B&W sold to a Silicon Valley start up company

lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
A little more seriously, I think an 'oil can resonance' occurs when the tweeter dome moves out of phase with the movement of its surround - in other words, the surround is moving the tweeter outward but the center of the tweeter is actually moving inward. This is all related to the frequency, the mass of the dome, inertia, and a bunch of other physics terms I can't remember.

I think - I'm guessing - that the terminology comes from the old style of oil cans somehow?
LOL don't keep track of oil can style much....mine come in plastic bottles these days.
 
Joe B

Joe B

Audioholic Chief
What is an oil can resonance?
I am probably incorrect about this, but the first thing I thought of when I read Gene's post was that he was referring to 'steel drums', like the one's used in Trinidad and Tobago.
 
Joe B

Joe B

Audioholic Chief
Me too! Glad I wasn't the only one... lol.

So that's interesting. I'll bet all the reviews talk about the "crystalline highs". Surely it's diamond coated something, right? Powdered and baked on or something? I'll also bet they're using synthetic diamonds. This might even merit a Google search...
It is possible they are using 'reclaimed' natural diamond. Reclaiming diamond powder is now a standard practice. Cutter grinders use diamond impregnated grinding wheels for grinding carbide, ceramics, etc.. The powder is processed to extract the diamond from the material being ground so it can be used in another application.
 
Pogre

Pogre

Audioholic Slumlord
It is possible they are using 'reclaimed' natural diamond. Reclaiming diamond powder is now a standard practice. Cutter grinders use diamond impregnated grinding wheels for grinding carbide, ceramics, etc.. The powder is processed to extract the diamond from the material being ground so it can be used in another application.
That I didn't know. I was also thinking for tight tolerances that synthetic might be more consistent as well. I don't think using synthetic diamonds for applications like is a knock. They're just as strong and hard as natural diamonds without the impurities.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
What is an oil can resonance?
This what it is.

Scanspeak Aluminum dome tweeter.



This show the oil can resonance well.



It occurs when the metal is no longer able to withstand the acceleration forces, and no longer moves as one piece.

These resonance are at a high frequency, but the strange thing is they are audible. It is a strange sort of 'swish' effect to the metallic instruments especially.

Now the other paradox is that a soft dome tweeter does not even pretend to move as one piece, but with ripples across the dome.
 
Patrick Butler

Patrick Butler

Junior Audioholic
Hello TLS Guy,

Thank you for sharing some of your recollections. As someone who came into the industry in the early 90s in the U.S., so much of what I know of audio had become commercialized and the hobbyist aspect became about the purchasing of products rather than the technical exercise of building products at home.

I think there are some analogies between the DIY hobbyist culture in audio and the ones I see in home brewing, baking, etc. During the covid lockdown I decided to rehydrate a sourdough starter that a friend had gifted me some years back and try my hand at baking sourdough bread. Some of the hobbyist experts in baking have non-commercial relationships with flour companies where innovations/techniques are shared, and this helps to drive interest in home baking in a sort of virtuous feedback loop. Not to put words in your mouth, but I believe this is the point you have been making through this discussion and it is not lost on me.

Again, thank you for sharing your stories and I wish you a good day.

Regards,

Patrick
Bowers & Wilkins



Patrick, thank you for your thoughtful reply, you are forgiven for your "marketeer's" boiler plate reply.

So this deserves a longer reply. I'm a washed up retired chap, so I'm older than you. However I have had a passion for building audio and and now AV systems since a young child. My father was a DIYer. Anyhow I built my first speaker age 7. I started putting circuits together around that time. I also grew up in the UK at Rochester. Tovil was only 15 miles away, so I got to know Raymond Cooke. Lowther were not far away in Bromley, and Donald Chave was a great inspiration. Of course pretty much anyone dabbling in audio got to know the 'great' Gilbert A Briggs, GAB as he was known, through his writings and at the yearly Audio Fair, and his flamboyant 'live versus recorded" events at the Royal Festival Hall. He was a huge influencer and driver of the DIY market. He openly stated that it was far more profitable to sell speaker drivers, than going to bother of building cabinets. In those days the Wharfedale output of raw drivers was prodigious. I also go to know Peter Walker of Quad quite well and had a major influence on me.

