Is this approach better than a coaxial speaker ?

[Tangband]

I stumbled on the new Monitor audio concept 50 . A very interesting speaker with six small midranges and a tweeter in the middle.

Is this maybe a better approach than using a coaxial driver, regarding IM distortion and directivity ? The sensitivity can be higher with many drivers and will give higher spl.

What do you think ?

 

[Tangband]

Using 4 or 6 of this drivers, the cheap and fantastic peerless tc9fd and combining with the high sensitivity vifa/thympany tweeter in the middle would do very high spl for not much money .
But is this a good idea ? I guess it will be a narrow directivity speaker that might be beneficial in certain cases.

 

[voodooless]

There is still all kinds of movement around the tweeter, you can’t have a smooth waveguide either. Therefore I don’t think this will perform much better.

It looks great though!

 

[Tangband]

With the interesting and cheap new reckhorn subwoofer D250 it could be an interesting 3 way loudspeaker with crossover points at 300 Hz and 3000 Hz ?

D-250 Subwoofer Chassis Bass Installation Speaker 25cm

Our largest driver D-250 / 25cm is based on the years of experience of our D-165 / 16cm subwoofer with the best price-performance ratio of all 16s. -…

reckhorn.com

 

[Tangband]

There is still all kinds of movement around the tweeter, you can’t have a smooth waveguide either. Therefore I don’t think this will perform much better.

It looks great though!

So the directivity would probably be worse ? But I guess the spl capacity will be better and distortion will be much lower because of the many drivers?

 

[MZKM]

Looks like they were inspired by Tekton.

 

[TurtlePaul]

A few reasons a coaxial would be better:

1. With independent drivers you cant have as much driver surface area as close to the tweeter as with a coax.

2. The diffraction effects of these midranges may be bad or at least not ideal. With a good coax, the midrange cone is designed to be a waveguide for the tweeter. The waveguide effect of those six drivers on the AMT doesn’t look optimal. I bet there is a resonance you will be able to see in the frequency response based on the spacing between those midranges.

3. The frame around the drivers looks like it would further limit horizontal directivity while maintaining vertical directivity. What engineer thought this was a good idea?

 

[Tangband]

A few reasons a coaxial would be better:

1. With independent drivers you cant have as much driver surface area as close to the tweeter as with a coax.

2. The diffraction effects of these midranges may be bad or at least not ideal. With a good coax, the midrange cone is designed to be a waveguide for the tweeter. The waveguide effect of those six drivers on the AMT doesn’t look optimal. I bet there is a resonance you will be able to see in the frequency response based on the spacing between those midranges.

3. The frame around the drivers looks like it would further limit horizontal directivity while maintaining vertical directivity. What engineer thought this was a good idea?

The distance between the small midranges are a problem, I guess.

It would be very interesting though to listen to this speaker - I wonder If anyone has tested this in DIY ?
Everything in loudspeaker design is a tradeoff , with this construction you get high sensitivity, low thermal compression and probably low distortion and high spl.

 

[sarumbear]

I stumbled on the new Monitor audio concept 50 . A very interesting speaker with six small midranges and a tweeter in the middle.

Is this maybe a better approach than using a coaxial driver, regarding IM distortion and directivity ? The sensitivity can be higher with many drivers and will give higher spl.

What do you think ?

View attachment 234151View attachment 234152

Check it’s dispersion pattern and look at the loping. Problems of multiple drivers working at the same frequency is demonstrated well in MTM designs just imagine 6 drivers instead of 4…

A wishful design with total disregard to wave theory.

 

[ryanosaur]

Looks like they were inspired by Tekton.

I said the same thing, basically, in the intro thread somebody started for these new MA Speakers. Very Tekton-ish.

If you checkout Eric's design philosophy and his tweeter array, his premise is that the center Tweet is the real Tweet with the surrounding 6 Tweets acting as a Midrange Array. This comes with many possible issues, needless to say, such as low- XO frequencies for the Tweeters in the Midrange Array and Phase issues (also for designs with multiple Arrays, there has got to be some cancellation effects as there are two "real" tweeters separated by 1').
IIRC, somebody has seen the wiring of one of these arrays and commented that some of the surrounding Tweets are wired out of phase to the others... but without good measurements it is hard to guess the efficacy. People seem to love them, however, so who is to tell?
Regardless, he postulates that the lightness of the Moving Mass creates a more realistic reproduction of sound arguing that the moving mass of a Viola String or Drum Head is more closely matched by a low-mass Driver.

