Posted by Duke [ 63.87.108.130 ] on April 17, 2007 at 20:47:16:
I am adding two new speaker systems to my line-up.
The first is based on lower-medium efficiency (86dB) coaxial unit. It's a stand-mount design that images quite well, and the coaxial configuration is a cost-effective way to get good radiation pattern control in the crossover region (which I place high priority on). This one is aimed at people with a small room and solid state amplification. The enclosure is 22 inches tall by 9 inches wide by 14 inches deep. The coaxial driver is in the center of the front baffle, so that either end can be "up". The rear-firing port can be either up high or down low depending on whether or not you need boundary reinforcement. The coaxial driver gives a one-eyed look to the speaker, so I'm tentatively calling it "Leela" in honor of the one-eyed girl from Futurama.
The other speaker is a four-box subwoofer system I'm calling "The Swarm". Two of the subwoofer modules have plate amps in them, and power the other two. The idea is to place the four modules asymmetricaly, thus staggering their in-room peak-and-dip patterns that inevitably result from interaction with near and far room boundaries. The result is an audible smoothing of the in-room bass response without resorting to equalization (which can be a two-edged sword).
The scattered multiple subwoofer concept is based on the ideas of Earl Geddes, which I use with his permission. My target market is owners of almost-full-range planars, such as smaller Maggies and Quads. Most owners of such planars have lusted after deep bass at one time or another, and many have tried subwoofers and been disappointed. This is because a single subwoofer cannot be as smooth as a dipole in-room; but four small scattered subs can. The plate amps have 4th order lowpass filters so that the subs won't betray their positions by passing localizeable lower midrange information.
I have one other speaker design not totally abandoned but not doing well at the moment. I had high hopes for this one - another coaxial, but based on a 12-inch, 95 dB prosound unit. There's a slight but audible cupped-hands coloration that I haven't been able to eliminate. I suspect it's an acoustic problem that's there but not audible in the smaller 6.5" coaxial. The idea of a 95 dB coaxial satellite speaker (which would go great with the Swarm) really appeals to me, so I haven't given up yet. The 86 dB Leela works fine with the Swarm, but you can't drive it with a SET or small OTL amp.
After the Lone Star Audio Fest, I'll start working on a prosound speaker. There might be a market for a guitar speaker that sounds good over a very wide listening area, like if the musician is playing for a wedding reception or something. Emphasis will be on quality over quantity, and I'll try to make the speaker relatively forgiving of placement so that if the musician gets stuck playing in a corner or something his system will still have good tone and not sound muddy.
I spend a lot of time cruising the internet audio boards to see what people want, and there seems to be a market for a 2.5 to 3 grand speaker that goes down into the mid-20's and still sounds very good otherwise. One of my more ambitious projects will be an attempt to produce that speaker. I just received my midwoofs today - roughly 90 dB 6.5" Neo units from B&C. I'll start on this one before Lone Star, but probably won't be finished by then.
Finally I have two other designs in the works that are very exciting to me because they will embody some ideas I first came up with nearly twenty years ago, but have never been able to fully take advantage of. Now I think I have all the pieces of the puzzle.
Out of all of these, the one I'm most likely to make money off of is The Swarm. There are a lot of Maggie and Quad owners already out there, so I'm betting on being the first guy to offer a reasonably priced subwoofer system that really works well with their speakers. So far both of my beta testers want Swarms of their own, which is a good sign.
Duke
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