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About Vance Dickason

Vance Dickason has been working as a professional in the loudspeaker industry since 1974. A contributing editor to Speaker Builder magazine (now audioXpress) since 1986, in November 1987 he became editor of Voice Coil, the monthly Periodical for the Loudspeaker Industry, today published by KCK Media Corp. His globally acclaimed book Loudspeaker Design Cookbook is now in its 8th Edition, published by KCK Media. A life member of the Audio Engineering Society, Vance received the 1995 AES Citation Award for his long term contribution to audio education, and the 2013 Beryllium Award, Lifetime achievement from ALMA (Associating of Loudspeaker Manufacturers and Acoustics, now ALTI Association). Since 2001, he also does business as Vance Dickason Consultancy based out of Portland, Oregon, working as an independent engineering consultant to loudspeaker manufacturers.

All items written by Vance Dickason

Test Bench: The 10NW76 Pro Sound High SPL 10” Driver from B&C Speakers

March 2, 2022 by Vance Dickason

Test Bench: The 10NW76 Pro Sound High SPL 10” Driver from B&C Speakers

The driver on this Test Bench is from B&C Speakers and clearly designed for professional audio. The 10NW76 was designed for uses in line arrays, small two-way monitors, and as a subwoofer, or as a midbass driver in multiway systems. It uses a proprietary 12-spoke (six double spokes) cast-aluminum frame with a series of cooling vents that allow air to move past the voice coil and across the front side of the neodymium motor assembly. The cone assembly consists of a curvilinear waterproof coated paper cone and dust cap. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, December 2021.

Test Bench: The E150HE-44 5.5” Full-Range Subwoofer from the Dayton Audio Epique Line

February 24, 2022 by Vance Dickason

Test Bench: The E150HE-44 5.5” Full-Range Subwoofer from the Dayton Audio Epique Line

This Test Bench explication focuses on the Dayton Audio Epique MMAG E150HE-44 "full-range subwoofer," in itself an interesting concept. Like its larger E180HE-44 brother in the Epique line, the E150HE-44 is based on the patented Multiple Magnet Air Gap (MMAG) technology invented by Enrique Stiles. The two new Dayton Audio Epique MMAG woofers were designed with direct support by Enrique as an independent transducer engineering consultant, working in conjunction with the engineering team at Dayton Audio. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, December 2021.

Crosslite+ Two-Way DSP Filter Design Tutorial

February 9, 2022 by Vance Dickason

Crosslite+ Two-Way DSP Filter Design Tutorial

In this article, Vance Dickason highlights the possibilities for a two-way DSP filter design using the CrossLite+ software package. Under development by the Brazilian pro audio company since 2009, CrossLite+ is a dual-channel FFT analyzer that will function with basically any USB-type recording interface. CrossLite+ is intended primarily for product development of DSP-powered pro speakers and for use in live sound PA systems. And measured data can also be imported from other analyzers such as the CLIO or Klippel This article was originally published in Voice Coil, December 2021.

Test Bench: The AMT200P Pro Sound AMT and XMT200 Horn from Eighteen Sound

February 2, 2022 by Vance Dickason

Test Bench: The AMT200P Pro Sound AMT and XMT200 Horn from Eighteen Sound

This Test Bench article characterizes Eighteen Sound’s AMT200P Air Motion Transformer and accompanying XMT200 6.5” waveguide. This driver is the brand's latest entry into the high-frequency transducer category, specifically designed for the pro sound community. The Eighteen Sound AMT200P includes a rectangular throat with a Kapton diaphragm with a neodymium magnet structure, and is rated for a power handling of 90W AES above 1.2kHz, with a sensitivity of 105dB, and a recommended crossover frequency of 1.2kHz at 48dB/octave. While the AMT200P can be used as a standard planar device it can be also coupled with a dedicated constant directivity horn, the 90°x 20° XMT200, featured in the characterization.

Test Bench: Purifi Audio’s PTT4.0X04-NFA-01 Home Audio 4" Midbass.

