"The speaker driver everyone is familiar with today is the conventional electrodynamic speaker driver, recognized globally as the volume icon. The conventional speaker structure is found in virtually all devices that play music – including the latest smart speakers, soundbars, and cars. While products and other components have been rapidly advancing technologically, the conventional speaker driver remains largely unchanged," Resonado Labs states in its CES 2021 announcement.
The young company, founded at the University of Notre Dame and now headquartered in Chicago is determined to change that reality and introduced their first product, FCS SingleCore, at CES 2020. One year later, it continues to press on with their ambitious mission by announcing its latest patented technology, FCS Bidirectional, at CES 2021.
Resonado Labs' proprietary Flat Core Speaker (FCS) technology functions in the same way as conventional technology and with the same essential components, albeit in a different mechanical arrangement. Instead of a cylindrical voice coil suspended within a bulky cylindrical magnet, Resonado designed a structure with a flat voice coil suspended in between two bar magnets. The sleeker motor design has three primary advantages over the conventional motor design: it allows for a speaker driver with a thin profile and flat diaphragm; it enables the driver to distribute force evenly along the entire diaphragm; and it is modular, meaning there can be several of these motor assemblies in one speaker driver.
"We imagine a world where Resonado Labs’ audio technologies foster innovation across industries, enabling companies to design and build products that challenge traditional design expectations," says Brian Cho, Resonado Labs Co-Founder and CEO.
One of the biggest challenges that low-profile speaker technologies have faced in the past, and still face today, is the reproduction of low frequencies. Resonado Labs solved this problem by engineering FCS technology to have a modular motor. By having multiple voice coil and magnet arrays under one diaphragm, the company can design powerful subwoofers that are able to maintain a thin structure yet have a large diaphragm necessary for low frequency reproduction. Another pitfall that other new speaker technologies tend to fall into is high manufacturing cost and scalability – Resonado Labs sidestepped this by using the same core components and not requiring exotic materials or tooling.
FCS technology is enabling speaker driver types that have been impossible, or infeasible, to create with conventional speaker driver architecture. FCS Bidirectional is the latest addition to the FCS suite. The patented design allows for two diaphragms to be attached and driven by a single voice coil, a concept which offers extremely wide acoustic coverage and is especially well suited for dipole type loudspeaker systems.
At CES 2021, Resonado Labs introduced potential applications for FCS Bidirectional, with the concept of a suspended light speaker and a smart speaker. Both applications flex the 360° sound coverage from a single speaker driver thanks to the dual-side design.
"FCS technology is a fully scalable electrodynamic speaker type perfectly tailored to fit the growing demand for innovative, space-efficient product designs without compromising sound performance. It’s the first scalable speaker driver architecture that can deliver a slim form factor without compromising sound performance or breaking the bank – positioning the technology to be the first to truly challenge the ubiquity that the conventional speaker driver has enjoyed for the past hundred years," the company adds.
The technology is currently available to brands through Licensed Resonado Partners in its base form, FCS SingleCore, and in its dual-motor form, FCS DualCore. The first FCS-Enabled product is slated to be announced in early 2021. It will be followed by FCS-Enabled soundbars, headphones, and electric vehicles. FCS Bidirectional is slated for availability through licensed partners mid to late 2021.
www.resonado.com
