Canuck Audio Mart

Couple of quality drivers, a simple crossover, a good solid cabinet - has there really been any major advances in speaker technology in the past 30 years?

Heil Air Motion Transformers to replace tweeters was a serious attempt but they faded away.

I think if you were to ask the same question of a cross-section of gifted speaker designers, the simple answer would be no. However, a more thorough answer would likely reveal that the real advancement has been in measuring techniques and specialized measuring gear, particularly those that use serious computing power to perform the analysis, which have totally illuminated driver and cabinet behavior in use. And once designers better understood how drivers, crossovers, and cabinets misbehave and why, then all these elements could be improved upon in meaningful ways. The evolution in measurement sophistication has been matched by a similar evolution in loudspeaker quality.

Happy Trails!
Vince@Freewheelcycle.com

Not so Peebus. There are actually 3 or 4 manufacturers of commercial loudspeakers I can think of currently using this tweeter tech. They are simply either not making as big of a deal about it as ESS did long ago, or are brands that aren't as well known in North America. Adam loudspeakers in Germany is the most successful I can think of off the top of my head and they build very well reviewed loudspeakers with highly evolved AMT tweeters for both the home and pro audio recording monitor markets.

Happy Trails!
Vince@Freewheelcycle.com

B&W's FST floating mid driver.

As far as crossovers, probably way better parts selection there.

Thanks for the update, Vince.

Parts Express sells brand new Heil Air Motion Transformers off the shelf. BTW, they are not tweeters in the conventional sense as they are capable of reproducing from 500 hz to 20khz (though an 800 hz crossover is suggested) so it can replace both a midrange and a tweeter.

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdet ... er=264-600

Why re-invent the wheel?

Active speakers with no passive crossover...

Yeah, Like that's new guys! The pro audio and commercial cinema crowd has been doin' the active thing forever. Boothroyd Stuart Meridian introduced their original M1 internally tri-amped active consumer loudspeakers 30+ years ago and have been espousing the benefits of active drive to audiophile folk ever since.

Happy Trails!
Vince@Freewheelcycle.com

If you are looking for Heil Amt but dont want to spend $700us per pair from parts express. Then just check out the internet for used vintage units. They can be purchased for $20 to $200. I have a collection of 4 pairs. Tested them all for sound quality. And at least 2 pairs are so good they far and away surpass any tweeter I have heard from Dynaudio or Scanspeak. The stamp on the back of one pair says 1977.

+1 Good Post. There was some very precise measuring technology available 30 years ago but the price even today for this good equipment will run about $90,000; Dal University has some state of the art equipment. For speaker manufacturers and DIY enthusiasts, Clio ($1000-$4000) is good but very limited in end resolution and accuracy, though it is useful.

Material, materials, materials, the changes that you see today are mostly material changes, never saw a kevlar driver in the 60's...

I have a few friends that work in the industry. One such aquaintance was at a JM Lab/Focal soiree talking to a designer. This gentleman expained that using paper for drivers is the best sounding, most natural etc, but in these modern marketing/advertising hype driven times, who would pay $10000 for a paper coned speaker? Thus the move to the more modern looking kevlar and carbon fibre.
Although some high end manufacturers still use paper in their top speakers eg. Tannoy, AN, WLM

Also the poly capacitors used in modern speaker manufacture are usually inferior to the more expensive foil/oil caps more common in the past.

It is true though that there are a lot of decent sounding low and mid priced speakers available today. In the past you could buy speakers that did sound better than a lot of what is available today but in relative dollars they were very expensive.