SPEAKERNEWS

2 July 2020

Laid out on the

ground, the drivers
look like an ordinary
bunch. But behind the
finished product lies
modifications based
on thorough testing
and extensive listening
tests.

The making of the Lydgalleriet PA

speakers that fit the room
By Paal Rasmussen, Norsk Radiofabrikk

When asked to do the technical system, should be stoweable, and

design of the new PA system for should sound great!
The following pages
Bergen sound art gallery –
chronicles the design and
LYDGALLERIET, my first manufacturing process. Enjoy!
question was: “what’s the
budget?”
Julie Lillelien Porter, the
director, looked at me in surprise
and answered: “There is none. We
make do with what we have. I have
these drivers – leftovers from an art
project. Do the best you can with
these!”
Well that was a new one! So
challenge accepted there begins a
design process without equal.
A preliminary meeting with
various stake-holders that included
artists, fellow designers and board
members, made it clear that the
speakers would have to blend in
with the gallery space, and should
cater for basic surround, should be
able to function as an in-house PA

1
 SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020
“Working at SEAS, Electrocompaniet,
Norsk Radiofaabrikk, ABB Contec and
heading development at Telenor
Integracom, I have been greatly helped
by the concept that a design should be
“pure in spirit”. If there is a consistent
guiding philosophy, the end product
will usually be of some value. This term
was first formulated by Terje
Sandstrøm while at Electrocompaniet.
Paal Rasmussen

The vision
a speaker pure in spirit
By Trenz Pruca
It’s not difficult to put three speakers in a box and make commercialise low distortion, linear drive speaker units. I had
sound. The challenge lies in creating a musical the great fortune to work with him at ABB and at Norsk
Radiofabrikk on dome tweeter designs and speaker
instrument that translates the emotionality of the
philosophy.
performances into soundwaves that moves us. This legacy is brought to bear in the current design. It
Research in how to do this has gone on since Rice and tries to do things right within the constraints of the project.
Kellogg invented speakers in 1924. Many broadcasting Often it’s the small things that matter. Presented with a
companies had technical personnel doing quality control, boomy commercial speaker and an equally dissatisfied owner,
procurement, and in some cases design. The BBC was one of I proceeded to cure both by taking out my power drill and
these, and their Research Department did materials analysis drilling 30 holes in the back of his speaker cabinet, effectively
and design work that is still valid today. transforming it from a boom-box into an aperiodic design.
At GEC’s Hirst research establishment outside London I The guiding vision for the present undertaking is
saw their experimental aluminum cone bass/mid units in the building speakers that use the room - a set of four sub-
early ‘70s. My experiments with composite resin cones at woofers along with a corresponding set of four bass/mid/
SEAS met with disbelief a few years later. Now everybody tweeter units to be placed in each room corner.
and his uncle uses metals, composites and resins in their Exciting all four corners in a room makes the speakers
speakers. dominate the acoustic space, and acoustically “disappear”.
Ragnar Lian, the man behind B&O loudspeakers, The sound of the speaker and the sound of the room are one
ScanSpeak, the famed Dynaco A25, and an “inspirer” of and the same. Exciting, isn’t it?
many Dynaudio designs, was one of the first to

2
 The making of the midrange
SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020

rejuvination and makeover

The midrange reproduction is the be-all of “Ragnar Lian, one of the pioneers
loudspeaker design. of Scandinavian loudspeaker
The project was stuck with a midrange unit of design, was adament that
dubious origins. Labelled “Fenton 6.5” 125W”.
The seller states that “ The Fenton 902.423 is a speakers should be time aligned,
high-quality 6.5" woofer designed for Hi-Fi and that designing for a quick and
systems and some studio monitors. Designed with accurate reproduction was just as
a reinforced Kevlar cone and heat resistant 4 layer important as frequency response.”
voice coil it can easily handle power peaks.
Capable of 250W power handling at 8Ohms.” The first step was to measure the frequency
It turns out response to see if the driver was at all useable. It
that wasn’t. A huge resonance smack in the middle of
the midrange area. Playing music just confirmed
it. It screeched.
Removing the Bextrene dust-cap removed the
resonant chamber, but it was obvious that the
high-temperature voice coil former (yes, it did
this really have one!) made of Kapton, was a bad
little match to the dense Kevlar cone. There was a lot
fellow of energy wanting to be radiated that the cone
has many simply could not absorb.
close So we needed something to increase the
siblings, the acoustic loading of the cone at this point. Finer
same unit is sold analysis showed that the voice coil itself was
under the tradenames Skytronic, QTX and radiating and since the exposed part of the coil
Tronios as well. Some research turned up a former was 3cm long, we needed to fill the volume
holding company in Cyprus as a possible parent, inside the voice-coil former to destroy the sound
but I find it most likely that an Indian or Chinese from this area. Using a tampon to dampen the
factory are turning these out by the hundreds to cavity showed that we were on the right track, and
be used in a host of different speaker systems so the decision was made to model a full “phase
under different brands. plug” to insert into the cavity.
With so little solid information to go on, we
will have to reverse engineer - or deconstruct - the
driver. -> more

