I just received the usual daily dose of emails. Among them was a cool driver from Parts Express. It's their ES180TiA-8 model. Funny thing is that they use the same sized basket as I do. And I never considered my offering as a 7 inch driver. But upon taking a tape measure to the prototype basket in a nearby shelf I find it to be almost 7 1/8th inches in outside diameter. I squeeze a bit more Sd out the basket than did the engineer who designed it for Parts Express as I have the basket machined in strategic places to allow what I am looking for in terms of clearances. The basket is a very beefy design that has a great deal of potential. And I get a great surface area because the surround I use is custom designed for the sole purpose of a clean response and a long excursion. On that topic of surround for a clean response, I'm actually looking into making a double s type surround as well. It offers some further benefits in the higher frequency range.

Right now the surround we are using has a few applications of mass loading and dampening that have turned this driver into a clean mean pumping machine. ( oh yeah took me at least 30 seconds to think that one through! )

Displacement is one thing. But having a clean easy to listen to midrange is really the goal in a driver size like this. And an enormous amount of time on the design end was applied to making it so. Looking forward to the new batch coming. We are using the same custom cone, and a retooled surround to take advantage of the new motor's extra available excursion.

So maybe I should rename the KA6.5 as a KA7?  

The 8 is actually larger than 8 inches to. Man all my model numbers are now out the door.

Well off to start the tractor. Winter is still here in Ontario. And we just received a nice dump of snow. So time to clear away all 250 cm or 10 inches of the fluffy stuff. 

How much wood can I chuck?

Part of what makes us a different kinda company is that we design drivers, and we integrate drivers into finished products. Much of that kind of work is showcased in the Previous Commercial Products page under the services tab. From a value added perspective the creation of a loudspeaker is worth more to the end client than the constituent parts.

Research and Development of loudspeaker drivers for OEM and DIY applications is an time consuming and expensive business. So to push this out into the open we are getting into to this in a modest way. Each model we are going to offer is a unique design entry in their respective design types.  Our first finished product is almost ready. A two way very high efficiency horn loaded loudspeaker for home audio and theater applications. The model will be designated as the KA-HT-MAXX and is pushing the boundaries of what is currently available either in prosound or in home audio. Years of experience has taught me that some products simply do a job better than others. As an example high frequency reproduction can be done efficiently by a compression driver. It can also be done with high efficiency planar diaphragm drivers.  The differences are interesting. Differences in the time you are comfortable in listening to the speakers are the greatest differences. They are linked to the amount of distortion products and the types of distortion products produced by the various drivers. Add to the mix that if you can use a horn loaded cone driver they to have a mechanical lever type of effect in that they can produce a pretty high output of sound for a relatively small movement of the cone. This is another reason why the sound reproduction can be dramatically clean from unwanted distortion products.

Back to the wood chuck line.

Part of what I personally enjoy in this field of endeavor is to actually fabricate finely crafted products. I have been behind the scenes training and coaching quite a few other people in producing high quality loudspeaker cabinets. There is enjoyment in engineering and testing to be sure. The pursuit of an idea along with the calculations required and validation of the calculations are of great interest to me. Those types of endeavors are part of every day over herein one way or another. And I have found also a similar type of enjoyment in pursuing the actual fabrication of these ideas and concepts into physical products.