We also had other friends who were into this hobby. I especially remember Donald Chevas who was a barrister at law of some regard. He was very funny and droll. It was great fun to be with him at the Audio Fair's where I would delight in him humorously taking down eager salesmen extolling the virtue if some ridiculous contraption. He would slip me components of his failed projects, which would extend my budget.

Then we had the military surplus stores on the Leicester road, where you could by surplus components for next to nothing. Sterns Radio of Fleet Street supported the DIY market very well, and the place was packed every noon hour with city workers spending their meager surplus cash on their next project. At the end of the day they were seen getting their newly purchased goods onto crowded railway trains.

In those days, you could buy an excellent reel to reel tape recorder in hundreds of tiny pieces for very reasonable money. I'm thinking of Brennel Engineering especially, So a member of the public could put together a recorder identical to a unit widely used by the BBC.

Now as to numbers I know not in specific terms. I do know that reading the mags DIY back then had a significant presence in the US, and some of their DIY products made it to the UK, I'm thinking of Heathkit in particular. I do know that both Altec, Electrovoice and JBL, really courted the DIY market, with drivers and designs.

So, back then developing a decent speaker was much, much harder then it is now. Now the DIYer has computer assisted design programs for box and crossovers within easy reach. Not only that, but sophisticated measuring tools are now within reach of the DIYer. Yet, this market is now ignored by the majors.

I do know that Parts Express have built up a fine business catering to this market. I have dealt with Madisound for about 40 years. In the UK Wilmslow Audio have supplied this market for years, going back to my childhood. Interestingly I think the DIY market, once so vibrant in the UK is now very smaller than the US.

My last point is I think an important one. I think from the contacts I have made, the DIY market, if properly supported, can drive innovation. I used to build my own PU cartridges before the stereo era. They were moving coil and the stylus was supported by a nylon thread. I was more dexterous then than now by far. Anyhow I did as I was determined to make a pickup that would track at 3 GM. That had been determined by Cecil Watts to be the tracking force at which an LP would not become permanently deformed. Forces of the day, were 7 to 10 grams. I believe I got there first. Anyhow I showed one to Stan Kelly of Decca. He took the suspension and made it a variable reluctance cartridge and the iconic Decca ffss was born.

Peter Walker always had a full circuit diagram of his products tucked into every instruction manual. He was not in the least concerned about others copying. He did tell me that knowledgeable customers would come up with improvements which he was not too proud to accept.

When the JW speaker module was introduced, I really don't think it would have survived if it had not been for the involvement of my father and myself. Prior to that each driver would only work for about 20 minutes.

I moved to Canada first in 1970. It will be 50 years June 20 since we left the UK. I was Canadian agent for JW until I moved to the US in 1976, During that time I further increased the reliability of those drivers and was heavily involved developing the Mark III.

In addition DIYers are you best unpaid sales staff. Obviously family friends and acquaintances are going to seek advice if they like what they see and here. They are far more likely to take advice from individuals like me than from a Best By Blue Shirt and even less from an audiophool dealer trying to fob them off with $1000.00 speaker cables. Over the years I have sold for you three sets of your top line speakers.

Audio in the home really does have to look at performance and aesthetics. The latter is a huge barrier to sales. Also speakers are very much like pipe organs in a way. Every organ builder worth his salt carefully voices the instrument to the space, including when installing an older instrument in a new space. So to some extent I believe speakers do need to have some means of being voiced to the space they reside in. And no you can not leave to Auydyssey with it cheap plastic mic, placed on chairs using a horrid cardboard base. That is absolutely not good enough.

I think this post is now long enough, so I expand in another post on what is seriously adrift with the industry now and potential solutions. No things are not good, and could be a lot better. The effort is ripe for reward in increased acceptance and sales. What is on offer now is not even close to acceptability. I will edit this post and link it here.
 