A serious hump
Initial measurements
showed two huge
midrange resonance
that kept on ringing
and colured the all-
important midrange.
This was due to a
black Bextrene dust-
cap glued on to the
cone, creating a
resonant chamber.
Removing it left only
the cone/voice coil
mismatch resonance.

One problem solved,

one to go!

3
 The making of the midrange
SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020

rejuvination and makeover - part 2

“Phase plugs” were first introduced in horn
loudspeakers, but several HiFi manufacturers
incorporated them in midrange drivers to
extend the frequency response of their units
and broaden the high frequency polar
pattern.
In this design, we need it first and foremost to
quench the radiation from the voice-coil, and to
dampen the cavity formed by the voice coil former
and the vented central pole piece.
Drawing out the flare of the cone, the initial With all these modifications, time was ripe to
flare of the phase plug was made to introduce a see how the speaker performed on transient
gentle loading of the central part of the cone. material. Feeding a low frequency square wave
This worked wonders for the frequency response, showed exemplary performance, with a rapid
evening it out and extending it. For this effect to attack and some low frequency effects from the
take place, the bulbous part of the phase plug test baffle.
would have to be in close proximity to the cone. Time to move on to distortion measurements.
When measuring the maximum cone
excursion possible, it turned out that this was in -> more
excess of +-10mm! When fed any loud signal, the
cone would crash into the phase plug. This made
it impossible to pursue this idea further.
The phase plug stem was extended to avoid
collision with the cone, and the form altered to
balance the high frequencies and their distribution
in space.

When the form of the phase plug had been

decided, enquiries were made to find out if it
could be 3D printed. It turned out that the
environmental specifications precluded this
manufacturing process, and it was decided to
make this part from machined high-density wood.

Filling the void

Removing the
Bextrene dust-cap
reveals a long Kapton
voice-coil former and
exposes the hollow
center pole-piece of
the magnet system.

Filling this void with a

custom designed
“phase plug” removed
the resonance, and
cleared up the mid-
range clarity.
The first prototype
was made of
Plasticine

4
 The making of the midrange
SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020

rejuvination and makeover - part 3

Distortion is often called the nemesis of any - or motor system if you will. There are many
medium. Even though we love distortion other mechanisms capable of distorting the sound,
but the non-linear motor system takes first place.
pedals and analog synths, when it comes to
Drive unit designers attack this problem by
speakers, distortion is pure venom. introducing copper rings into the magnet system,
Even though this is well known, most speakers making it more linear.
add from 0,3 to 3% at moderate levels, and Since our drive unit has a very long voice coil
upwards of 10 - 30% at loud levels in the bass giving us access to the motor system once we
removed the dust-cap, one might think that adding
region.
a solid copper ring might make matters better.
But not all distortion is created equal. We
Experiments along this avenue was
tend to ignore quite high amounts of even
conducted, and the decrease of distortion at
harmonic distortion of
certain frequencies
single tones, whereas odd
(4kHz) fell from 4% to
harmonics are considered
1% with copper added,
hard and harsh by many.
but overall the effect was
When tones are
marginal, reducing the
mangled together and
total distortion by only
modulate each other,
1%. There was also a
almost everyone finds that
corresponding increase
this ruins the “depth” and
in high frequency output.
“clarity” of the sound.
These experiments
Our midrange
proved that the copper
speaker, having been modified, performs quite
needs to be inside the magnet system proper to
nicely - having quite an even and extended
wield its magic. It was deemed pointless to
frequency response, and fairly low distortion on
disassemble the magnet system to do this, as the
single notes - around 0.3% THD at normal loud
cost would be many times that of buying a new
listening levels. A typical PA speaker, the JBL 308,
driver with such refinements built in.
comes in at around 1,3% THD at similar levels.
The intermodulation distortion of our
The basket - the structure holding the magnet
speaker is detailed in the box section below.
and moving assembly in place, is made of pressed
steel in our speaker, and it has a series of
One of the primary distortion producing
resonances of its own colouring the sound. It will
mechanisms in speakers is produced by the solid
be necessary to dampen this before the speaker
pieces of mild steel making up the magnet system

Making waves
When two notes are
fed to the speaker,
they interact to
produce new tones
not harmonically
related. This sounds
jarring to the ears
because it’s so
unmusical.

