Just when I thought there was little new in loud speaker drivers …

[TLS Guy]

Yawn. The Airblade is so yesterday. I've already done a passive tower version with two Purifi's and the Airblade on top back a few inches where it's a little less scary. (No, it's just as scary.) This belongs in the department of Nice Try, but No Banana. It seems like anytime a company tries to produce a driver that's state-of-the art in one dimension, it smacks into itself in another dimension. The Purifi woofer has super low distortion and unrivaled excursion, but that makes it very difficult to match with a practical port design, particularly in a bookshelf monitor.

With the Airblade, all of those AMT elements firing away in different directions make for a vortex of back waves inside that have to be damped out. The aggressive damping in the current model rolls off the response rapidly below 2 kHz and makes a passive crossover at 1200 Hz impractical. I haven't even tried to calculate what the sensitivity would be. I was able to cross at around 1900 Hz and hit 85dB sensitivity, but our friends at ASR would wag their fingers at the resulting dip in directivity matching at the crossover point.

The Airblade engineers say they are working on a design with the same kind of meta material used by KEF in the LS50 to damp the rear waves without losing sensitivity at the low end. That might make for a doable passive version. But it wold still be mega-expensive and.....scary. On the other hand, Jim was able to design a wide and long port for the tower cabinet he sent me, and the double Purifi's are a force to reckon with., Very clean, powerful bass down to 32 Hz, and acceptable sensitivity because we doubled up on the 8 Ohm version in parallel. I'm going to pair that with a different tweeter and see if I can make everyone happy. Meanwhile, Jim's active version already does what a passive version would do with an improved Airblade, but to most people active speakers are....scary.

Thanks for that info. So that unit is not really ready for prime time yet. Those Purifi drivers sound interesting. People should be a lot less scared of active speakers than receivers, with all those amps crowded in where they don't belong.

 

[Swerd]

With the Airblade, all of those AMT elements firing away in different directions make for a vortex of back waves inside that have to be damped out. The aggressive damping in the current model rolls off the response rapidly below 2 kHz and makes a passive crossover at 1200 Hz impractical. I haven't even tried to calculate what the sensitivity would be. I was able to cross at around 1900 Hz and hit 85dB sensitivity, but our friends at ASR would wag their fingers at the resulting dip in directivity matching at the crossover point.

Our friends at ASR won't be happy unless the AirBlade is put inside a controlled directivity mount.

 

[Irvrobinson]

People should be a lot less scared of active speakers than receivers, with all those amps crowded in where they don't belong.

Speaker manufacturers, with the exception of a few big name brands, make me nervous with all of that custom electronic complexity in a speaker box. Perhaps the JBL M2 Master Reference System strategy, with external amplifiers with integrated DSPs might work for longevity, but now we're talking high cost. (An M2 system lists for ~$23K.) Even my ten year-old Velodyne powered sub is making me nervous, now that Velodyne Acoustics has been sold off, that I'll end up with a 145lb piece of junk to have hauled away. The high-end active speaker business and support models are complex. AVRs suck, but at least there's a modular replacement strategy for them. Commercial active speakers, not like what you've built, would likely have longevity challenges. Maybe I'd trust Harman, maybe Genelec... but the list seems very short.

 

[Swerd]

Please note that the speakers Jim Salk built do have active crossovers and internal amplifiers. I don't know the make or model number.

The speaker on the right has a small black square below the woofers. It's an IR receiver for remote volume control and input switching.

 

[Trell]

Please note that the speakers Jim Salk built do have active crossovers and internal amplifiers. I don't know the make or model number.

The speaker on the right has a small black square below the woofers. It's an IR receiver for remote volume control and input switching.
View attachment 45926

Man, nice looking CPU coolers used as tweeters

 

[highfigh]

Speakers got a grill....

 

[highfigh]

Please note that the speakers Jim Salk built do have active crossovers and internal amplifiers. I don't know the make or model number.

The speaker on the right has a small black square below the woofers. It's an IR receiver for remote volume control and input switching.
View attachment 45926

And, to think that an IR receiver could have fit between the L and K on the name plaque.... If a universal remote system is used, the IR receiver doesn't even need to be on the front- they could have a 3.5mm IR input jack on the rear and never need to deal with lighting causing problems.

 

[ryanosaur]

Speakers got a grill....

This... I was thinking not Terminator with dentures, but Clown-Terminator or G-Terminator.

Or Terminator Grandma that wears too much lipstick and lilac perfume.

