LEANAUDIO Desktop Systems with Alpair 6M and 5

[Matsumoto]

Hi,

I've just updated my "LEANAUDIO" blog with two new articles;

Study of Powered Woofer System with Alpair 5

Introduction of ZAP System with Alpair 6M

If you are interested in desktop audio, near-field listening, digital audio, and so on, please check them out.

[kristleifur]

Very interesting!! Thank you for posting.

[markaudio]

Hi Matsumoto san, guys,

I had a great time meeting Matsumoto san. Sadly, we ran out of time. I hope to find time on the flight back to HK tonight to read a hard copy of Matsu sans latest experiments. We already discussed the possibility of extending the LF capacity of the smaller Alpair drivers. Taniguchi san came up with an idea for a new coil design to suit this objective.

More on this later.

Many thanks
Mark.

[Matsumoto]

Hi Mark san

It was a great experience indeed. Thank you very much.

Mark san, LF of smaller Alpair is quite interesting for me, of course. However, my quest seems not normal. I don’t believe many people in the world want it at this moment. Please spend your time for useful developments for your major customers. You are very busy (engineers are always busy with plenty of ideas), I know. I’ve already bought an Alpair10 driver for further quest. Although the current system is quite sufficient, and I had decided to close the quest, however, after I met you, my engineering bugs have grown up so much. I can not control them.

[borispm]

Matsumoto san,

You've got some interesting theories here. You're probably one of the few audiophiles that prefer mono to stereo. For some records, stereo sounds odd, but for most "stereo" records, I prefer stereo. Sometimes the stereo imaging thing is really fun to listen to. You can also pinpoint where the instrument is.

Another interesting thing on the phase plug... Phase plugs look cool and do really prevent the development of pressure under dustcap as there's no dustcap, without having a vented pole piece, but I have no idea whether it is bad for bass. I like the idea of having fullrange drivers without phase plugs and shallow cone profile as it allows smaller path difference, which may lead to cancellation of treble due to destructive interference.

[markaudio]

Hi Matsumoto san, guys.

Finally got some time to read the hard copy of Matsumoto san's recent experimental work. Its most interesting and led me to give more thoughts to the relationships between near applications, the extension of LF output and related excursion for Full-Range drivers.

Firstly, as Matsumoto san himself describes, has particular tastes for musical output that maybe different to most other audio guys. All the same, his experience as a professional applied mechanical and systems application engineer of many years standing (Honda Formula 1) always gives me much pleasure to study his work.

One of the main challenges with nearfield applications is the integration of multiple emitters (drivers). Positioning of mixed driver combinations is more critical for most nearfield set-ups. I see from Matsumoto's san's pics, he's been hard at work experimenting with primary positioning. From what I can see, his use of equalising software is quite critical to his systems, although simple passive has been mentioned in one of his recent papers.

I'd be very interested to see Matsumoto san experiment with the CHBW-70, given his extensive experience in this field. The CHBW is a new driver model variation that maybe suited these applications as it retains low mass characteristics and a wide dispersion cone.

For me, I retain the desire to produce small(ish) drivers with extended range, sufficient to cover most musical needs, especially for nearfield, smaller and low-load audio applications. Ultimately, I believe single point source is the purest form of audio emittance. But I fully understand and welcome experimentation using mixed driver sources in an effort to extend usable frequency range.

More from me later.

Cheers
Mark.