The tho notes f1 and

f2 produce quite a
cacophony of weird
notes at around 0.5%.

These figures are not

bad at all for a
coventional speaker,
but an electrostatic
would be expected to
perform 10 times
better.

5
 SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020 box, and that certainly helps, but the
The Bassmaker reflex system acts like a resonant filter
the best box is no box producing its own characteristic sound.
at all One-note bass or boominess is a term
used to describe such designs. On the
A conventional loudspeaker consists dance floor it might be just what you
of a disk that’s pushed to and frough need to get in the groove, but on female
vocal it’s just wrong.
to generate vibrations in the air.
Another way of solving this
One side pushes, the other side pulls problem is to place the speaker at one
at the surrounding air. It’s obvious end of a long tube, made so the air
that the air, lazy as it is, will rush inside the tube moves in unison with the
from one side of the speaker to the speaker. At some frequency, the air will
other rather than to set out on a start to augment the output from the
speaker, and at no frequency will we
journey straight ahead.
have reflections from the back wall of
So we place the speaker in a box, to the cabinet, because there simply aren’t
block the air pulling from one side to be any rear or side walls the speaker can
cancelled out by the push from the see.
other side of the vibrating disk. Such an arrangement is called a
This works well for the most part,
Transmission Line, or more recently, a
but the build up of pressure inside the “quarter wave enclosure”.
box can be quite high and introduce By
boxiness, reflections from the rear and making
sides of the interior - and even the tube triangular, we further reduce
distortion. The air distorts at high the possibility of reflections from the
sound pressures because it can be cabinet, since in a practical design the
compressed as much as you like, but speaker will be inserted in the side of
only expanded to a vacuum, so the box the tube.
is not a linear system. By stuffing the tube with fine fibres
We may put a hole in the box to let that vibrate with the sound waves, we
frequencies out, making a bass reflex reduce tube reflections and add mass to
Stuff it
until it sounds right
By Our correspondent
Hollow, 20um fibres suspended to
freely move with the air inside the
tube. How much is enough?
There are no hard and fast rules,
but we have aimed for a level of stuffing
that achieves a -2 to -3 dB of maximum
level and that eliminates the high order
tube resonances.
The finest wool The combed wool needs to be fully
The Merino originated and improved in
transformed into tub wool before
Extremadura in the 12th century Spain and
instrumental in its the economic development. stuffing so that all fibres are randomly
The fibers (top) compared to human hair.
oriented and loose. This process needs
6
the air inside it. At the speaker
fundamental frequency, the air inside
the tube moves in unison with the
speaker, and the added mass reduces
the fundamental frequency of the drive
unit.
A long throw drive unit, like the
one chosen for this project works well in
such an enclosure.
The power handling ability is
increased around the lowest frequency
the system can produce compared to a
closed box.
A subwoofer is meant to be a part
of this design, so this box design is
made so that a natural and deep bass/
midrange is had for the subwoofer to
augment instead of trying to match two
resonant bass reflex cabinets.
to be performed with paddles to be at
all efficient.
In addition to the long-haired wool,
the tube is fitted with
three absorbers of high
density Rockwool.
The effect of the
Rockwool is to
elliminate standing
waves inside the first
length of the
transmission line, and
to shield the tube from
midrange radiation
from the rear of the
speaker driver.
 FASHIONMONTHLY 2 July 2020
A serious x-over
Why the summing is
better than its parts
Electric crossovers are components
added to the electrical wiring of a
multi-speaker design to separate the
low and high frequencies to their
respective speaker drive units.
In our design we need a crossover
that is robust enough to tackle the
imperfections of our jumble sale bass/
mid unit. High-end drive units have
predictable electrical behaviour,
presenting a constant load on the
amplifier and making life easy for the
crossover designer.
Our mid/bass unit has a four layer
voice-coil and no copper damping in its
magnetic system. This makes the driver
change its electrical characteristics as
we go up in frequency, and as we play
loud notes and as the whole unit heats
up with use.
The diagram shows how the
resistance of the bass/mid unit changes
Speaker dynamic changes
- affect the working of the individual drivers,
but does not change the sound of the system
(blue curve)- it remains perfectly summed. This
only happens with the series network.
7
with frequency. It is advertised as a