G

Gmoney

Audioholic Ninja
The best sounding metal domes I've ever heard are Beryllium. RBH and Revel use them in their top models and they really do have incredibly smooth and detailed highs. Unlike most metal domes, they don't exhibit oil can resonances and their break up modes are at least a 1/2 octave above the limits of human hearing. Downside, pure Beryllium is expensive, but hey, this is high end ;)
Alkaline earth metal, wouldn't be the same as used in Alkaline batteries would it? 800 a pound, not close what gold is worth per pound. All things being equal.
It's when you hit one of these with a drum stick.




View attachment 37093
To Crackerjaxs Beating the drum.. lolo
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Hello TLS Guy,

Thank you for sharing some of your recollections. As someone who came into the industry in the early 90s in the U.S., so much of what I know of audio had become commercialized and the hobbyist aspect became about the purchasing of products rather than the technical exercise of building products at home.

I think there are some analogies between the DIY hobbyist culture in audio and the ones I see in home brewing, baking, etc. During the covid lockdown I decided to rehydrate a sourdough starter that a friend had gifted me some years back and try my hand at baking sourdough bread. Some of the hobbyist experts in baking have non-commercial relationships with flour companies where innovations/techniques are shared, and this helps to drive interest in home baking in a sort of virtuous feedback loop. Not to put words in your mouth, but I believe this is the point you have been making through this discussion and it is not lost on me.

Again, thank you for sharing your stories and I wish you a good day.

Regards,

Patrick
Bowers & Wilkins
Yes, Patrick. You are correct. You see it is DIY hobbyists in all spheres that have the passion and spread it.

I will get back to you at length, as shortly as I can, this week I hope. I'm undergoing treatment for my prostate cancer for the rest of this month, but I will still have time.

Also I'm in some delicate negotiations right now to make transmission line modelling freely available, before this important technology is set back for years or for ever. That is a priority right now.

I will focus on the state of the industry as I see it now, and where I feel it is on the wrong foot as far as making all this new technology a feasible realistic proposition in the modern home for the wider public.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
I am probably incorrect about this, but the first thing I thought of when I read Gene's post was that he was referring to 'steel drums', like the one's used in Trinidad and Tobago.
Wouldn't that be more an oil drum resonance? :)
 
ryanosaur

ryanosaur

Audioholic Overlord
Also I'm in some delicate negotiations right now to make transmission line modelling freely available, before this important technology is set back for years or for ever. That is a priority right now.
This, I like!!! And am very excited in. :)
 
ryanosaur

ryanosaur

Audioholic Overlord
It occurs when the metal is no longer able to withstand the acceleration forces, and no longer moves as one piece.

These resonance are at a high frequency, but the strange thing is they are audible. It is a strange sort of 'swish' effect to the metallic instruments especially.
For clarity and education, in your example:
Are you referring to the Breakup that begins (conservatively) at 14kHz? Or is there something else that indicates this problem?

Thanks, Doc! Hope all is going well so far! :)
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
For clarity and education, in your example:
Are you referring to the Breakup that begins (conservatively) at 14kHz? Or is there something else that indicates this problem?

Thanks, Doc! Hope all is going well so far! :)
Yes, that's it.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
Wouldn't that be more an oil drum resonance? :)
I think he means the type of oil can that has a skinny spout and when it's used, the neck of the can is held between the index and middle fingers with the thumb pushing on the bottom, which makes a kind of sound that's similar to "pooka", when the bottom flexes in and returns to its original shape by itself (usually because of a spring)- it's naturally convex, but pressing it in makes it concave and that pushes the oil out.


The tweeter dome is pushed at the edge, but when it can't remain in its original shape, it distorts, causing problems with the sound, with the center of the dome approximating the action of the bottom of an oil can when pressed.
 
slipperybidness

slipperybidness

Audioholic Warlord
Me too! Glad I wasn't the only one... lol.

So that's interesting. I'll bet all the reviews talk about the "crystalline highs". Surely it's diamond coated something, right? Powdered and baked on or something? I'll also bet they're using synthetic diamonds. This might even merit a Google search...
Yeah, just ask @AcuDefTechGuy how rigid a diamond tweeter is, and what happens when a buffoon drops one!

Is it still too soon to talk about that?
 

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