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"Drivers are custom-made for us by SEAS/Scan Speak/Audax/Accuton..." - really?

vln

vln

Shuns mooks. And MQA.
Dear all,

I am currently looking around for new speakers, actually have been for a while, ever since fate conspired and dumped a lovely Accuphase Class A power amp into my living room, at a price I couldn't resist.

When looking at the marketing material of various manufacturers, particularly those that are too small to produce their own drivers (and it seems to be correlated to size, with few exceptions), you often read that the drivers are custom made for them by some well known brand like those mentioned in the thread title.

Now, the cynic in me argues that of course they are going to say something say something like that, because saying that you buy off the shelf stuff, particularly in higher price regions will be difficult to swallow by potential customers. But how much customisation are we really talking about, and is some tiny self-proclaimed "audiophile" "high end" garden-shed company really in the position of telling Scan Speak how to make a driver? (I think Scan Speak's R&D department is probably larger than many of these companies) Or does the customisation really just encompass "please print our logo on it"?
 
Not much is the answer when it comes to the levels of customisation. A few more, or less turns on the voicecoil, ferrofluid added where none is normally used, that sort of thing.
 
It all depends really, I've been involved a bit with Mark audio as some of you know. A lot depends on MOQ and budget.

There is a driver moving through the design process at the moment that is a complete custom design for a speaker manufacturer. In this case, the designers have specific goals they need to achieve to have a driver work in the form factor they would like to bring to market. A given cabinet obviously needs a given set of parameters for the driver to be loaded correctly. A complete ground up design like this will obviously require a lot of knowledge in driver design to be able to hit the target specs but also requires tooling to be built. A driver company that obviously already has the expertise, and production line know how are better placed to do this than the speaker manufacturer attempting it in house.

There is often another approach which is to take an existing chassis or drive train and marry it with a different cone or surround or spider etc. This is often done when an OEM has tested off the shelf drivers and has settled on a driver they like but needs an adjustment to the overall Q to optimise the driver for the given cabinet, or the sensitivity altering. Often crossover component count can be reduced if the shape of the fall off of a driver can be changed, if the MOQ is fairly high, this can often add no extra cost to the drivers and makes the crossovers cheaper.

Sometimes you might have a manufacturer who likes an end of life driver and by buying 10k they become thier own driver.
 
Making tweeters and mid drivers to a particular SPL means a very simple xover to match the bass driver, which saves money on the system. It also allows the marketing dept to bullshit this as 'simpler signal path' or whatever. The driver maker can do it with magnets or changing coil wire.

The DIYer needs to attenuate levels to match, which is tricky maths as it throws the filter slopes off and it means more parts.
 
Most likely minimal is what I would say. But that is no crime. I have never lost sleep over that one!
 
My uneducated guess would be that a large, mass producer of drive units design their products to suit a recognised industry standard or to accompany other drivers in their range that match well when used in fairly well trodden speaker designs.

If a potential speaker manufacturer has specific limitations that stray out of the comfort zone of what a driver is intended for then I can well imagine some tuning being required, I don't think it's a case of 'man in a shed' outfit knowing more about driver design than Scanspeak etc. rather them wanting something that an off the shelf driver isn't quite suited for and it requiring a bit of 'adapt to fit' tinkering.
 
My brother is a loudspeaker designer and he seems to be able to spec whatever he wants. There are companies that make surrounds, cones etc. The main manufacturers can be quite accommodating I understand. After all it is what they do and I think pretty much they have seen it all before. Dynamic driver behaviour and design is pretty well understood. Most of it was sussed out quite a while back.
 
Yes in term of cone material and spec, no bought. I asked Volt if they would produce a carbon coned BM228.8 (which is what i use in my own build) but they don't offer the alternative.

I assume such manufacturers build to someone's spec and requirements, not just from their own kit of parts.
 
Neiro said:
My brother is a loudspeaker designer and he seems to be able to spec whatever he wants. There are companies that make surrounds, cones etc. The main manufacturers can be quite accommodating I understand. After all it is what they do and I think pretty much they have seen it all before. Dynamic driver behaviour and design is pretty well understood. Most of it was sussed out quite a while back.
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I certianly agree with your last sentence. While there are many new materials available (ceramics, carbon fiber, etc.), I sometimes wonder if they really represent an improvement across the board, or if they are just better in some aspects but not in others, but give the manufacturers the opportunity to present something new (and charge for it). However this is another discussion, as here I am more interested in how much customisation you can get when - as a speaker manufacturer - you don't produce the drivers yourself.

I still wonder though how accommodating they really can be? Specifying a non-standard membrane diameter (e.g. 15.7cm instead of the ubiquitous 16.5cm would result in a lot of other changes that are necessary to such a driver (basket, surround, etc.)).
 
This thread was triggered by me listening to a pair of Marten speakers (which use Accuton), and a pair of Stenheim (which use drivers from a French company AFAIK), both sounding good to my ears but not inexpensive. This got me thinking - how much are you really paying for something unique and original, and how much do you pay for a nice looking box with off the shelf stuff - in that regard, I respect larger, more mainstream companies like Dynaudio, Focal and Bowers & Wilkins more, who do everything in house, even though they face their own issues (i.e. having to appeal to mass market taste). An exception is probably ATC, however there is no hope I can drive one of their passives with a class A amp!
 
Here is a driver that was designed by a regular speaker DIYer and built to his specification in Asia. It is currently sold by Madisound for $49.95 which presumably includes cuts for both the designer and Madisound. You need a Minimum Order Quantity of perhaps a few hundred units and you can have pretty much whatever you like so long as it uses tooling (e.g. for the metalwork) that the build shop has the right to use. If you want a custom design for the metalwork that will require paying for tooling which is expensive and push the Minimum Order Quantity into the thousands if not tens of thousands for it to be a reasonable financial investment.
 
There's commonality across multiple models with most manufacturers. Different models of similar sizes sharing cone and surround dimensions etc, so brands can mix and match as well as spec different turns in coils etc, face plates, mounting holes, former material swaps and all that jazz. In reality I suspect precious few are more than a small % different from stock models.
 
Cereal Killer said:
PMC use VOLT Radial drivers in there standard form. The Accutron drivers are amazing but cost a ridiculous amount too.

I was very close to pulling the trigger on these but went with my own build. http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-5...0001&campid=5338728743&icep_item=263686230422
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I listened to the current version of the Marten Miles - above my budget but I certainly preferred them to the Magico A3 at the end of an Accuphase class A amp I compared them to in the same shop. But then the Martens have a higher sensitivity, so I guess this is hardly a surprise.

I am currently waiting for these to arrive (if I don't run out of patience before and just get a B&W 804 D3 :)):

https://www.marten.se/products/oscar/oscar-trio/
 
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Would be easy enough to ask the manufacturer to provide the specs of the drivers, all the measurements will be available if they’ll pass them on or not is another thing. But everything you’d need to know or compare to with Accuton drivers is on the site.

I suspect depending on manufacturer the difference with bespoke drivers will be anywhere between major changes that accommodate cabinet and crossover design, to having a badge on the front and adding a turn or 2 to the coil, or requesting a slightly altered impedance, just so “custom made drivers” looks nice on the website.

I use Accutons myself, they’re pricey but very very good
 
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