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Design a $60,000 Speaker - Start here

Hi Everyone,

Just thought for interest I'd talk about one of the most expensive woofers in the 10-12" varieties, the Accuton AS250-88-552 CELL, actually an 11" aluminum honeycomb sandwich construction. Retail price at hobbyist volumes: $1,400, each.

In addition to the exotic material, the suspension and motor assembly are also worthy of note, as they leave a very large amount of unobstructed space directly behind the dome, allowing it to behave most ideally like a piston.

So putting this together into say a modest 3 way with all drivers from the same company and of the same level, I estimate around $6k / pair of speakers for the drivers alone. Add the normal markups, and this is a $60k speaker.

Will it sound any good? I have no idea. I just wanted to share with you all where some of these speakers that cost as much as a luxury sedan get their prices from.  Obviously, my estimates are rough, and go up and down. The point of this is just a general expose.

Best,


E

erik_squires
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
12,951 posts
 
you could actually learn a great deal from Richard Vandersteen
the 7 is not built to a price point it is the best he knows how to do today and is the culmination of many many years of work and innovation
i might add that every single part and operation is subject to what I call Dutch Frugal Engineering scrutiny but at the end of the day it has to sound better - hence a somewhat conventional barrier strip binding post that can be directly connected into the soldered traces for the crossover - eliminating wire
i believe it is relevant as you yourself start the thread with driver cost


soundsrealaudio's avatar
soundsrealaudio
756 posts
 
I love the magazine ads that showcase the crossover. All these parts. In some cases there is more going on in the crossover as some single ended amplifiers have circuitry. They also have notch filterers to eliminate cab resonance at certain frequencies. 

Please don't get me started on active speakers. I paid big bucks for a rack to isolate my amplifiers from the resonance and now they put the amp right in there next to the woofer. 

That is remarkable.
erik_squires OP
16,219 posts
 
Zobel networks are another mythical beast.

Zobels are used to flatten the driver impedance, usually to assist high / low pass filters in behaving more ideally.

Their need/use/benefit and specific implementation is pretty speaker dependent.

https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2016/12/crossover-basics-zobel_8.html

See the section "Do I need a Zobel."
soundsrealaudio's avatar
soundsrealaudio
756 posts
 
So what kind of testing is done on the driver material. Both listening tests and tests for distortion and resonance. All these different materials, surely some must be better then others. 
ctsooner
2,480 posts
 
I know a few companies use laser technology to be able to read how the cones are responding to various things.  Some are even posted on Youtube for you to see.  
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