I often write stream of consciousness. I did mean ‘for a given depth.’
But it is what Uni-Core addresses, at the end if the day. A single magnet could be used with two equally sized voice coils, but the excursion would understandably be limited. Uni-Core solves that with the differently sized voice coils. So it is more yes than no, purely because an alternative which focuses only on depth reduction without sorting out the compromise can exist.
Thanks for the additional info
, but still Uni-Core is not a technology to increase excursion over traditional designs. There is no practical implementation in existence that would use a unified magnet structure but identical voice coil diameters. Only if this was the case Uni-Core could be considered to extend excursion. So, as it is it was invented to reduce the overall width of the woofer assembly without sacrificing excursion.
To be honest, I am absolutely sure that dozens and dozens of speaker designers came up with the same basic idea before but refused to even evaluate it. If somebody had asked me if using different voice coil diameters was feasible I would have refused it right away. Read the white paper on LS60 Wireless and you will find that even KEF had almost buried the idea. They certainly deserve highest respect for not giving up, finding out that many of the expected problems were really non-issues and finally turning it into commercial products. I regard Uni-Core as a pretty sensational achievement.
While that may be true, they have 1) a ton of journalistic ink 2) a bunch of online chatter and 3) priced out of reach for most audiophiles. They're aspirational products for many.
I haven't owned or listened to them, but I'm well aware of what they are and how they are regarded. Enough that I certainly don't question why larger companies wouldn't take a similar path for their flagships.
All true and well. But that still doesn't make them "the home audio market" in the sense referred to by
@sifi36. As you say they are aspirational products but most consumers consider stupid stuff like Sonos as being "innovative" ...
I wonder, considering previous posts, can the hardware and software from the 50WII and 60 'upload' the filters and data from a room eq system? It could be Dirac or Audyssey, but is it even possible internally?
Absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be possible. It's a DSP and as such in can be programmed. I wouldn't be surprised at all if KEF came up with their very own solution in the not too far future.
I think one point of contention is that the entre design appears to have been driven by heavy constraint on width of the speaker. While a lot of fantastic tech was used to optimize the acoustic performance, a small increase in width (coupled with all the great dsp optimization) might have allowed for considerable increase in output and acoustic performance.
I have to disagree wholeheartedly.
Bigger drivers aren't better just because they are bigger, it's really not that simple. It's kind of funny how many people have been begging for "Baby Blades". Well, here they are. Featuring a fantastic new smaller Uni-Q driver array. Why do you disregard the advantages this smaller array provides?
