I predict a highly probability that a new wave is coming in high-end audio loudspeakers. The today’s high-end audio the loudspeakers field is in a complex stagnation, the stagnation that will lead to the need to invent a new ways to sell loudspeakers.

For a manufacture to sell a good loudspeaker is very difficult task as if you do good loudspeaker then with your sale you… loose a customer. Truly, a person pays a lot of money for a good performing acoustic system and then the person stays with this acoustic system for years. There are people who stay with same speakers for 10-30 years – how the hell a speaker manufacture would pay monthly his mortgage if a customer bought ones and them gone for 10 years? The loudspeaker industry put on the task the army of the audio writing whores – the publications reviewers. Pay attention, I am not talking about the audio writers who publicize the new loudspeaker technologies, discover the new directions and etc…. but the I am talking about the industry payrolled sleazebag that methodologically and persistent, month after month polish the knob of user’s perception convincing them that the very new crapy model that “juts accidentally became available” has “something” that should make a user to sell his current loudspeaker and to buy a new model.

This process is very well-oiled and very grotesque and any person who actually knows how the inner-mechanism of audio distribution works feels very appalling about it, if not involved. Even from some among the people who are involved I heard a lot of sorrow about the stupid customers who “swallow” all that superficial marketing crap that they structured for them.

However, the mortgages invoices are still coming and the dollar keep crashing dally. Many manufactures increase prices by-monthly, with no needs lately to provide any justification for price rise. In the past the idiotic stories were composed and deployed to the customers as the justifications for price increase  – “the new ultra-expensive cabinets made by lazers”, “the new beryline diaphragms”,  “the new ceramic drivers”, “the new diamond tweeters” ,  “the new MF cones soaked with ejaculate of  adolescent hippopotamus”… I can go on and on… However, everyone feel that this is got saturated in the mind of mostly blind to results audio consumers. Not the last fact is that the audio “reviewers” who dump all this crap to buyers perception are generally very low talent writers, the writers who just write very pure marketing literature – thanks Gog the Americans are accustomed to bad literature…

So, what I think will happen next? The markets desperately need a new, very dramatic round of cash collection. I think the new round of huge price increase is coming in loudspeakers and the industry will invent an idea that will “rationalize” the price, increase and “justify” the need for a consumer to sell current loudspeakers and to by new. I think I know what the industry will use as a crutch for this action. The new industry-embraced mania will be loudspeakers with electromagnets.

I would like to stay away in this thread from the discussion about the advantage and disadvantages of electromagnets (or as they called sometime field-coil drivers). They have own positive and own negative moments. However, they are cheaper and simpler to makes, they are more confusing and finicky to use, they are new and not exploited ground in marketing and they are truly a golden future for audio sale.  I can predict that within next 5-10 years you will see the new very sophisticated versions of Wilson eAlexandria, JMLab Grad Utopia Electra, Avalon EdilonX,  Kharma Electron Exquisite, B&W ElectroForce Suprime, eAerial Acoustics, Dynaudio AC and Von Schweikert Elecrodrive…. All of them will be with new “revolutionary” designs around the electromagnets. None of them will be upgradeable as the new generation of the loudspeakers wills have the “proprietary” cooling systems that will throw the generated in the field-coil hit out of the loudspeaker’s ports or to have on-board heat-exchangers. Someone like Meridian will stick the DSP in the loudspeakers, will delay the signal and will dynamically pre-magnetize the field-coils with respect to the actual signal.

That all electromagnet direction might or not might be beneficial for actual Sound but it will surely give a LOT of talking points for a new tsunami of audio marketing. Wait until you see $6000 platinum-made interconnects between the field-coil power supplies for loudspeakers, and the cable elevators for the field-coil interconnect made from the wood of Aquilaria trees…

I do think that it is coming. I do not see any signs of it yet but the opportunities and the conditions are there. Let see if the industry bite it – I think they will as the marketing lucrativeness of the idea is truly very fertile.

coops wrote:

Are you decrying the use of field coils per se? A friend has been experimenting with them in a specific utilisation and has had very promising results.