 

[highfigh]

This... I was thinking not Terminator with dentures, but Clown-Terminator or G-Terminator.

Or Terminator Grandma that wears too much lipstick and lilac perfume.

I had some aunts who wore Jungle Gardenia and my mom's step-monster had blue hair rinse and bright red dots of blush.

 

[D Murphy]

Given how well some existing tweeters perform (the B&W diamond, the Revel Be, the RAAL, just to name a few obvious examples), is this driver answering a question that is already sufficiently answered for less cost?

Well, none of those can be crossed super low, and the domes can't provide uniform broad dispersion up high. So the Airblade has a purpose,

 

[ryanosaur]

Well, none of those can be crossed super low, and the domes can't provide uniform broad dispersion up high. So the Airblade has a purpose,

From a practical standpoint, Dennis, where is the cutoff in purposefulness when compared to the cost? If the Raal 70-10 can be had at $423 (retail) each vs ~$1300 each for the Airblade:
How much smoother is the high-end horizontal dispersion between Raal and the Airblade? Is it audible?
Does the 800Hz lower XO point (with passive network (as it stands with the current version, limited as described)) of the Airblade compared to that of the Raal create much more meaningful opportunity in design? Outside of an ultra-premium build?

I do get that a lot can happen in 800Hz right in the middle of the speech band. Moreover, I love the innovation; respect the R&D that went into these. Can't help but feel they went whistling past the graveyard where "Diminishing Returns" just got buried.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Well, none of those can be crossed super low, and the domes can't provide uniform broad dispersion up high. So the Airblade has a purpose,

Having heard the JBL M2 recently, which uses a compression driver to cross at 800Hz, I wondered about what I was hearing. 800-1KHz is where an awful lot of audio action is for voices and pianos, to name two instruments, and it seems like a better solution is to cross at least an octave lower. The M2 reminds me of the B&W 800D/802D a bit, in that when you're furrowing your brow on a familiar track, the owner or dealer says something like, "You really have to hear the xxxx playing this recording." In fact, that is exactly what the owner did. (As an aside, I will say this, when the M2 is good, like with acoustic jazz, it is intoxicating. I suspect its distortion is exceptionally low overall.)

Don't you think the chance of a listener noticing the slight character difference between a bass driver and a mid/high driver is going to be greater in a 2-way crossed at roughly 1KHz than a well-implemented 3 or 4-way? With the Airblade going for $2K/pair I'm guessing the overall BOM equals or exceeds a good 3-way. Or are you thinking the dispersion of the Airblade is an overwhelming advantage?

 

[3db]

They remind me of Jaws. Not the shark, but the James Bond villain.
View attachment 45917

I was thinking more like Venom!!

 

[D Murphy]

From a practical standpoint, Dennis, where is the cutoff in purposefulness when compared to the cost? If the Raal 70-10 can be had at $423 (retail) each vs ~$1300 each for the Airblade:
How much smoother is the high-end horizontal dispersion between Raal and the Airblade? Is it audible?
Does the 800Hz lower XO point (with passive network (as it stands with the current version, limited as described)) of the Airblade compared to that of the Raal create much more meaningful opportunity in design? Outside of an ultra-premium build?

I do get that a lot can happen in 800Hz right in the middle of the speech band. Moreover, I love the innovation; respect the R&D that went into these. Can't help but feel they went whistling past the graveyard where "Diminishing Returns" just got buried.

I'm completely agnostic on the merits of a single wide-dispersion tweeter crossed low in a 2-way vs. a 3-way with drivers that all have broad dispersion in their operating range. To answer that I would need to compare a well-implemented Airblade 2-way in stereo along side a, say, BMR. Maybe Jim Salk can do that comparo and report his impressions.

 

[ryanosaur]

I'm completely agnostic on the merits of a single wide-dispersion tweeter crossed low in a 2-way vs. a 3-way with drivers that all have broad dispersion in their operating range. To answer that I would need to compare a well-implemented Airblade 2-way in stereo along side a, say, BMR. Maybe Jim Salk can do that comparo and report his impressions.

Thank you, Dennis.
Considering many people have declared the BMR as “special,” I think it is fair to say that you are on to something that Arya only wishes they had.

 

[NINaudio]

Man, nice looking CPU coolers used as tweeters

Ah, yes, that's what they remind me of, this zalmann cooler:

 

[slipperybidness]

Geordi Approved!

 

[j_garcia]

 

[Trebdp83]

 

[ryanosaur]