advertisement


AVI DM10 - Active System

When most manufacturers talk about 'custom' OEM drivers they usually (pretty much always) mean a few extra/less turns on the voicoil or slightly different magnet etc. The Epos drivers were entirely unique, custom cast basket, custom cone, spider, magnet - everything. These days very few manufacturers genuinely make custom drivers and that is irrespective of cost.
 
In the pro-audio arena the big brands are able to custom design everything, e.g. a Genelec, Neumann, Event or whatever uses entirely bespoke drivers, amplifiers, and more importantly highly complex CAD designed cast metal cabinets. Economy of scale and all that. It is very hard for home audio companies to compete with that and you really need to be at the Tannoy, B&W, Spendor, Quad, Focal sort of level to do so with drivers, and even then there is little that deviates too far from conventional square-cut MDF boxes with holes in them. That's not to say there aren't a lot of compnies making great speakers from off-the-shelf or very lightly tweaked drivers. It has always been the way, e.g. look at how many real classics of the past used Kef or Audax units.
 
One of the few in-house designed drivers (arguably) is MarkaudioSOTA who source their drivers from Mark Audio. Mark Fenlon being the designer.
 
I've been very impressed with the Mark Audio drivers I've heard, full-range drivers are one of the areas new cone materials and magnet technologies are really making an impact. A Mark Audio driver in a Frugal Horn cab makes for a very interesting speaker IMO.
 
i doubt the MBL Radialstrahlers use off-the-shelf drivers.

001a_mbl_amps_speakers.jpg


Joe
 
ATC also design and manufacture their own drivers and amplifiers. Their midrange unit alone weighs 9kg and I doubt an accountant got a look in.
 
Yes absolutely, I am really looking forward to comparing our new active 50's to the other active loudspeakers we have here, should be really interesting.
Keith
 
YNWOAN said:
Indeed there are exceptions - both Mark audio and MBL being, very different, prime examples :).
Click to expand...
There is a bit of difference between putting together a wideband driver and designing and developing over the decades a driver like the radialstrahler. Pretty much anyone with an interest can put together a conventional driver that works very well because the know-how and all the parts required are available off-the-shelf and/or are trivial to manufacture. This is not the case with radialstrahler and if a manufacturer wanted to enter the market with an equivalent they would have to cough up large development costs only to compete in a small market with a company that has been successful at it for decades. It is a substantial barrier to entry and almost unique in the low tech home audio field.
 
If jc is referring to vinyls inherently poor frequency response he's entirely right, the riaa curve exists solely because you can't cut vinyl with a flat FR at anything approachin using levels. Or more accurately levels that were useful 80 years ago, with the carts and available amplifier systems of the time.
 
Whilst MA drivers are cones they are not exactly conventional. Sure not totally revolutionary but certainly not designed to established principles either.
 
sq225917 said:
If jc is referring to vinyls inherently poor frequency response he's entirely right, the riaa curve exists solely because you can't cut vinyl with a flat FR at anything approachin using levels. Or more accurately levels that were useful 80 years ago, with the carts and available amplifier systems of the time.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Simon.

I'm right in the middle of the beekeeping honey harvest atm, and so have no time for forum posting, also I've got three days in hospital lined up for next week.

Also thanks to Mark (Yn...), for his resume, but it does contain some historical inaccuracies. I could give the 'AVI wars' wiki info later if anyone is still interested, but atm time is precious.

However, on vinyl records, I did post this in another place.

There were two problems with 78 rpm records.

The surface noise was high, due to being originally an 'acoustic' design for use with steel needles, necessarily abrasive, to 'form' the needle point to the groove depth. Acoustic gramophones were popular for over 50 years.
The play length was only 4 minutes per side, making them unsuitable for longer classical compositions.

Vinyl 'microgroove' records were invented which had a play length of 22 minutes and much less surface noise, using the 'electrical' recording process, and became popular post WWII.

This was achieved by reducing the writing speed to 33 rpm, and making the grooves much smaller and closer together, requiring a very small fine stylus, and using vinyl for the record surface.

This brought two problems.

The HF response was inadequate with a poor snr, due to the lowered speed, and the groove spacing could not accommodate large LF excursions, as well as the stylus being thrown from the groove.

The is the limitation inherent in vinyl LPs.

The solution was to apply heavy equalisation (30dB or more) during the recording process by cutting the bass frequencies and boosting the HF.
This produced much more even groove excursions and close groove spacing, but necessarily introduced great frequency distortions.

In order to play with realism it it therefore necessary to apply heavy reverse equalisation during the replay process. This became the standardised RIAA eq curves which are built into all phono stage amplifiers for use with vinyl records.

Tape and CD players do not require this eq because they do not have the limitations inherent in vinyl records. One of the reasons why most people consider them superior to record players.

JC
 
p.s On the basis of knowing Ashley James as a friend, it might interest some to know of this post he made this morning, elsewhere.

I'm having help to care for my wife now because she's nearing the end and the amount of help I'm getting is quite astonishing. It's no surprise that the NHS bill is a big one. However what is has shown me yet again is how genuinely incredibly kind and decent (lots of them) people are.


Cut him a bit of slack for a while, please chaps.

JC
 
Joe P said:
i doubt the MBL Radialstrahlers use off-the-shelf drivers.

001a_mbl_amps_speakers.jpg


Joe
Click to expand...


Joe,


One Radialstrahler, multiple Radialstrahler => singular = plural.

Deutsch ist leider nicht immer eine sonderlich einfache Sprache.


Cheers,
Samuel.
 
JC, please send my respects/warm regards to Ash. We take the mick out of his absurd marketing here, but that doesn't mean we dislike the guy at all and I'm certainly thinking of him at this upsetting time.
 
Tony L said:
JC, please send my respects/warm regards to Ash. We take the mick out of his absurd marketing here, but that doesn't mean we dislike the guy at all and I'm certainly thinking of him at this upsetting time.
Click to expand...

Yes, please do - when I met him at the Bristol show (I think it was) he couldn't have been more charming - great chap, just dodgy advertising :).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top