January 26, 2022 by Vance Dickason

Test Bench: Purifi Audio’s PTT4.0X04-NFA-01 Home Audio 4" Midbass.

This Test Bench addresses Purifi Audio’s PTT4.0X04-NFA-01 4” midbass, which is very similar to the PTT6.5X reviewed in Voice Coil July 2021, and includes the same constant Sd surround and low magnetic hysteresis motor design. The distinct cone assembly for this driver consists of a flat profile paper cone made with a proprietary fiber mix, a concave dust cap that covers about 90% of the cone surface, plus the addition of a V-shaped edge reinforcing ring glued around the outside rim of the back side of the cone. Compliance is provided by a unique NBR surround, which as in the PTT6.5X surround, deserves to be explored, motivating Vance to discuss it with Purifi’s co-founder Lars Risbo.

Klippel KA3 Modules — Time Frequency Analysis

January 19, 2022 by Vance Dickason

Klippel KA3 Modules — Time Frequency Analysis

While Voice Coil Test Bench reviews only make use of the Large Signal Identification (LSI) data from the Klippel analyzer, the reality is that there is an amazing list of 30 modules available for the KA3 that are seriously valuable for transducer and system development. As space permits, I will be covering a number of these modules in future issue of Voice Coil. The first module in this series is the Time Frequency Analysis (TFA) module. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, October 2021

Test Bench: The ND2T 1.25” Neodymium Compression Driver from Eighteen Sound

December 15, 2021 by Vance Dickason

Test Bench: The ND2T 1.25” Neodymium Compression Driver from Eighteen Sound

This Test Bench focuses on Eighteen Sound’s latest ND2T, a 1.4” neodymium compression driver, combined for characterization with the XT1464 elliptical-shaped horn, also from Eighteen Sound. This ultra-compact compression driver features a 2.4” diameter edge-wound voice coil wound with aluminum wire on a non-conducting Nomex former with a proprietary treatment. This assembly drives a field-replaceable pure titanium diaphragm and proprietary tangerine radial phase plug design. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, October 2021.

Test Bench: The 15DS100 15” Pro Sound Subwoofer from B&C Speakers

December 8, 2021 by Vance Dickason

Test Bench: The 15DS100 15” Pro Sound Subwoofer from B&C Speakers

This Test Bench explication characterizes the 15DS100 15” professional subwoofer from B&C Speakers. This new transducer from the Italian company is a very high power handling design, able to deliver 3kW continuous (1.6W nominal), thanks to B&C's latest generation of very long voice coils - a great asset in applications from discreet PA subwoofers to three-way PA speakers. The B&C 15DS100-4 uses a proprietary 12-spoke cast aluminum frame with cooling vents for the neodymium FEA motor, which uses a 4” four-layer voice coil wound with round aluminum wire on a non-conducting glass fiber former. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, October 2021.

Test Bench: Three New High-End 25mm High-Frequency Transducers from BlieSMa

December 1, 2021 by Vance Dickason

Test Bench: Three New High-End 25mm High-Frequency Transducers from BlieSMa

This Test Bench combines three new 25mm high-frequency transducers from German brand BlieSMa into a single characterization: the BlieSMa T25S-6 Silk Dome, the BlieSMa T25B-6 Beryllium Dome, and the BlieSMa T25D-6 Diamond Dome. All three tweeters appear to be built on the same platform, but optimized for each diaphragm material, and all three share pretty much the same feature set. BlieSMa was founded in January 16, 2018 by former Morel and Accuton engineer, Stanislav Malikov. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, September 2021.

OEM DSP Active Line Level Crossovers from Danville Signal

November 17, 2021 by Vance Dickason

OEM DSP Active Line Level Crossovers from Danville Signal

The advantages of active DSP crossovers are long recognized and a majority (about 90%) of today's professional audio loudspeakers and studio monitors are powered loudspeakers using also some kind of integrated DSP. Based in Minneapolis, MN, Danville Signal Processing has long been supplying high-performance DSP crossovers and DSP modules to the OEM market. In this article, Vance Dickason writes about the range of DSP Active Line Level Crossovers available from the company. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, September 2021.

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