Sigberg Audio
Audioholic
Quick introduction: Sigberg Audio is a Norwegian loudspeaker company, our SBS.1 speaker was recently reviewed here on Audioholics. We've currently got three products: The SBS.1 active speakers and two different subwoofers. We've taken an extremely transparent approach to our development process, and have had development threads for all our products on both ASR as well as a Norwegian hifi forum. We now have a fourth product well under way, and already have threads about this as well on the aforementioned forums, but I thought it would be fun to do one here on Audioholics as well! (I humbly asked @shadyJ for permission )
Sooo, what are we working on now?
Our next project is the Sigberg Audio MANTA Dual Cardioid Active loudspeaker (gasping for breath). Before diving into the details, let's quickly compare it to our SBS.1 speaker, as there are several similarities. They're both designed to be played with subwoofers. Target -3dB roll-off point will be 90hz just like the SBS.1. They're also both very focused on having plenty of capacity in the critical midbass range, imo often neglected by other speakers. Finally, they both have (the same) coax driver for perfect imaging and soundstage, and uniform dispersion.
Our current SBS.1 active speaker can play more than loud enough for most purposes and rooms. It's precise, punchy and plays louder than any similar sized speaker without audible compression. But some want not just loud, but L O U D, and some have larger than average rooms. Thus, the MANTA will carry on the legacy of dynamics and effortless reproduction from the SBS.1 and supersize it. The midbass capacity is more than twice the SBS.1. We are talking a dedicated 12" driver for midbass (rolling off at 90hz). Similar to the SBS.1 5.5" midbass driver, this new 12" driver has a stiff suspension optimized for bass/midbass rather than subwoofer duty. And while we use the same coax as in the SBS.1, since it's now a 3-way design, its capacity is significantly increased as well. All these changes of course also translate to even lower distortion at both moderate and high playback levels.
What makes it even more special is that the MANTA have individual chambers for both drivers, and they both have acoustic ports, controlling directivity to a greater degree than a traditional speaker all the way down to 100hz:
- Cardioid midrange: The dedicated midrange chamber is vented to reduce reflections from the side walls and the wall behind the speakers. The result is increased clarity and improved soundstage. To perfect the midrange, ports are cut out in the baffle on both sides of the coax driver to allow the midrange driver to "see" a more narrow baffle, resulting in ideal dispersion characteristics across the frequency range.
- Cardioid bass: One would think you lost bass pressure by venting the cabinet, but when done right the very opposite is true. The MANTA achieves cardioid like performance down to 100hz, targeting the bass pressure towards the listener. This thight and consistent midbass experience is crucial for the rhythmic, dynamic nature of many music genres.
That was a quick intro to the build, we've already gone through a few iterations and now evolved into a pretty high quality prototype, happy to answer questions and share more details, and also build pictures from earlier prototypes, measurements etc - this is just the beginning to get the thread started! Hopefully this will prove interesting to the community!