Soundmatters and BDNC's Super-Shallow High-Excursion Speakers

Mike Klasco (Menlo Scientific) writes about "a very cool" concept from Soundmatters, the company's UPstage speaker design, a new speaker product category and the next trend from the people that invented the soundbar. The sophisticated engineering implemented by soundmatters into the UpStage compact high-performance audio system was also the launch platform for BDNC's high-power, flat glass woofer that uses a 0.2 mm glass diaphragm. This article also explains what manufacturers need to know about the BDNC glass diaphragm, high-excursion, ultra-low profile woofer technology.

For several years, Mike Klasco and Steve Tatarunis wrote a series of articles under the header Parts is Parts where they have explored loudspeaker drivers, how they work, and all the different parts and components. In this specific article, the two audio industry experts provide an excellent introduction to high frequency drivers, revisiting some key historical designs. This article was originally published in audioXpress, January 2013.

Voice Coil January 2019 is now available. This edition focuses on New Materials for Earphones and Headphones and also includes a valuable listing of Earphone and Headphone Manufacturers and a schedule of headphone-centric events for the year. In Acoustic Patents, James Croft looks at a new patent of a multilayer voice coil plate and flat speaker based on the same, while in this month's Test Bench Vance Dickason features a 1" compression driver from Radian Audio Engineering, and a 1" soft dome tweeter from Eminence. This is much more, now available in print and download.

The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), inducted 14 visionaries into the Consumer Technology (CT) Hall of Fame at its annual awards dinner, held November 7, at Capitale in New York City. CTA created the Hall of Fame in 2000 to honor consumer technology industry pioneers and entrepreneurs. This year’s inductees included John Briesch, who led Sony's launch of the CD; Edgar Villchur, inventor of the acoustic suspension speaker and independent suspension turntable and co-founder of Acoustic Research; and Kathy Gornik and Jim Thiel, founders of Thiel Audio; among others.

When I review speakers, I make a point of doing my continuous (20-second) averaging room/power curves (moving a microphone slowly over a 1 x 1 x 5’ area at head level at the listening couch) with an AudioControl SA-3051 RTA. This gives me a good idea of just how effectively a speaker pair can deliver flat power to a typical listening area. Read this article, originally published in audioXpress, January 2010.