencies up to 30 kHz and beyond. Transient performance is dramatically improved, as is musical detailing, particularly of instrument overtones and harmonics.
RING DOME TREBLE UNIT
DRIVING MUSIC HOME
Some years ago, Mission pioneered DiaDrive bass/midrange drive units, where the usual cone and dust cap arrangement is replaced by a seamless curvilinear diaphragm. This is directly driven by a secondary sub-cone connected to the voice coil, improving the efficiency of drive and providing superior control of the diaphragm.
Mission has steadily improved DiaDrive since pioneering the design, culminating in its ultimate form in the ZX Series. The seamless diaphragm is made from an advanced aluminium matrix, while the subcone is vented to remove trapped air behind, thus reducing resonance and improving midrange clarity.
DRIVER INVERSION FOR MUSICAL IMMERSION
There are two sizes of DiaDrive units in the ZX Series – one with a 130cm diaphragm used throughout the range, the other with a 165mm diaphragm reserved for the bass drivers in the largest floorstander, the ZX-5. In the case of the ZX-1 compact standmount model, the DiaDrive unit is positioned according to Mission’s Inverted Driver Geometry (IDG) – the bass/mid driver is sited above the treble unit rather than below, to aid time-alignment.
This unusual arrangement has been a Mission trademark since the 1980s. Placing the bass/mid driver closer to ear level with the treble unit positioned beneath helps to equalise the path lengths from the two drivers’ acoustic centres, so that the sound waves coincide at the listener’s head height.
The other stereo models, from the ZX-2 to the ZX-5, extend IDG to a full D’Appolito array, siting the treble unit between a pair of DiaDrive units – one above, one below. The ZX-2 and ZX-3 are configured as two-way speakers, with both DiaDrive units covering bass and midrange. The ZX-4 and ZX-5 add additional bass drivers in a three-way configuration, with separate drivers dedicated to low and midrange frequencies.
While focus is often placed on the design of a speaker’s drive units, not every manufacturer fully addresses the critical importance of the crossover network. This filters the audio signal and directs different frequencies to the correct drive unit, thus ensuring the drivers work in perfect harmony. The best crossovers are simple in terms of signal path but sophisticated in their circuit design; Mission’s IDG configuration aids this design by ensuring the path lengths from bass/mid and treble units is partially equalised by the time the transients from each driver arrive at the listener’s ears.
Months of testing was undertaken to deliver crossover networks of the highest quality to compliment the ZX Series’ driver configurations, starting with technical measurements in Mission’s state-of-the-art anechoic chamber and ending with fine tuning of each crossover component by ear, using a wide variety of musical styles and sources. The result is seamless integration between the drive units, so that the speaker behaves as a single, coherent music-making system.