Gobel and the Bending Wave


An article at Stereophile regarding the Gobel Divin Noblesse speaker caught my eye recently:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/g%C3%B6bel-loudspeakers-cables-engstr%C3%B6m-pre-and-power-wadax...


Jason Victor Serinus made a simple mistake and listed the AMT tweeter as a "bending wave" transducer. He's corrected the error, but the "fix" was just as curious. According to the Gobel website, and JVS's correction, the midrange drivers, which for all the world look like FaitalPro 8" mids to me are "bending wave" transducers in this model.


http://www.goebel-highend.de/products/divin-noblesse.html


These midranges look nothing like the bending wave planar transducers used in the Epoque line, or described by their technology page here:

http://www.goebel-highend.de/technology.html

So, without being able to order and disassemble these $190K speakers, I'm really skeptical that this description of the midrange drivers is accurate.


That is all,

Erik
erik_squires
Sorry, AMT is not bending wave, Atmasphere. It's motion is pistonic, although at an angle. :)

IMHO, to be a bending wave, the transducer must be excited at one end, and have the sound wave emit off the surface as the wave travels from one end to the other, or from a central point to the edge.
The Linaeum tweeter is a flexible membrane and is excited at the center with the sound wave emitting off the surface as the wave travels from the center to the edge. I have a set- and they are very similar to the High Emotion Audio tweeter. I've spoken directly to the engineer that designed the latter (Mike Shields) who said that his design is a bending wave and also similar to the Linaeum. So what am I missing? Is the Linaeum tweeter not also the AMT?
The Linaeum tweeter is a flexible membrane and is excited at the center with the sound wave emitting off the surface as the wave travels from the center to the edge.



Right, and if that is accurate, the Linaeum would be a bending wave device but by contrast, AMT’s are excited across the length of each pleat simultaneously. I found this article which was interesting and included more on the subject:

http://www.soundimage.dk/Different-col/Bending.htm

AMTs are conspicuously absent.


I think the only similarity is really in that pleat. Lineaum uses a single pleat as the motor, AMT’s use multiple pleats. AMTs work not by moving back and forth towards the users, but by squeezing air in and out from between the pleats, more like an accordion.

More here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Motion_Transformer

And here:
https://www.audioholics.com/bookshelf-speaker-reviews/monoprice-monolith

But there’s no description for an AMT I’ve ever read where one area of the membrane is excited at one location, and then a wave is transmitted on the surface. Instead, each pleat is like a ribbon’s conductor in a magnetic field.
Ah. I had thought that the Linaeum AMT was also the Linaeum bending wave tweeter, but apparently they are different. You can see the Lineaum bending wave tweeter in the first link you provided above.
@atmasphere -

I'm not a Linaeum historian, the only tweeter I know them from was the butt-cheek like driver made famous by Radio Shack.


If they also made an AMT that would be news to me. Let me know if you find a link to one.


Best,
E