Field coil drivers, the next wave :

Yes, brilliant indeed! The time is very right for such an "evolution".

And, we can hypothesize that it might have been so... Had Romy not posted this prediction.

However, in so doing, Romy may have just short circuited such an "evolution"... Because Romy the Cat is who he is, one might suppose that the industry players/marketing machine (while of course making like they don't know he exists), would sooner die than to admit that Romy was correct.

Aw shucks.

So thank you Romy, please keep this prediction alive, as it could mean that future research of field coil drivers will be carried out for the right reason; sound.

jd*

coops wrote:

I have re-read your post and your tone sugests that field coil drivers  wi be used by manufacturers purely for their marketing appeal and not for any sonic improvement, Thomas Woschnick has just taken delivery of a pair of Cessaro Beta's which utilise a field coil for the upper bass driver , I believe he is very pleased with the results…

So fun any conversations and any examples of field-coil drivers I have witnessed were more marketing, hype, or prejudices-centric instead of Sound-centric. I do not say that field-coil idea is faulty; I just say that I did not see it being used with sonic objective so far. Any single argument that “field-coil lobby wonna be” extend to push the field-coil idea forward does not stand ground.  I hope the satiation will change in future…

However, what I said has nothing to do with field-coil as implementation options (like in your Cessaro Beta the upper bass electromagnet driver most likely was superfluous). The electromagnet drivers for ignorant people are the “persuasive rationalization” and I think the industry will capitalize on this fact.

All that needed for start is a big household manufacturer with a very habitual and stale product to move into field-coil direction and get sales numbers up – it will open the flood. Let pretend that something like the 3 way Wilson Watt/Puppy come up with Wilson Watt/Puppy “ElecraDrive”, featuring all channels with electromagnet. In fact for Wilson inverted metal dome and those over 30K harsh resonances the electromagnet would be a good thing. As you understand such a release will be accompanied with all those reviewing whores trumpet the electromagnet idea in all hi-fi publications, buttering up the perspective buyers. Perhaps Wilson, in orders to demonstrate the “electromagnet difference” will instruct own resellers to intentionally topple Sound of the former models (like shunting or re-phase the drivers - I know many stories like this that took place during the dealer demonstrations). If the buzz catch up and the “ElecraDrive” model will be a good hit then with a year you will see a LOT of many companies to follow.

It is all might not be a bad thing; in fact I would like more people look at electromagnet idea. I just say that there is a pile of cash in the electromagnet marketing and I will be very surprised if the mainstream audio marketing do not bang over and do not pick it up.

el`Ol wrote:

My predictions are: The mainstream manufacturers will continue as they have been doing for decades…

Wow, the name Oliver is so much easier to read/write then  "el`Ol"!

You might be right and nothing will happen… it means a heavy pile of money will not be extracted where it could be extracted. Let see what happen, though I personally feel that the electromagnet wave will come. I would propose to play a lottery with a name of household manufacturers who will move to electromagnet first.

I think it might be one of the small high-end companies under Harman International umbrella. They have a good dealer network, money, pre-feed publication s and they are positioned well to attack the electromagnet subject. Alternatively it might be a large European manufacturer but the one who do a lot of business in US and well exposed to US marketing BS.

Let see where my perdition will be lent.

coops wrote:

I  have't  heard the driver in the Beta, I am told that there isn't a great deal of difference sonically between the field coil and the alnico magnet versions of the driver.