8Ohm unit, but barely ever is. Over
most of its useable range, it is much
higher and thus is less efficient. As we
approach the 2kHz crossover point, the
resistance is 30 Ohms.
The tweeter, on the other hand, is
a high-end unit with a built in heat-sink
to keep the performance stable, and
with a magnetic system that is constant
with signal amplitude.
To counteract these shortcomings,
we need a crossover that is in close
contact with the drivers.
Common crossovers provide
independent sections to filter the signal
to the drive units, we will connect the
drive units in series, so each speaker is
dependent on what the other does, and
the system as a whole becomes
independent of speaker characteristics.
This configuration has its positive
and negative characteristics; it depends
on the drive units having a wide
bandwidth, and requires that the
tweeter be able to handle frequencies
below its normal operating range
without overheating.
If we are
to
achieve
a perfect
transient
Bi-amping
why not?
With bi-amping the crossover is
removed from the speaker and into
the amplifier. This allows the
designer great freedom to design
complicated filters that compensate
for faults in the drive units - except
dynamic faults that the filter knows
nothing about, since it is removed
from contact with them by the
presence of the amplifier.
Series crossover diagram
The amplifier sees both drive
units as a whole.
response, the drive units must also be
time-aligned - their acoustic centres
must be on the same plane equidistant
to the listener.
These conditions are met in this
design.
In real life things are never so
simple, a crossover network needs to
compensate for driver faults and tune
the enclosure to sound like the designer
intended. That requires more
components, and adjusting the topology
and feature set of the crossover can take
anywhere from a few hours to a few
months – a few famous designs has
taken years to perfect. The final
crossover schematic is therefore not
included in this booklet.
Such crossovers are called “active”
since they use electronic circuits to
operate on the sound signal.
When the temperature rises in the
speaker drive unit because of the heat
generated by the loud signal, an active
crossover has no way of knowing, and
much less any idea of how to
compensate.
The result of removing the
crossover from the drive units is that
when their parameters change during
use, the sound changes character and
becomes removed from the control of
the designer.
These changes happens every time
a bass note is played, and must be
 SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020
Transient response
not so transient
We have briefly discussed the
reasons why we chose a series
crossover for our design.
Remembering Ragnar Lian’s quote
earlier on in this document about
the importance of paying attention
not only to frequencies but to the
timing of loudspeaker systems, we
must admit that little attention has
been paid to discussing the way our
speaker system will handle
transients - the quickly changing
parts of music that makes for depth
and realism.
We remember that the series
crossover adjusts itself to the vagrancies
of the drive units. How does this feature
play out in practical terms?
Below is a graph showing a perfect (adiabatic in stead of isothermal
square wave fed into two crossovers -
the cyan one is a traditional crossover,
whereas the magenta one is a series.
The simulation is based on real drive
units that have imperfections like the
ones used in this design.
It is obvious at first glance that the into their test enclosures like a bored
series network compensates for the
driver’s problems and produces a
perfect response, whereas the transients box.
of the cyan curve are exaggerated and
distorted in time.
This is a real benefit, lasting as the Bradford in Yorkshire studied the effects
loudspeaker produces actual sound and of various wool fibres during the late
this compensating action works 24/7
irregardless to provide a constant,
transient fidelity.
8
Lamb’s wool
a quest for the perfect
fibre
The transmission line, or 1/4
wavelength enclosure, adds the mass
of the air in the line/tube to the
mass of the loudspeaker cone at the
bass end. (The frequency where the
length is 1/4 wavelength of the
sound signal fed to it.)
This is beneficial, and makes the
loudspeaker act as if it was a much
bigger unit with a better transient
performance.
What if we could increase the
mass even further by making the air
“thicker” and more massive?
Enters long, thin, organic fibres
that move in unison with the air. Fine
lamb’s wool fibres have this ability, and
a pipe filled
with lamb’s
wool have
proven to both
reduce the
unwanted
midrange
“sound” of a
pipe, while at
the same time
adding weight
to the air.
The wool
works it’s
magic in two
ways, by
changing the way sounds travel
compression of the air in the tube) and
also by being moved around with the
bass sound waves.
Researchers measuring
transmission lines have not measured
this latter effect, stuffing common wool
