Test Bench: Eminence SD28 Soft Dome Tweeter

Being primarily known as a pro sound driver OEM, with a great reputation for both guitar speakers and PA drivers, it may come as a surprise that this Eminence driver, the SD28, is a 1” soft dome tweeter — a staple of the home and car audio businesses. I should note however, that while Eminence has a rather large catalog of pro audio transducers, the company also produces drivers for home and car audio companies. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, January 2019

RCF celebrates its 70th anniversary this year and its RCF 2019 product line includes exciting new products and technological improvements to existing lines, including the new AYRA Pro range of studio monitors for recording and mixing. Completely designed and built in-house, using the company's own transducers, these monitors feature powerful amplification combined with RCF's FiRPHASE algorithm.

The new generation of PMC’s IB2S active range is aimed at studios working in stereo and surround formats who require true high-end monitoring - with both analogue and digital inputs - for reference and mastering applications. According to the brand, the three-way IB2S-AII offers all the attributes of PMC’s large ATL reference active monitors but in a more compact form. The PMS IB2S-AII and the twin cabinet IB2S XBD-AII systems bring even more power, detail and flexibility.

Following an earlier presentation to the market at the High End Show in Munich, Danish loudspeaker specialist Dynaudio is offering the North American market its first look at an update to the company's legendary Confidence hi-fi speaker range at CEDIA 2018, in San Diego. With this update, Dynaudio brings its most celebrated technologies — including soft-dome tweeters, Magnesium Silicate Polymer (MSP) cones, and Dynaudio Directivity Control (DDC) — to new heights with new materials, manufacturing techniques and designs.

BlieSMa, located in Blieskastel, Germany, was founded January 16, 2018 by Stas Malikov. Prior to starting BlieSMa, Malikov worked at Ultrasound Technologies, at Morel as a QC manager and a transducer engineer, and at Accuton as a production engineer for the last 8 years. The first product released by BlieSMa is the T34A, a 34 mm tweeter. Available since May 2018, the T34A is a metal aluminum/magnesium alloy dome tweeter.

We first reported on Fluance's venture into wireless speakers with the uniquely designed (and also affordable, at just $499.99 USD) Fi70 Bluetooth Speaker, using a 3-way and six driver design with integrated amplifier in a floor-standing cabinet. Later, Fluance proposed more conventional Bluetooth bookshelf and tabletop speakers, now complemented with the Ai40 Powered Bookshelf, the most affordable from the Canadian brand, selling for just $199.99 USD.

Dayton Audio announced its new MK442 center channel speaker, designed to complement the Dayton Audio MK402 bookshelf speakers in a multi-channel home theater system. The new 80 watts RMS speaker features two 4" treated paper woofers optimized for low-frequency extension, with a centered 3/4" silk dome tweeter, offering a balanced combination for wide dispersion and impressive room-filling sound. The speaker features an attractive textured, black vinyl finish with 5-way binding posts.

LaVoce Italiana is an Italian speaker manufacturer with R&D facilities in Rome and production mainly concentrated in China, offering a full range of speaker components for professional audio and MI (bass and guitar) applications, with a full range of neodymium and ferrite transducers for medium-low frequencies, together with compression drivers and soft dome tweeters for high frequencies.