Castle History and Philosophy

Castle Acoustics has been a loudspeaker manufacturer in the truest possible sense since 1973, with both design and manufacture of their world famous speakers housed entirely in one factory.

Founded in Yorkshire on the 3rd of September, 1973 by William ‘Bill’ Escott (Formerly of Wharfedale) and John Collinson (Formerly of Wharfedale and QUAD), Castle Acoustic with a vision was to create a brand that is at one with acoustic performance, design and engineering – a breed of products with a perfect balance in form and function.


Taking its name and logo from the 11th-century Skipton Castle, the company was formed with the founding concept of being a complete loudspeaker manufacturer and being the first loudspeaker company to design and manufacture everything from drive units to laying handpicked veneers under one roof!

Innovation and Challenge

  • That is what made Castle unique among the burgeoning diversity of loudspeaker manufacturers in the ‘70s and ‘80s: their insistence on in-house design and manufacture of all the drive units and electronic components in their loudspeakers, as well as the beautifully handcrafted real wood-veneered cabinets used to enclose them.

    The Castle brand rose to popularity by introducing models such as the famous ‘Howard’, ‘Harlech’, and ‘Durham’. It later adapted new technologies to introduce home cinema products, featuring the same attention to detail as the two-channel models.

  • Despite a zero-to-hero success story from 1973 to the early 2000s, winning awards, disrupting conventional brand dominance and establishing itself as a top-tier British speaker brand, it is with no shame that the Castle brand found itself struggling to compete in a world of global supply chains and globalised manufacturing. A humble brand fighting global superpowers but remaining honourably true to its principles, the company, unfortunately, fell upon hard times.

Crafting a New Era

  • However, the Castle Acoustics brand was saved from oblivion by the IAG Group in 2007. As part of the IAG Group, with huge reinvestment, a pool of global talents, and its own large-scale R&D and manufacturing facilities, it was possible for the Castle brand to begin anew but also maintain the same vision and qualities while continuing its innovative engineering and impeccable craftsmanship.

  • Despite changing times and massively evolved market, customer and competitive environment, Castle maintains the same principle that helped forge is original existence.

    Throughout its history, it would be the rich cabinetry that makes a Castle loudspeaker so instantly recognisable.

Castle's Veneers

Even to this day, all of Castle's veneers are carefully selected by our team of experienced staff, some of whom have more than thirty years of expertise in selecting the right veneer for each application.

Veneer sections are glued to individual panels and then held under high pressure in purpose-built clamps for the glue to dry naturally over 48 hours. On completion, each cabinet is hand-sanded and varnished to perfection, with the quality and consistency of the finish checked every step of the way.

Each leaf of the veneer is selected by eye to suit the size of the cabinet, and each pair of the cabinet is manufactured in mirror-image-matched pairs, even the black ash ones.

Castle selects the finest crown cut quality veneers from around the world and, whenever possible, from properly managed forest resources.

Cabinet Construction

While our loudspeakers are visually stunning, the speaker cabinet plays an equal part in it's high performance sound.

Our engineers work hard to develop unique acoustic properties of the cabinets as well as the drivers themselves. In-house manufacturing gives us the major advantage of being able to develop cabinets and drivers in tandem and carry out fundamental research into the interactions between the drivers, crossovers, and the cabinet. Our integrated design approach gives us the further benefit that systems can avoid complex crossovers. It is widely understood that fewer high-quality components in a simple crossover network provide a cleaner sound.

Here, we can see an illustration of a Castle Knight speaker, which utilises a unique approach to transmission-line loudspeaker design. Using twin pipe technology and the cabinet's internal volume, bass response is extended, diminishing the need for unruly reflex ports.

In most loudspeaker designs, room modes are easily excited by forward or rear-facing ports, resulting in a ‘boomy’ sound. This twin-pipe system couples the bass response within the cabinet enclosure using a twin-pipe quarter-wave design for a smooth and even bass response.

That is what made Castle unique among theburgeoning diversity of loudspeaker manufacturers in the ‘70s and ‘80s: theirinsistence on in-house design and manufacture of all the drive units andelectronic components in their loudspeakers, as well as the beautifullyhandcrafted real wood-veneered cabinets used to enclose them.

Drive Units

The drive units form the heart of any speaker system, and their quality is key to its sonic capability. Our drivers are developed to the highest standards, often featuring new and innovative technology.

We have also designed our tweeters to match the sonic performance of our bass units and so to enhance all musical accuracy of all Castle loudspeakers. They offer extended and substantially flat response characteristics with very low distortion and are married with bass units through crossovers built with the highest quality components.

Most of the bass units in our range feature cones made from woven carbon fibre, a light yet exceptionally stiff material with good internal damping. Our voice coil formers have exceptional power handling ability, while we also use innovative magnet assemblies with the highest quality copper and aluminium wire.

This means a far more linear motion is maintained, improving accuracy and dynamics, while reducing distortion, the latter results in a reduction of the moving mass of the driver, a vital parameter in producing speakers capable of maximising the impact of modern source components and program material.

As is evident in each of our models from 1973 to this very day, Castle represents the best in loudspeaker quality, from superb hand-finished real wood veneered cabinets to state-of-the-art drivers. Each loudspeaker features the latest innovation in acoustic technology and materials, always with the aim of ‘no compromise’ sonic performance.