Who makes the best drivers in the world?

[Birdy]

It's amazing that these old-timers like the ATC dome mid range are still in the front line of the race for "best driver".
Looks like all this R&D in 40 years did not bring us a real big jump in driver sound quality.

 

[Purité Audio]

Driver is not speaker.
Keith

 

[Sokel]

Looks like all this R&D in 40 years did not bring us a real big jump in driver sound quality.

If we get Purifi, Scanspeak, Audio Technology, some Seas, Radiant, BlieSMa, Morel, etc out of the picture the rest is about cost effective, mass produced solutions.
There are jumps though, mainly at the tiny phone drivers,etc.

 

[Jonazkur]

How do Genelec and Neumann drivers compare to Purify and Seas?
Focal also make great drivers

Genelec uses peerless hds woofers in 80xx and 8350 speakers.

 

[Arindal]

Looks like all this R&D in 40 years did not bring us a real big jump in driver sound quality.

Do not really see evidence for that.

Even if there have been drivers which were perfect for their limited range of applications around 40 years ago, there is still a lot of room for improvement:

- allowing a broader frequency range
- enabling a bass driver to perform in smaller enclosures
- changing the parameters so in conjunction with DSP the result can be better
- making more compact baskets so better baffle geometry can be chosen
- improving efficiency
- imroving power handling
- improving off-axis behavior or enabling drivers to work with better waveguides or in a different directivity concept
- making coaxial designs instead of separated drivers

Some of these aspects might bring better sound quality for the fact that the whole speaker concept can be improved, even if standard parameters like distortion and power handling had been maxed out decades ago.

Regarding tweeters I would say that sound quality has dramatically improved over the last 20 years, particularly when it comes to off-axis behavior and subjective transparency/clarity.

 

[Jonazkur]

What about subwoofers?

 

[AOR]

Sundown Audio make some very impressive units. The physics behind a drive unit with a moving mass of the best part of 1kg moving +- 35mm is astonishing. Car audio isn't talked about much on here, but I know the designers of these units care just as much as hifi manufacturers about the fundamentals of good drive unit design.

 

[Jonazkur]

Sundown Audio make some very impressive units. The physics behind a drive unit with a moving mass of the best part of 1kg moving +- 35mm is astonishing. Car audio isn't talked about much on here, but I know the designers of these units care just as much as hifi manufacturers about the fundamentals of good drive unit design.

Sundown makes great subwoofers like stereo integrity. Sundown x series works really well for home use aswell.

 

[Waxx]

There are no best divers in general, there are best drivers for a certain application. It's like asking who makes the best wheels...

Brands i like as diy builder

SB Acoustics
Seas
Scanspeak
Vifa/Peerless (Tymphany)
Faital
18 Sound
B&C
JBL
Beyma
Mark Audio

Drivers where i have no design or build experience wit that are great on paper (and probally also in reality)

TAD
Puriffi
Kartesian
PHL
BMS

But these drivers can also sound bad in the wrong application, or the wrong implementation. Drivers are a part of a total system and brands of drivers don't tell nothing. There are enough speakers that have top level drivers but sound like s**t because the implementation is not right.

 

[Waxx]

Sony, Philips, LG, Bose, JBL, Klipsch, Sonos, Polk, Wilson Audio, Devore Fidelity, Bowers & Wilkins, PMC, Acoustic Energy, Spendor... I reckon they don’t sell drivers on their own, but they do make excellent, long-lasting drivers. Not much help for the lone DIYer or small companies, though. One pair of speakers I own was made by one of these companies back in 1997, and they’re still going strong. I can hear the brush on the drums and cymbals and all that so clearly, which shows they were making top-notch tweeters even back then. Interestingly, the dome tweeters are just placed on the baffle, without any tails or wave guides.

Most of those (except Phlips, JBL and B&W) rely on OEM drivers made by others companies. Devore use Seas woofers and Morel tweeters mostly as example, and not even unique ones designed for their purpose...

 

[Frank Dernie]

Most of those (except Phlips, JBL and B&W) rely on OEM drivers made by others companies. Devore use Seas woofers and Morel tweeters mostly as example, and not even unique ones designed for their purpose...

Spendor's USP from day 1 is/was their unique main driver(s), they do buy in tweeters, I believe. PMC with their unique bass drivers and ATC-like dome mid too. AE were using what appeared to be their own main driver when they were launched.

 

[Penelinfi]

Most of those (except Phlips, JBL and B&W) rely on OEM drivers made by others companies. Devore use Seas woofers and Morel tweeters mostly as example, and not even unique ones designed for their purpose...

Who made Sony's APM drivers?

