Voice Coil October 2016 Now Available in Print and Online

Another edition of great interest to the loudspeaker engineering community, the October 2016 issue of Voice Coil highlights forthcoming speaker industry events and features an update on Integrated Amplifier/Signal Processing Speaker Vendors, including an indispensable Directory update. In this month’s Acoustic Patents, we look at two recent and promising - or simply intriguing - inventions, while Vance Dickason returns to Wavecor’s subwoofer range in this month’s Test Bench, which positively impressed him in past reviews. Now available.

The driver I examined this month was Italian Pro Sound OEM manufacturer B&C Speakers’ new high temperature polymer diaphragm DE110-8 compression driver coupled with B&C Speakers’ ME10 90° × 60° hyperbolic cosine flare horn (see Photo 1). The ultra compact DE110-8 joins B&C Speakers’ extensive series of 1” throat compression drivers. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, July 2015.

This month I examined two new 5.75” subwoofers from Wavecor, both the 4-Ω SW146WA01 and the 8-Ω SW146WA02 version. Wavecor’s SW146WA, in both the 8-Ω and 4-Ω versions, have a well-conceived feature set that includes a proprietary four-spoke stamped steel frame that incorporates an eight-spoke/eight-window configuration below the spider mounting shelf. This open eight-spoke region, along with a 13-mm diameter pole vent, provides substantial cooling for the SW146WA. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, July 2015.

This Test bench examines the 32W/4878T00 12” subwoofer from high-end driver manufacturer Scan-Speak. Over the years, Scan-Speak has become known for its midwoofers and tweeters, which is to say that its products can be found in a large percentage of the high-end loudspeakers on the market in the last 40 years. Having used Scan-Speak’s drivers in designs for some of my consulting business customers, I found it also makes some excellent subwoofers. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, March 2013.

Tang Band was founded in 1996 in Taiwan with the goal of manufacturing innovative, high-quality drivers. The transducer Tang Band sent to Voice Coil to review certainly lives up to that goal. The T1-1942S is a seriously creative new transducer, and it immediately caught my eye when I saw it on Tang Band’s website. I mean, when was the last time you saw a 1” dome in its own cabinet with a passive radiator? Me neither. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, March 2013.

Founded in 1970, Scan-Speak continues to offer the same “no compromise” philosophy that has always been a part of its mission. Scan-Speak sent its D2908/714000, which is the company’s second 30-mm beryllium dome tweeter. Basically, the new D2098 utilizes the Revelator D29 dome’s wide surround concept, but with a 99% pure beryllium dome (sourced from Truextent) coupled to the highly effective and patented Symmetrical Drive (SD-2) neodymium motor system. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, February 2013.

For this month’s Test Bench review I received the MF2519inv TIneo PRHS, from the Max Fidelity line by Canadian Loudspeaker Corp. The MF2519inv TIneo tweeter has an interesting feature set, starting with the diaphragm, using a 25-mm (0.98”) diameter inverted titanium dome with the flat edge of the dome's outer perimeter serving as the surround, a teardrop shaped phase plug, neodymium motor, and a 19-mm (0.75”) underhung ferrofluid-damped voice coil wound with round copper wire. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, February 2013.

Voice Coil September 2016 features an overview article of KLIPPEL’s QC Version 5 loudspeaker testing system. In Acoustic Patents, James Croft reviews a recently granted patented on Inverse Horn Loudspeakers, which is the third patent granted on Atlantic Technology’s H-PAS (High Pressure Acceleration System) low-frequency system. In this month’s Test Bench, Vance Dickason characterizes the DE990TN-8 1.4” driver from B&C Speakers and the GBS-135F25AL02-04 midbass driver 5.25” woofer from Tymphany.

This month’s Test Bench is dedicated to a new woofer from Motus, a fairly new company in the esoteric end of the home audio business. The transducer under test is the Motus UH205PW1, an 8” mid-bass driver with a really nicely configured six-spoke cast-aluminum frame, FEA optimized motor design and a nice overall physical appearance. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, November 2015.

This month, the driver to be characterized is the FTX0820, a new coax from Celestion. The OEM-only FTX range covers 12” (305 mm), 8” (200 mm), and 6.5” (165 mm) chassis diameters, and features fully combined low-frequency and high-frequency components that are powered by a Common Magnet Motor Assembly (where the same magnet is used for both the low-frequency and high-frequency elements). This enables the voice coils (and hence the acoustic centers of the two drivers) to be brought closer together, delivering tight signal coherence and time alignment. This article was published in Voice Coil, October 2015.