Test Bench: The Bold North Audio BDT-2901 High-End Silk Dome Tweeter

For this edition of Test Bench, Vance Dickason characterizes the new BDT-2901 High-End Silk Dome Tweeter, from MISCO’s Bold North Audio Line. This is a high performance 29mm soft dome tweeter, designed to meet requests for a precision tweeter with a low crossover point, ideal for use in a two-way system paired with a 6.5” or 8” woofer. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, December 2020.

This Test Bench characterizes the very recent BWX-6501 Midbass driver from MISCO’s Bold North Audio Line. MISCO (Minneapolis Speaker Co.) is the oldest OEM driver manufacturer in the US, founded in 1949, and Bold North Audio is its new brand, launched in 2019. The Bold North lineup was recently expanded to include two new 6.5” XBL2 motor woofers. These new models, all designed and manufactured in MISCO’s own facility in St. Paul, Minnesota, feature dual inside-outside copper shorting rings in the motor to greatly reduce distortion. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, December 2020.

The driver under test in this Test bench is the SDx10 home audio woofer from Creative Sound Solutions (CSS) Audio, using XBL^2 dual gap motor technology licensed from inventor Dan Wiggins. The CSS SDx10 also has a well-appointed feature set that includes a very stiff coated black paper/carbon fiber blended composite cone with a convex black hard paper dust cap, NBR surround, and semi-progressive cloth spider. All this is driven by a (2.4" six-layer voice coil with two 12mm thick ferrite magnets sandwiched between a thick XBL-configured front plate and black-plated thick T-yoke. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, November 2020.

For this edition of Vance Dickason's Test Bench, the characterization centers on the brand new NERO-6MRN150D pro audio 6.5" midrange from SB Audience, the recently announced brand from Sinar Baja Electric (SB Acoustics). The new NERO-6MRN150D features a proprietary four-spoke-cast aluminum frame with efficient cooling, a curvilinear paper/graphite composite cone and large convex paper dust cap. The motor design combines a FEA-designed neodymium ring magnet and 49.5mm diameter voice coil wound with round CCAW on a non-conducting glass fiber former. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, November 2020.

On this Test Bench, Vance Dickason offers a characterization of the ODT29 fabric dome tweeter from Omega Audio, an OEM transducer manufacturer new to the pages of Voice Coil. The company, headquartered in Holon, Israel, was founded in 1978 when the founder of Omega Audio, Levi Mordechai left Morel. All of Omega Audio’s ODT line of tweeters, dome midranges are handmade in the company's facility, from dome coating to coil winding and motor assembly. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, October 2020.

This Test Bench article focuses on the Scan-Speak Ellipticor 21WE/4542T00 midrange woofer, an impressive looking driver. The motor design for the Ellipticor 21WE/4542T00 is again an AirCirc multi-magnet and patented SD design, using an elliptical two-layer voice coil wound with round copper wire on a titanium former. Motor parts include polished front and back plates for the neodymium magnets that incorporates a 12 mm diameter rear vent for additional cooling. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, October 2020.

In this Test Bench article, Vance Dickason focused on a home audio TeXtreme diaphragm tweeter from SB Acoustics' Satori line, the TW29TXN-B-4. What makes this tweeter so special is that it has a new TeXtreme diaphragm, a novel type of material that is used in applications that require a high degree of stiffness performance in combination with ultra-light weight. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, September 2020.

For this Test Bench, Vance Dickason characterized the LT2 Ribbon Transducer and corresponding waveguide from Radian Audio Engineering. This is effectively a smaller version of the LT6 ribbon transducer reviewed in the July 2020 issue of Voice Coil, but offering much more diverse possibilities, as Vance Dickason discovers. And as the compact LT2 shows, this was designed to be more of a hi-fi or home theater substitute for any high frequency driver. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, August 2020.

This Test Bench edition characterizes the 140FCD 1" compression driver from REDCATT, a relatively new OEM pro sound driver manufacturer - a privately held, international company established in 2014 and based in FuMing Industrial City, DongGuan, China. The core management team at REDCATT has been sourcing and building transducer components, sub-assemblies and systems in China for more than 25 years, and its team members have been working around the world for the biggest companies in the audio market with direct R&D and manufacturing experience. This article was published originally in Voice Coil, August 2020.

This Test Bench article addresses an interesting home audio tweeter from Creative Sound Solutions (CSS). The company sent Voice Coil its latest high-end tweeter, the LD25X, a special driver with a unique dual-gap patented XBL2 motor. CSS licenses the XBL2 technology from inventor Dan Wiggins for two of their woofers and for the LD25X tweeter. The XBL2 motor features a short voice coil traveling between two gaps, allowing for a higher Xmax than most conventional motors can provide. The LD25X tweeter features a 25mm silk dome diaphragm and flat silk surround, in a 73 mm diameter six screw cast-aluminum faceplate anodized semi-flat black. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, July 2020.