factory worker. Thus stuffed, the tube
started to behave like a closed, leaky
Arthur R. Bailey, M.Se., Ph.D.,
M.I.E.E. from the University of
1960’s. Lamb’s wool, angora rabbit,
Vicuñas, cashmere goats, Tibetan
antelopes, all have fibres of varying
lengths from 8 to 12 μm. These fibres
behave differently than coarse sheep’s
wool or Dacron or BAF or fibreglass
commonly used in speakers.
Its properties come from the tiny
scales on the hollow, air-filled fibres. It
causes them to interlock and trap
insulating air. Vicuñas have some of the
finest fibres in the world, and are
among the most expensive as well.
Bailey facilitated the sale of
appropriate wool for many years during
the 70s, with me as one of his
customers, but this supply chain has
long gone.
In our quest for suitable damping
fibres, we came upon Hillesvåg
Ullvarefarbrikk in Hjelmås outside
Bergen, a supplier of fine grade wool
suitable for transmission lines. They
offer short and long fibres ranging from
8 to 40 μm. We chose a 20 μm Merino
quality for this project, possibly the
single most costly component of the
whole project.
Panel damping
when live is dead
By Our Correspondent
Research by Dudley Harwood at the
BBC showed than the loudspeaker
cabinet often radiated some notes at
a higher level than the speaker cone
itself. Although that was a horror-
story, cabinet vibrations contribute
strongly to the sound of a system.
His cure was to use laminated
structures that weren’t stiff, but flexible
and to damp these so any resonance
was way below the sensitive midrange
region.
My testing of famous brand
speakers of today shows that his insight
has yet to sink in with mainstream
speaker designers, possibly because
laminating and damping is a costly
exercise.
 SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020
Worst of all is the MDF panels
often used for home brew designs.
Easy to work, but often shows
midrange resonances that are hard to
kill even with internal bracing.
Our first try was to use 9mm
plywood laminated with bitumen
panels glued and heat-welded to the
plywood to form a dead but flexible
cabinet devoid of midrange coloration.
The bass/mid drive unit was
mounted on a thicker detachable plate
mounted on the front panel so that the
drive units could be properly recessed,
the edges chamfered and the tweeter
horn loading accomplished in one
piece.
This arrangement also meant that
the drivers could be detached from the
cabinet for servicing without
disassembly of the whole speaker. As
the cabinets were designed to be
corner mounted, they could even be
left in place while the drive units were
removed.
Unfortunately, later listening tests
showed that the birchwood plywood
used in the prototype was way too
lively even with bitumen lamination.
It was therefore decided to forego
both the horn loading and the bitumen
on the front speaker panel, instead
doubling the thickness to 18mm, and
strengthening it by laminating it with
9
Woodworking
prototype
By Our Correspondent
Working with plywood making small
boxes requires certain skills and
tools. What is required is more than
basic skills, it’s more like cabinet
making – all pieces fit together in
three dimensions to make an air-
tight enclosure.
First and foremost, you need an
area sheltered from the elements that
can accommodate sheets of plywood
that are 240 x 120 cm. 9mm plywood is
floppy, so you need a large working table
or supports to work it.
Certain basic woodworking tools
are also required. A circular saw is a
must for clean, straight cuts. A jig saw
for cutouts, a belt sander for finishing
and an electric drill completes the list of
essential power tools.
A measuring calliper, a spring
calliper, a metal ruler, a tape measure
and a metal compass will all ease the
work.
The required precision is 0.75 mm,
i.e. the errors should not be greater than
+- 0.35 mm. This allows for easy
assembly and accurate joins that allows
the glue to form tight bonds.
The construction takes the
following form:
1) Cut all plywood pieces to size
2) Make the speaker mounting
plate
3) Make all the cut-outs and
recesses for the drivers
4) Hot-weld the bitumen damping
to the panels, leaving room for where
the internal bracing needs to be glued
Assembly should be be performed
in the following order
1) Assemble the top to the side
panels
2) Fasten the braces to the side
panel
3) Glue the Rockwool damping
pads in place
4) Fasten the front panel to the sides
and top panels
5) Fasten the tweeter with wires to
the front panel, ensuring an air-tight
fit
6) Fasten the speaker mounting
plate to the front panel
7) Mount the bass/mid speaker
with wires, to the composite front
panel
8) Connect the speaker wires to the
crossover and fasten this to the
recessed terminals box and fasten this
box to the back of the cabinet.
9) Stuff the line with the long-
haired wool
 SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020
“We shape our
loudspeakers:
Thereafter, they
shape us.”
Adapted after Winston
Churchill