 

[Waxx]

Spendor's USP from day 1 is/was their unique main driver(s), they do buy in tweeters, I believe. PMC with their unique bass drivers and ATC-like dome mid too. AE were using what appeared to be their own main driver when they were launched.

Those are their own designs, but not build by them. PMC rely a lot on danish builders and designers that work as OEM or consultant for unique drivers for the brand. Spendor bought from Kef in the past, what they do know i don't know.

ATC is an exception, altough they worked with consultants come from OEM builders to help with the design. But that is one of the few that really makes them in house.

AE (if you mean Acoustic Elegance) is a boutique builder, not easy to get and with long lead times, not a big speaker brand.

 

[Waxx]

Who made Sony's APM drivers?

I don't know, i worked for Sony altough and know they work with dozens of subcontractors. On speakers Foster (also know as Fostex, and from Japan) is a big one, but not the only one. Sinar Baja Electric (SB Acoustics/SB Audience) is another big OEM builder that worked a lot with Sony when i worked there. But Sony is such a big and complex company (certainly at that time) that it litterally could be anyone in this world...

 

[lddo133]

Based on my experience making speakers, I think the best woofer is SEAS. The best tweeter is SEAS or Scan Speak.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Spendor bought from Kef in the past, what they do know i don't know.

I don't know when they may have started doing that.
Spendor as a startup developed a 8" main driver of their own design with a plastic cone based on Spencer Hughes research at the BBC and this was used in most of their products whilst in his ownership. It was mounted in a thin wall BBC type cabinet with a Celestion 1300 tweeter and Coles super tweeter.

Not sure what they use nowadays. Harbeth was another company with roots in the BBC research department making a custom plastic cone 8" driver which has been developed over the years.

 

[Frank Dernie]

AE (if you mean Acoustic Elegance) is a boutique builder, not easy to get and with long lead times, not a big speaker brand.

Acoustic Energy.
Their first product in 1987 had a anodised ally coned main driver in a cabinet lined with plaster and was a pretty impressive speaker in period IME.
They still make a development of it.

 

[Waxx]

Acoustic Energy.
Their first product in 1987 had a anodised ally coned main driver in a cabinet lined with plaster and was a pretty impressive speaker in period IME.
They still make a development of it.

The fact that i never heared about them as loudspeaker freak says enough. They are not that big, not in quality nor in popularity. And from what i read on their website it's nothing special i think. Anodised metal cones are used by a lot of companies btw, it's often a way to break the resonances of a hard material a bit. I thought Ted Jordan (EJ Jordan, Scanspeak, ...) did that already in the 1960's with his infamous Jordan Watts speaker module. It's the same trick that Mark Fenlon did perfect for his modern Mark Audio full range drivers, where the anodising damps a lot of resonances in the copper-alloy cones he uses for his most famous drivers.

 

[Doenerkunde]

One manufacturer you rarely see mentioned is Dr Kurt Müller GmbH from Germany. Literally "your favorite speaker driver companys favorite speaker driver company": They exist for over 100 years and manufacture membranes, spiders, surrounds etc for over 200 companies including Seas, Scan Speak, SB Acoustics, Wavecor, Magico and many other industry leaders. Truly a "hidden champion" of the international hifi industry.

Small portrait: https://audioxpress.com/article/dr-kurt-muller-anniversary-100-years-of-loudspeaker-innovation

Homepage: http://wp13470711.server-he.de/en/

 

[Frank Dernie]

The fact that i never heared about them as loudspeaker freak says enough. They are not that big, not in quality nor in popularity. And from what i read on their website it's nothing special i think. Anodised metal cones are used by a lot of companies btw, it's often a way to break the resonances of a hard material a bit. I thought Ted Jordan (EJ Jordan, Scanspeak, ...) did that already in the 1960's with his infamous Jordan Watts speaker module. It's the same trick that Mark Fenlon did perfect for his modern Mark Audio full range drivers, where the anodising damps a lot of resonances in the copper-alloy cones he uses for his most famous drivers.

Probably different brands have different public profiles in different countries. I have been fascinated by speakers since the '60s and, as a noise and vibration research engineer, fascinated by different material choices. One of my best friends designs drive units and complete speakers for many clients.
I have lived in the UK and France and it was marked how brands unknown or little known in the UK were highly regarded in France.
Anodic coating changes stiffness not damping btw.
I am familiar with Ted Jordan's "full range" driver it wasn't anodised, initially certainly.
My first experience of anodised ally cones the AE and the Monitor Audio C_CAM ones. Loads of makers have them available nowadays and with modern crossovers a pistonic driver with break up frequencies filtered out of the feed should give good results, better, probably, than listening to heavily damped low Q resonances over most of the passband anyway.