The disappearance of the traditional amplifier

Kirkus, you and I have similar ideas about monitors in studios. I use the High Emotion Audio S7- clearly the most revealing and neutral monitor to come along in a long time.

Regarding field coils, while the prior art was indeed integrated into cabinetry to reduce the power supply costs, modern FC systems usually have a regulated supply of their own. There are high excursion units now, beryllium-dome compression drivers and the like that simply did not exist 60 years ago. My understanding was the industry abandoned the art for the less expensive (and lessor performing) permanent magnet systems.

The reason I brought this up is that field coils are a rising star in high end audio right now and are an example of how having a closed system of amp and speaker will limit the ability of the end user to upgrade the system. If you recall the old powered Acoustats, the issue is similar- if you want a speaker that can play louder, or one that is **actually** full range (plays bass), or so on and so on, you have to change both the amp and speaker at the same time to get there.

Integrated systems have their place, especially when space is limited, but by definition they will never be state-of-the-art.

Atmasphere, I asked this question over at AA and I'd be interested to hear your opinion:

I'm curious who believes that a FC motor is inherently superior to even the best AlNiCo magnets, and who, conversely, believes that there is no such inherent superiority, and the only advantage of the field coil is the ability to tune parameters with the coil voltage/current.

Hi Paulfolbrecht, I for one believe the FC technology to be generally superior, but like all other things in this sport, a lot relies on execution. So its dangerous to make generalizations on that account.

FWIW though, you can't really 'tune' the parameters once the motor is designed- if you have that ability, it means that the gap isn't saturated, and if the gap isn't saturated, the motor will not be performing very well, field coil or no.

Atmasphere,

If this is a sport, why have I gotten so fat?

What, you don't consider Sumo wrestling to be a sport?