I'm certain that the engineers at MA have put together a much more thoroughly tested design which can stand up to greater scrutiny (I know, optimistic, but reasonable to expect). It would be awesome to see one of those new MAs in the wild getting a third-party test.

 

[sarumbear]

If you checkout Eric's design philosophy…

Is this the same Eric who once said the following on his website?

Our revolutionary U.S. patent #9247339 (issued January 26th, 2016) allows us to literally align the moving mass of speaker cones to the harmonic spectra of the musical instruments being played. This means that, in theory, we’ve now made every other high fidelity loudspeaker on earth obsolete in one fell swoop! ...

... For example: the plucked and resonating low ‘e’ note (41Hz) on a Fender Jazz bass guitar has a moving mass of 19 grams. The highest reviewed and well-regarded subwoofers of today have cones with an average of 200-300 grams of moving mass to reproduce the same low ‘e’ tone. This is the equivalent of a Formula One team showing up on race day with a special new race car that has 15,000 pounds of sand added to it! Our competitors are building subwoofers in this exact way today. A subwoofer with 300 grams of moving mass can only give you a dulled out response down to 15Hz. The laws of physics prove the subwoofer cannot be musical nor can it even begin to produce the harmonic spectra of a Fender Jazz bass guitar (or any other bass-producing musical instrument) – period…

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/tekton-impact-and-double-impact.2775937/

 

[Peterinvan]

Ask yourself why the KEF Uni-Q driver array has been such a success, and supports their entire product line.

 

[ryanosaur]

Is this the same Eric who once said the following on his website?

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/tekton-impact-and-double-impact.2775937/

I didn't say I agree with it, for the record... But yes. *chuckles silently

I've mentioned before, here and on another site, I had looked at his gear with interest while shopping back in 2018. I had several good conversations with him. I did not end up buying, though I had been planning a trip to audition his gear.
A few things weighed on me that I couldn't look past.

Anyway, I am really intrigued by those MA Speakers. Way outa my class, though.

 

[Tangband]

Ask yourself why the KEF Uni-Q driver array has been such a success, and supports their entire product line.

Yes, the sound from the uniQ speakers I have heard thru the years have had a certain spatial quality. The best I have heard with a uniQ driver is the ls60.

 

[Joe Smith]

Looks pretty...pretty expensive too...would be interesting to hear.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

To me...
Their new PL 3g series looks more interesting

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

I guess there is a posibility to have a good directivity, maybe the front form its for that

We need measurements. .

 

[thewas]

Such approach needs also quite some engineering effort to work well and most don't but there are fine some fine exceptions like for example:

Perlisten S4b Bookshelf Speaker Review

Perlisten S4b Review

www.erinsaudiocorner.com

http://hannover-hardcore.de/infinity_classics/!!!/Quasikoax%201%20Dokumentation.pdf

(DIY!)

By the way I don't see their advantage in higher SPL and lower distortions but the ability to achieve wide horizontal and narrow vertical radiation.

 

[sarumbear]

Such approach needs also quite some engineering effort to work well and most don't but there are fine some fine exceptions like for example:

Perlisten S4b Bookshelf Speaker Review

Perlisten S4b Review

www.erinsaudiocorner.com

http://hannover-hardcore.de/infinity_classics/!!!/Quasikoax%201%20Dokumentation.pdf

(DIY!)

By the way I don't see their advantage in higher SPL and lower distortions but the ability to achieve wide horizontal and narrow vertical radiation.

Perlisten is a good example of MTM and the other is wishful thinking.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

and the other is wishful thinking.

I found this

edit: that imagine is also from the pdf lol

Pseudo-coaxial with narrow directivity (and Horbach-Keele filters)

Well done ! Makes me think of this: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/263353-portal-controlled-dispersion-tripole-4.html -- unfortunately that project seems abandoned And also this: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/90804-large-midrange-ob-scott-g-40.html#post1953221

www.diyaudio.com