Good luck with that. Hoffman’s Iron Law (that’s Josef Hoffman, the “H” in pioneering American hi-fi firm KLH) tells us, essentially, that amongst the three desirables of deep bass, lifelike loudness, and compact enclosure size, you can have any two but never all three from a single design.
It’s not really Joe’s law, of course, but the universe’s. High acoustical levels of truly low frequencies need a large vibrating surface moving a good distance in and out: it’s a function of wavelength, which increases rapidly as frequency decreases. And a big woofer needs a large box to baffle it properly and supply an adequate volume of air to achieve sufficiently low resonance—and, of course, to fit that big driver.
Beating these restrictions requires considerable electroacoustic guile, which is precisely what KEF—one of Britain’s oldest loudspeaker makers—has brought to bear on a new design it terms Uni-Core. Briefly, this is a clever, “force-cancelling” (back-to-back) double-woofer that backs two drivers onto a common magnet structure. One smaller-diameter voice coil moves concentrically inside the other, sharing a common pole-piece, with an intervening aluminum spacer/ structure to hold the whole apparatus in alignment. This topology requires a balletic balancing of magnetic and electrical parameters like flux, resistance, reluctance, and inductance, such that two loudspeaker “motors” with necessarily very different voice-coil dimensions and air gaps maintain perfect electromagnetic balance over their full travels. While Uni-Core incorporates a deal of mechanical cleverness too, it is this high-wire act, no doubt achieved with considerable computer-simulation firepower, where the real Uni-Core magic happens.
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Denne historien er fra April - May 2021-utgaven av Sound & Vision.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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The Big Clean
Chances are you probably do not think about the state of your electronic devices too often. Oh, you might think about all the upgrades you would like to make; where you would put those new tower speakers, or how a second or third subwoofer would really tame those bass modes in your room, or how much more cinematic a larger screen would be. Sure, you think about that part of your system. But how often do you think about the well-being of your system?
Planar-Magnetic Attraction
THE DIPTYQUE DP 115 speakers are a new model 2-way, ribbon, and planar magnetic driver dipole \"isodynamic\" speaker system designed and built in France.
Full-Featured 4K
THE QN95D is one of two televisions we went hands-on with on a recent trip to Samsung's New Jersey QA Lab, the other being the S95D quantum-dot OLED.
Party Animal
FOR ANY party, the Soundcore Boom 2 Plus Outdoor Bass Bluetooth Speaker is an essential invite.
It's the End of the World. How About Popcorn and a Movie?
Attention all preppers! Today's column is right up your alley-or, more precisely-your tunnel to your underground bunker.
Bridging the Analog-Digital Gap on a Recliner
When I shopped for a motorized recliner, I rejected models with their own Internet Protocol address and built-in speakers. No need. I had already placed a smart speaker on an étagère beside the space where I had planned to put the chair. I'd have a smartphone in my hand and the room would be bathed in Wi-Fi.
BACK TO THE GARDEN
AN AQUARIAN EXPOSITION in WHITE LAKE, N.Y.
Big Sound, Small Price
DOLBY ATMOS, once a costly premium, is enjoying a surge of popularity across a range of new audio gear.
Classic Sound with Streaming Smarts
THE TWENTIETH century had its Roaring Twenties; welcome to the twenty-first's Streaming Twenties.
Stand and Deliver
IT DOESN'T seem all that long ago that SVS first entered the audio scene.