Hard Audio - Ceramic Speakers

Harman’s CMMD look very good on paper. The fact folks are still working on this problem shows you how pesky it is!

ATC solution to breakup (bending) of softer materials was to use a dome shape supported by a large 3 inch voice coil. They also had to use a massive 20 LB drive motor to get the necessary SPL out of such a small dome. Finally a 3 inch voice coil in a 3 inch dome is going to suffer from rocking motion - so ATC use a double spider to maintain alignment. So ATC solution works brilliantly to overcome the highly damped softer cone material issues however it comes at a huge cost - a very expensive transducer.

These newer designs that concentrate on fancy cone material structure look promising to be more cost effective but can they be mass produced with consistent quality? Will they last? And do they work better and as reliably as the “brute force” ATC massive drive motor style approach to dealing with softer damped materials - Time will tell.

Whatever the solution - internally damped drivers are absolutely critical to SOTA speakers.

Maybe I'm just fussy, but as far as I can tell, those Infinity drivers are basically anodized aluminum drivers. That is, they make aluminum drivers and then using acid and current (I think) they transform the outer layers. This is essentially what Calphalon does for it's cookware, no? 

And yes, Accuton are considered technically among the best drivers made. Certainly based on measurements and low distortion this seems to be the case. And yet... I'm happier with paper cones from Scanspeak. Kind of why I started this thread. :) The engineer and music listener in me do not reconcile well when it comes to these particular drivers.

Best,

E

Give me some kind of paper woofer and a silk dome tweeter any day.

@erik_squires 

Yes, I believe the coating is Aluminum Oxide, which is a ceramic material.  I'm not sure how they apply it, or what the difference is with the new Revel drivers.  

The benefits of paper drivers and soft dome tweeters are that their breakup nodes aren't nearly as nasty as metal drivers.  The downside is that their breakup nodes occur at lower frequencies.  

Still, breakup nodes are only an issue if you're running drivers into the extremes of their range or using shallow slope crossovers.  If you're building a 2-way or 2.5 way speaker with a first order crossover, it's something you need to worry about.  If you're building a 3-way using 4th order crossovers you'll have a lot less to worry about with regard to breakup nodes, unless you just picked the completely wrong drivers for your project.

I've never ever been moved though. For whatever reason, every ceramic speaker I've heard sounded cold, clinical, pure without power. 

Funny we purchased the Auccuton drivers and just plugged them into an old pair on Infinity Kappa speakers and then compared them to my old Vandersteen model 5 speakers.  We felt the Auccuton drivers were faster, had better clarity and were just as musical.  No modifications, just put them in and let them play.  Go figure.