- #TANNOY DUAL CONCENTRIC MONITOR BLACK EBAY DRIVERS#
- #TANNOY DUAL CONCENTRIC MONITOR BLACK EBAY SKIN#
KEF were also keen to differentiate Uni-Q technology from Tannoy-style dual-concentric drivers, by describing it as dual-coincident.
#TANNOY DUAL CONCENTRIC MONITOR BLACK EBAY DRIVERS#
Interestingly, rather than focus on the time–domain benefits of two drivers radiating from the same point in space, KEF christened their technology 'Uni-Q', to reflect that the primary value they saw in the idea was that, through the bass/mid driver cone effectively becoming a waveguide for the tweeter, it equalised the two drivers' directivity (in formal acoustics, 'Q' is used to denote a directivity index). Actually, there's some argument that others had similar ideas at roughly the same time (or even before), but KEF won the race to the patent officer's desk. The first group of electro-acoustic engineers to realise that NdFeB enabled a 25mm dome tweeter to be made compact enough to be located on the end of a bass/mid driver pole-piece were Laurie Fincham and his team at UK speaker company KEF in the 1980s. Before NdFeB, it simply wasn't possible to position a viable tweeter in front of the bass/mid driver without significant compromise to the bass/mid driver performance - magnet technology powerful enough to enable a small tweeter to reach the required sensitivity simply wasn't available. Contemporary dual-concentric designs, where the tweeter is mounted in front of the bass/mid driver, were to a significant extent made possible by the development of rare-earth magnet materials such as neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB). However, the Tannoy dual-concentric principle, where a compression–style tweeter is located behind the bass/mid driver magnet and radiates through its pole-piece, is these days the exception rather than the rule. The first and probably best-known exponent of dual-concentric drivers is of course Tannoy. I'll cover that with a few FuzzMeasure curves later in the review, but first, here's the promised bit on dual-concentric drivers. So, below that frequency the tweeter will radiate significant energy backwards towards the bass/mid driver cone where it will reflect and unavoidably cause a degree of disruption to the system response in both time and frequency domains. The waveguide will help modify the tweeter directivity and aid its acoustic integration with the bass/mid driver, however with the crossover frequency set at 2.4kHz, where the wavelength is around 140mm, the effect of the waveguide will only begin to come significantly into play acoustically from, say, 6kHz upwards. It's a 30mm silk–dome device covered by a metal protection grille and surrounded by a gently profiled waveguide component of around 75mm diameter. The FX80 (and FX50) tweeter is mounted slightly forward of the bass/mid driver apex, effectively on an extension of the pole piece. In other respects, the bass/mid drivers appear to be of entirely conventional manufacture. The idea behind the composite is that the paper foundation provides rigidity while the thermoplastic layer provides damping, and perhaps a more high-tech, engineered appearance (paper is a fabulous driver cone material, but it doesn't look particularly 21st century).
#TANNOY DUAL CONCENTRIC MONITOR BLACK EBAY SKIN#
The bass/mid driver diaphragms in both drivers are a relatively unusual composite of paper with a thin thermoplastic skin on the front surface. As perhaps hinted at by the model names, the FX80 incorporates a nominally eight–inch (200mm) bass/mid driver, and the FX50 a five–inch (130mm) unit. The other model in the range, the FX50, is slightly smaller and slightly cheaper.
The FX80 is the larger of two new entry level-priced, US–designed and Far East–manufactured active monitors. I'll write a bit about the history of dual-concentric drivers a few paragraphs down, but first a bit of description. The subject of this review is somewhat more conventional than the FPX7 in sporting a dome tweeter, however it retains Fluid Audio's implementation of the dual-concentric driver concept. Once a few early sample teething problems had been overcome, that monitor, the dual-concentric ribbon–tweeter–equipped FPX7, turned out to be a capable and engaging one. Combining high output, extended low end and remarkable affordability, Fluid's newest point–source speakers offer a compelling option for engineers who need a bit of 'oomph'.Ī couple of years ago I reviewed Fluid Audio's FPX7 nearfield monitor.