Drawings
for construction
By the development team
Detailed drawings will become
public once the design has been
finalised.

10
 FASHIONMONTHLY 2 July 2020
Theory meets reality
and is validated
By Our Correspondent
Once again we remind ourselves of the quote by
Ragnar Lian stating that the performance of speakers
in the time domain is just as important as the frequency
response.
As you may see from the response curve showing how
the bass/mid driver and the transmission line contributes to
the sound with frequency, the green curve – the transmission
line – has a perfectly straight 12 dB/octave slope below 60
Hz.
What this means, in practical terms, is low, un-coloured
bass reproduction – a boon for stand-alone use, and a
prerequisite for a nice transition to the subwoofer.
For the technically inclined, we can see how the output
of the transmission line and the speaker cone competes to
produce sound output. The transmission line contributes
from 65 Hz and down to 35 Hz, but reduces the output from
80 to 125 Hz.
These measurements are taken from the un-damped line,
so we see all the second-order resonance effects from the
11
“Transmission line, ported and vented
designs are three different concepts on
how to load the bass driver in a
speaker enclosure. Transmission lines
and sealed boxes have a 12dB per
octave roll off after the resonant
frequency, while a vented box has a
24dB per octave roll off.”
Peter Thomas, PMC speakers
transmission line, and also imperfections in our cabinet – it is
after all a folded line, instead of a straight tube.
By introducing damping to the transmission line, we will
see a slight reduction in the positive contribution from the
line, and a large reduction in the negative contributions, as
these occur at higher frequencies where the damping is very
efficient.
The performance of the line will also be further
enhanced with the introduction of our micro-fibre filling.
Turning to the transient response, the dark trace shows
the response of the speaker to a transient 1 mS pulse. As can
be seen, the speaker cone responds rapidly. The cursors
indicate a clean 189 µS rise-time. There is delayed
frequencies affecting the transient performance – as predicted
by theory – caused by the speaker main ft of about 45 Hz.
being the main culprit.
 SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020
Timing
The first audition
By Paal Rasmussen
The day had come, the 15th of
July, when the first prototype was
ready to be audition by the
reference group – Julie, the director
of Lydgalleriet and Roar, a fellow
artist, loudspeaker builder in his
own right and board member at
Lydgalleriet, and me.
The listening tests were done in
mono, with the prototype on a table,
fed Spotify content from a unassuming
measurement amplifier.
I put on some female singer tracks,
and Roar assumed the role of the
critical listener, hand to chin and eyes
half closed walking around the room
listening for tonality and rhythm.
The crossover version 18 had been
finished the night before, and 30
minutes before the session was about to
start, I realised that we had to listen to
version 19 that wasn’t done yet. Luckily
the soldering iron was still hot.
First let me explain that the
prototype lacked the phase plug. It also
had the tweeter phase plate, wave guide
or horn or whatever you call an air
motion transformer these days, and the
version 18 crossover used sintered iron
core coils and bipolar capacitors.
Crossover 19 had high grade
audiophile coils and capacitors, where
one single capacitor cost as much as the
bass/mid drive unit.
The speaker had a nice balance, at
least when we placed it in a corner, but
the voicing was off. Beck would sound
shrill on one track and mellow on the
next.
Martin Colloms
Martin Colloms is an independent
electroacoustics engineer in the UK who has
seen over 200 of his high fidelity audio and
speaker designs put into mass production.
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Some female singers shrieked,
whereas others mumbled. But the
speakers had rhythm. There was a
quickness to the music that we all liked.
After we were finished listening, we
compared notes, and removed the
tweeter wave-guide. So much for being
avant-garde!
The second immediate action point
was the addition of a phase plug. It is
amazing how much this simple addition
means for a coherent upper midrange
performance.
The third realisation was that the
crossover needed more fine-tuning now
that the speaker drivers had both been
modified.
The notion that the tweeter needs
to be recessed does not hold for room
coupled designs like this. And it’s not
On being a PRAT
pace, rhythm and
timing
By Paal Rasmussen
I first met Martin when I was Roger emotionality into the equation as well.
Driscoll’s assistant at the Polytechnic That finally explained something we
of North London. He came into the
lab one afternoon carrying what
was to be the Monitor Audio MA-1
speaker.
A friendship in audio ensued, with and the intellectuals in the Hi-Fi
long nights spent in his basement flat in community were in uproar over this
Hampstead listening to drive units,
