Speakers for leading edge, transients, speed and big sound

Interestingly, you have to keep a supply of ionized gas around which in effect acts as the diaphragm as the plasma excites the atoms of whatever gas it is producing sound. When the gas floats away or is dissipated though, no more sound. Not very practical or I would assume, cheap.  

In reality, no one has ever improved on the good old dynamic driver which people in the know are always coming up with new ways to configure and implement this legacy technology to achieve whatever sonic milestone they desire for less money and hassle and what the market will rationally except.

simonmoon

567 posts

05-02-2025 at 12:09pm 

I would definitely look for a pair of Acapella Audio Arts speakers. 

One of the best horn speakers available. 

They use a plasma driver for the tweeter, which could be the best tweeter available. There is nothing with better transient response than a tweeter with ZERO MASS!  

Amazing attack and decay.

At your budget, you would be able to get a great pair used. 

 

@simonmoon Thanks, I very much appreciate your retort.

"They use a pulsating plasma flame to excite the air itself. No need for an external gas supply.

They're lifespan is extremely long, since there are no moving parts. 

Another company that uses ION tweeters, which I like even better than Acapelle, is Lansche audio. I heard their speakers at T.H.E. SHow last year. 

Their ION tweeter, if it needs to be replaced, is less expensive than other high end speaker's tweeters."

 

@ditusa Bill Woodman who founded ATC in 1974 solved this problem by using "underslung" edge wound voice coils in a longer and tighter gap which eliminated the "offset" issue while reducing distortion up to 20dB throughout the driver's frequency range. In addition, this reduces the usual swings in impedance as well as radical changes in phase angels resulting in flat impedance response without resonances. The caveat being the need for enormous magnet structures along with considerable reduction in efficiency. Essentially though, you could use any type of amplifier typology to drive their speakers without harm to the amplifier but to get the speaker system to come alive you need minimally a hundred watts high current solid-state power.

"Example of a short excursion woofer that @larryi is referencing see here.

The JBL 2220 is a 15'' woofer with a short excursion and has a frequency range of 40 Hz-2 KHz while the JBL 2235 is a 15'' woofer with a long excursion and has a frequency range of 20 Hz-2 KHz. The 2235 woofer will reach two octaves lower in the bass than the 2220 woofer see here. 

Almost all HiFi woofers suffer from this problem (woofer dynamic offset) see below:

''Woofer dynamic offset is a problem long known about but seldom discussed or treated. With high input power at low frequencies, many woofers tend to shift their mean displacement forward or backward until the coil is nearly out of the gap. This is most likely to happen just above each low frequency impedance peak of a system. The result is a high level of second harmonic distortion and subjectively a bass character that loses its tightness at high acoustical output levels [4]. The cure for offset, as shown by T, H. Wiik [6], is a restoring spring force that increases in stiffness at high displacement in an amount that counterbalances the reduced B field at the extremes of voice coil travel. Such a nonlinear spider will in fact reduce distortion and eliminate the tendency to offset.'' See full article here."

 

@ditusa Lovely! Thank you so much!

"This profile opened with the assessment that Ed May was one of the most accomplished acoustic engineers of the past half century. This may seem to be overstating the case since the body of his published work is actually quite small. Nonetheless, the quality of his work, sheer output and influence in the industry speaks volumes. This is best exemplified by the quote at the end of this profile. It is by Bill Woodman, founder and senior designer for ATC Acoustic Engineers of Cotswold, England. ATC is one of the most respected manufacturers of high-end studio monitors and home speakers. Even though he never met Ed, here is what Bill had to say in a 2000 interview:

"The man who inspired me mostly, in truth, was Ed May, one of the very early designers at JBL. A lot of the thinking he incorporated, we've incorporated into our design. All one can hope to do is better engineer what is already known""

Thanks for the post. Remember Bill Woodman and Edmond May see here. 

Mike