Voice Coil Focus: New Materials and Technologies for Voice Coils

In this article Mike Klasco shares his extensive knowledge about voice coils, and how this critical part of loudspeaker technology has evolved - the result of decades of walking factory floors all over the world . As noted in his introduction, "Winding some wire into a coil should be simple enough and after a century of loudspeaker manufacturing, there shouldn’t be any new surprises. But voice coil materials, process control, and topology continue to evolve and here we discuss half a dozen noteworthy new tricks."

In this issue, Vance Dickason kicks off a series of outboard DSP processor reviews, starting with the Danville dspNexus. Next, Claus Futtrup writes about the Critically Damped Fourth-Order (CD4) bass reflex alignment. As scheduled, Mike Klasco writes about New Materials and Technologies for Voice Coils, and there's an updated directory of 2024 Voice Coil winders, converters, lead out wire, and more. On Test Bench, Vance Dickason assesses the new B&C Speakers DH450-8 1" compression driver and the Stereo Integrity M3 3.5" carbon midrange driver.

Mike Klasco (Menlo Scientific) provides an overview on how to specify or manufacture voice coils. In this reference article, Mike Klasco recaps on voice coil basics, bobbin materials and sizes, collars, winding techniques, configurations, tips and tricks and wire types and considerations - a valuable, concise compendium of unique knowledge. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, August 2020.

In the August 2015 edition of Voice Coil, Mike Klasco provided an industry update on the industry trends regarding voice coils. He starts with a look at the business side of speaker manufacturing and discusses new voice coil, collars and wire materials. The article also provides an insightful look-ahead on this critical part of speaker design.