modifying them and showing off each
others designs.
“There is a real danger
that the audiophile
community –
manufacturers, critics,
and customers alike –
has become obsessed
with the search for
absolute beauty in
reproduced sound and
has lost sight of the
underlying animal force
essential to a truly
musical experience.
Drama, surprise, and
dance elements are
essential to most music
because of phase effects from the horn
loading - substituting the wave-guide
with an absorbent dispersion limiter
made the sound not fill the room.
Quite the contrary, it was most
encouraging how a single speaker
placed in a corner could fill the whole
room with music without being noticed
as a source in the same way a floor-
standing unit would be.
Oh, and the transmission line bass
had great timing – instead of saying
“boom” it just pushed you. But we still
need to get rid of boxiness, so the
damping of the line is not optimal.
The next few days will be busy
making the intonation match the
pacing. If you follow my drift!
Martin was even then active as a
reviewer, and we had late nights
discussing the correlation between the
terms listening and measuring. Long
after I had left for Norway, he brought
didn’t fully understand at the time –
how some people could tire of listening
to otherwise perfect equipment.
He called this emotional
components pace, rhythm and timing,
prat with his talk of emotions.
Todays psychoacoustics has
validated his views – showing us who
 Listening to speakers
FASHIONMONTHLY 2 July 2020
a hard days night
By The listening team
Subjective testing is a lengthy process which
requires preparation and knowledge in order
to provide credible results.
The choice of material, the setting and the
criteria used to judge the sound all play a part.
Does it sound balanced? That’s the first
question every loudspeaker designer wants to
know. Too much in any given frequency band
makes instruments stand out, and ruins the illusion
of listening through the speakers, and imposes the
speakers on the listener instead. You’re listening to
the speakers and not the music.
Does it have depth? Can you listen through
the speakers and into the ambience of the
recording. This has to do with how much the
speakers distort, and if there are timing differences
in how the sound reaches your ears that ruins the
illusion.
Does it have projection? Do the vocals sound
like real people singing? Is there a body to the
mouth? Are there only teeth hissing and tongues
spitting? The midrange around 2 kHz and how
this is handled is crucial in projecting voices - that
and the balance between the 300 Hz chestiness
and the midrange screach and treble spittingness.
Then there is the emotional response. Do
listeners shake their heads after a while with “turn
it off ?”
For listening tests to work, you need listeners
that like music and like listening to it. And who are
relaxed and willing to listen to a piece of music
again and again while you tweak speaker
The all important
playlist. A selection of
music that spans
differeng genres and
styles, and that in this
digital age, has stood
up to re-mastering
and manipulation.
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“We've put together a list of ten
songs that we use to test every
aspect of a pair of speaker's
performance, from treble and bass
quality to the way they
handle rhythm and dynamics. 
Simon Lucas, “What HiFi”
parameters. Because every value judgement by a
listener corresponds to a particular strength or
weakness in the technical abilities that is governed
by your choices as a designer.
Since we’re manipulating the deep brain
structures responsible for our emotions, the ability
to speak about different sounds is not a sufficient
or necessary requirement. Whoever conducts the
tests must judge the emotional reaction of the
participants as well as their value judgements.
Tapping of feet, nodding of the head, getting up
to dance to the music are all relevant information.
It is fascinating to note that over time, a
balance is reached, and the speaker reaches its
mature state, a state where a tweak in one
direction introduces a deficit in another. Then it’s
time to take a step back and return the next day.
First impressions cannot be over-estimated.
Turning on a system after a long break and
listening to your favourite music tells you more
than hour long sessions. The immediacy of your
gut reaction is the ultimate guide to high quality
sound engineering. That, and a solid grasp of the
physics behind it all!
Radiohead - The National
Anthem
Bob Marley & The Wailers -
Turn Your Lights Down Low
The Chemical Brothers - Das
Spiegel
Can - Spoon
Anne Sofie von Otter - Baby
Plays Around
Max Roach - Lonesome Lover
George Gershwin - Rhapsody
in Blue
Thundercat - Uh Uh
Sergei Prokofiev - Montagues
and Capulets
Sex Pistols - Pretty Vacant
 SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020
“Every component in the signal chain
should ideally have a flat frequency
response, so that the sound passes
through unaltered. But the reality is
that many components don't offer
ideal performance.”
Robert Triggs, SoundGuys.com

