does neodymium 'sound like' alnico?

[freddi]

do today's compact neodymium motors tend to sound more like compact alnico than big-slug ferrite? (EV's SP12 had a huge iron pot ring)

btw -Eminence makes a hemp-cone neo motor cast-frame 10" which can be bought for as low as $70 ea - - too bad they don't make a wideband 10" neo-hemp for home use at ~that price point - - - guess that says somethiing about the market (?)

will popular fullrange move to neo motor ?

[felixx]

The sound mark of the alnico motors (more close to the field coil mark) is different from ferrite and also neo....is stunning.
The neo should last more years comparing with ferrite.

[Godzilla]

Why does the magnet type change the sound?

The Eminence Neo's i looked at all have rising response peaks.

[felixx]

Why does the magnet type change the sound?

Why the field coil drivers with paper cone sound stunning? (Fertin,Supravox,Shindo Latour-moddified Altec,Feastrex.. ..etc)
Why the alnico drivers with paper cone sound stunning?(Phy..etc)

...all these comparing with neo or ferrite speakers.

The mark of the sound is made by material of the cone (in this case -paper)and microdetails is delivered with the help of the magnet type.

[MaVo]

the magnet provides a magnetic field. this together with a current in a voicecoil generates a force that moves the cone. the magnetic field is one variable in the design of a driver. if you design two drivers, one with alnico, one with neo to have exactly the same magnetic field around the voice coil and everything else is the same, they will sound equal. since neo is stronger, you can have the same field strength with less magnet material. so its mainly a weight and cost factor --> good for PA.

since its easier to get a strong magnet using neo, i can imagine manufacturers building more drivers with stronger magnets, so you have drivers that sound different. (but you can see this in the ts parameters)


quote.... "Why the field coil drivers with paper cone sound stunning? (Fertin,Supravox,Shindo Latour-moddified Altec,Feastrex.. ..etc)
Why the alnico drivers with paper cone sound stunning?(Phy..etc)"

Thats probably because they are well manufactured and expensive. Thats one factor that makes it sound better and another factor that cheats your brain into thinking sounds better.

When deciding what driver to use, look at the ts parameters and the measurements of the frequency/impulse response. That says everything, after which lies audiophile country. one is well advisen to stay out there.

[tinitus]

Alnico should be less sensitive to the changes in the magnet field caused by the movement of the coil, which it generates distortion, thus the devellopment of farraday short rings in the gap, which the alnico dont need

Also the alnico motor sometimes has the pole plates arranged differently which is made possible by the different dimensions of the alnico
alnico is made longer to get more strength, where the ordinary used magnet has to be wider to gain strength, thus a different design of the whole motor

Neo is said to NOT need the short rings either
will this actually lower the quality of the advanced technology develloped over the years

Bare in mind that a stronger motor does NOT always result in better sound, quite the opposite may happen i some cases, especially in the midrange

[MaVo]

Originally posted by tinitus
Alnico should be less sensitive to the changes in the magnet field caused by the movement of the coil, which it generates distortion, thus the devellopment of farraday short rings in the gap, which the alnico dont need

Bare in mind that a stronger motor does NOT always result in better sound, quite the opposite may happen i some cases, especially in the midrange

Could you please explain those statements to me? It is relevant to my interests.

[Nelson Pass]

It's interesting that different magnet materials do have a
signature to their sound.

If you want to compare apples-to-apples, you can listen to the
Lowther products, where you can get essentially the same driver
with ceramic, Neodymium, Alnico and Ticonal Alnico.

They each have their own charm, and it becomes at least partly
a matter of taste.

[pinkmouse]

Curious. I remember servicing a bunch of Turbosound mid/high PA boxes a while back, and opening them up to check connections found two that had much smaller magnets on the 10" drivers. I chased this up with the Turbosound tech. rep. and he said they were a test run of neo magnet drivers that they had sold on cheap as spares to the original owner of the rig. Intrigued, we set them up and as people came though the shop we had them informally listen and see if they could tell the difference. No-one could, including me.

However, I wonder if smaller boutique manufacturers modify the motors to make the best use of the different characteristics, whereas PD, who made the drivers I heard had just done a straight exact equivalent magnet swap for production prototyping.

:edit: Just to clarify, the original drivers had ferrite magnets.

[tinitus]

MaVo, you will find it explained here

http://www.audioheritage.org/html/pr...ogy/1500al.htm

As to why a smaller magnet may produce better midrange than a more powerfull ..
Well, it has just been a personal experience
But looking at driver measurement it is not uncommon that the one and same driver shows unlinear and even peaking FR when magnet force is increased

I dont claim that such drivers sound good at all, but you will often find the most linear drivers among the low SPL drivers, backside is that they may sound very dull

I will say like "MoodyBlues" ... its a question of balance
There will always be a fine balance between wattage, SPL, Xmax ...

Its ok to talk about magnet material, but lets not forget the build quality, like the use of maschined poleplates with a nice shape and nontwisted plane surfaced magnets
And further more the use of underhung coils, which might be ONE of the merrits of the Altec drivers
Thick poleplates with short Xmax may be just as good

But cone shape, spider, surrounds, and even voice coil material are just as important
Some even claim that voice coils should be wound on paper like in the old days ... I think Lowther do that, and maybe even some cheap chinese drivers ... and maybe others like PHY, Supravox, EMS and other high SPL and low wattage drivers ... but I dont know that for sure, just a suspicion


Nelson makes an interesting point, but maybe each magnet material need special and individual care taken to get the most of it