It is most like that people who told you about it did not lay to you. In my post above I said that the use electromagnet in Cessaro Beta’s upper bass electromagnet driver most likely was superfluous. Superfluous is not necessary, not required, addition but not useful functionally.  Your Thomas Woschnick who just taken delivery of a pair of Cessaro Beta's which utilize a field coil for the upper bass driver  and who  is very pleased with the results, he pleased with result of speakers perhaps and it has absolutely nothing to do with electromagnet drivers that the speakers use. In upperbass any benefits of electromagnets are not there. However, I am sure that Cessaro charged 30% for the electromagnets options (you can confirm it) or at least solicited Thomas Woschnick to buy the system with respect of the fact that the speaker use filed coil. It was exactly what I was taking about – the electromagnet idea used as a marketing tool of propulsion not as sonic impactful property.

coops wrote:

Ralph and Thomas are friends there would have been no price premium for the field coil option …

coops wrote:

I take your point though of an old technology resurrected for marketing rather than purely sonic reasons.

I really don't get out much any more, just happened to run across this while looking for high-powered SETs:

http://www.avguide.com/news/2008/01/23/ces-2008-dick-olsher-investigates-tube-gear-at-ces/4/

Look at text down below the Classic Audio speaker picture in this audio industry "update".

Danged if they aren't giving the field coil the old "breathless" routine (be still, my heart...).

If the smaller high-end guys have any luck selling this, then you know the Big Boys will spin it off, first with mid-line products (to under cut the smaller guys' pricing), then they'll come out with lower and higher priced versions for full market saturation.

With SOTA rapid-deployment engineering/manufacturing going full-tilt in China, it's just a matter of time.

BTW, whatever happened to "Class D"?  Wasn't that suppose to be the Next Big Thing for amps?

Paul S

guy sergeant wrote:

http://www.audiounlimiteddenver.com/ Focal Utopia EM

You are right: The Grande Utopia is one of the names that very much in the mainstream and have very much pre-inclined exposure in industry. That all will assure the audio-intellectuals with pack mentality to follow.

The Grande Utopia was more or less OK, had problems but still was near acceptable. The second generation – the Beryllium version was a nightmare – I am very actively hate it. This new their generation… I do not know. I never heard them, I most likely never will as I have no specific interests. Juts reading the specification sheet I very much do not like what they were trying to do – or at least what they stating in their marketing presentation.

Let look what they say:

11" (27cm) "W" midbass High efficiency Multiferrite magnet

What does the High Efficiency mean? The speaker has the same 94dB Efficiency as any other Grande Utopia

61/2"(16.5cm) "W" Power Flower midrange drivers  Power Flower magnet, maximal power and reduced magnetic leaks

Yes, I know this driver, it is very good driver and it is available for $300 retail.

IAL2 pure Beryllium inverted dome tweeter
› very large bandwidth from 1 to 40kHz
› IAL2 (Infinite Acoustic Loading): low resonance frequency at 580Hz
› definition, rapidity and transparency of the midrange/treble

Stick your very large bandwidth in the ass of the idiot who design it. why the person in right mind would proud that tweeter has low resonance frequency,  large bandwidth down to 1kHz and at the same time to use it in 4-way installation and being a high order crossover point? The low resonance along with ultra-light Beryllium cone create a situation when the cone is not balanced with own inertia – I have much do not like any of the drivers that operate in this mode. The mass of cone, the force of flux, the exertion of cone and the resonance frequency should be balanced and “normalized”. If you want to make drivers with tweeters sitting at with 1kHz then make two-ways mini-monitors but not 260kG 4-ways monsters.  I can’t  believe that people might pay probably &100K for a demanding 4-way speaker where a tweeter sitting at 2500Hz!

16" (40cm) "W" Electro-Magnet EM
› extremely powerful Electro-Magnetic EM (BL = 34 T.m)

And I have a LOT of problem with it. The fact that they claim it extremely powerful makes me VERY nervous. The woofer still has 94dB sensitivity - so the extremely powerful this gone into the bumping up flux. However, my own observations showed that very high flux for electromagnets is god only for HF transducers. For bass drivers it very much opposite – overly high flux dries out bass, make it too fast and too none-harmonic. I would like them to use electromagnets to stretch the gap longer, holding the exertion in linear flux as far as possible but not to raise flux too high.  The short throe high flux woofer sound like crap and the electromagnets would not help here – in fact they would do damage as it is too easy to get high flux with filed-coils.