Version 19
on the road to a release candidate
By Paal Rasmussen

Perfection is not the goal, but the intention of a

development project. After the listening tests, it was
decided to scrap the horn, forego a 3dB efficiency
gain in order to get a more “Hi-Fi” sound and less of
a “PA-sound”.
The wave-guide around the tweeter got lost, and the
phase-plug got inserted, and the cross-over components
were tweaked. And the speaker got its intended corner
placement.
Last, but not least: Digital room EQ was applied with a
10dB cut at 150 Hz with a bandwidth of 1 octave to reduce
the effect of the corner loading. No other digital correction
was made.
The curves speak for themselves, the tonal balance is
now satisfactory, the waterfall shows a bit of excess energy
in the transmission line to be taken care of, and the
distortion figures at 90 dB is around 0.05% 2. harmonic in
the midrange area.
Transients are handles well, the rise time suggests a
system upper bandwidth of 22.5 kHz, and the phase
response is such that a square wave can be reproduced on

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 SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020
The new version 20 revision 3
when everyone thought it was done..
By The development team, 17.07.20
Version 19 was thought to be a finished design. But
extensive listening tests revealed that
a) The treble would sometimes “shriek” on distorted
female vocal - i.e. overproduces and processed songs
b) The upper treble was weak
c) There was extensive boxiness that was tiresome over
time
d) Upper midrange distribution was not good.
The solution was to re-evalue parts of the design. The
high frequency horn was (incorrectly) blamed for the treble
problems, but was excluded for a variety of reasons. The
MDF mounting plate therefore had to go. The front panel
was too resonant, and new and thicker materials were found,
and the area behind the speaker is now laminated with solid
aluminium.
Power handling issues were addressed with the crossover
being tweaked to protect the tweeter, and at the same time
the group delay was reduced to below 0.5 mS at all mid/high
frequencies. The highest frequencies were raised by almost
3dB at 20kHz, straightening the transfer curve further.
15
“When it comes to the practical
requirements for accurate sound
reproduction, then there are a
surprising number of issues that are
not fully understood.”
Siegfried Linkwitz
Testing the tweeter by pressing it firmly down improved
the performance in the critical crossover area, showing that
the front plate of the tweeter was radiating appreciable
amounts of (mostly distorted) midrange sound. This
particular design uses a cheap plastic front plate, whereas the
standard Norsk Radiofabrikk tweeter of similar appearance
is fully encased in absorbtive rubber and welded to a dead
front baffle. So this result was to be expected. Version 20.3
specifies a foam damper behind the baffle.
The distribution of mid/high sounds was also lacking
once the horn came off, leaving the tweeter to radiate 1 kHz
in a 180 degree angle. This excessive pattern was tamed
using an absorbent placed around the speaker dome limiting
the spread. This will take a more visually pleasing form in the
production samples.
Oh, and as a fun fact: the version 20.3 crossover was
soldered using Ragnar Lian’s personal soldering iron, a relic
from the start-up of Norsk Radiofabrikk.
 Special Products Division
SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020

handcrafted items
By Paal Rasmussen, Norsk Radiofabrikk
Wouldn’t it be nice if nice sounds could be “I already am a product!”
made using off-the-shelf components? That’s
Lady Gaga
what most designers strive for. Loudspeaker
drive unit manufacturers and system
integrators
prefer drive units
that go well
together. Makes
has more than a few parts, and an intricate
life easy.
interconnection of parts that can only be tweaked
A case in
using simulation software.
point is the
The phase plug is designed to augment the
Ragnar Lian
dispersion of frequencies
designed speaker in the crossover region
sold by the US company “Dynaco” as the A-25. from the bass/mid drive
Two matched SEAS drive units, a simple box and unit, and blocking high
a two component crossover selling between frequencies from radiating
600,000 and 1,000,000 units, making Hi-Fi from the voice coil and the
history.
voice coil former that was
The bass/mid unit was made to roll off
exposed when when we
smoothly into the treble area without resonances.
removed the dust-cap.
The special doping of the paper cone can be seen
It fits inside the
in the photo.
magnet system central
We’re not so lucky, being stuck with what was pole-piece, and fills the
left behind from an arts project. So the crossover area inside the voice-coil
former and extends far
enough out so the cone doesn’t hit it at its
maximum excursion.
There are many materials suitable for this
part. PVC, Polypropylene and PTFE, aluminium,
and wood. We chose the latter for ease-of-
manufacture in a commonly available wood-
working lathes for machining the part.

2 special items
The crossover is
hand-crafted to
achieve the project
goals, and the phase
plug – shown here in
prototype form – is an
integral part in forming
the midrange
response

A snapshot of early prototypes

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