Personal Planars.

[tade]

http://www.decware.com/panels.htm

What do you make of these? he says wonderful things about em (perhaps obviously). How do you think the work? Could this technology be adapted to bass frequencies?

Neat idea, what do you think?

[Andersonix]

Quick answer? From what I can tell, you are exciting a chamber bounded by two diaphragms by feeding it the dynamic speaker's back wave? That would fit "Bi-polar panel driven by pneumatic compression...."
So it's related to bass reflex loading? As it doesn't take much to "destroy" computer speakers, I guess I'll take his word for it, but I think you're listening to a little speaker pumping a plastic bag. Looks cool, though. There: I said something nice about it!

[I_Forgot]

For full range operation they would need a "motor" that has full range capability. Response? Who knows.... a good bass motor won't produce good HF. A good HF motor will lack bass.

Dipole? Not quite. Each diaphragm radiates in both directions. At the frequencies where the spacing between the diaphragms is and odd multiple of 1/2 wavelength, the front radiation of the rear diaphragm and the rear radiation of the front diaphragm will cancel so what's left is the front signal from the front diaphragm and the rear signal from the rear diaphragm and those are in phase at the diaphragms, so response will not be dipolar.

Is the motor vented to the outside world, or just to the space between the diaphragms? If it is vented the response will be a real complex function of the the response from the port and the response from the diaphragms. A real nightmare to predict.

Probably best suited for computer speakers where wide response and sound quality are usually secondary considerations.

I_F

[tade]

it certainly does look cool. i was excited about it being a new sound producing design. maybe it isnt new and just terrible. i am tempted to build one to see, ill tll you all how it goes.

[aussie78]

Originally posted by tade
it certainly does look cool. i was excited about it being a new sound producing design. maybe it isnt new and just terrible. i am tempted to build one to see, ill tll you all how it goes.

Just stumbled upon this older thread - and I too was interested in building these. I was wondering if you ever did build them, tade? If so what was the outcome? I'd be interested in what happened for your project.

[tade]

Sorry to say my DIY impetus has been pulled in other directions. Right now i have a 500hz exponential horn sitting in the middle of my 7X12ft dorm room...

Ill drop you an email if i ever build a test version and we can continue this conversation.

[aussie78]

sure, and if I ever decide to throw some $ in that direction then you could count me in on the building side of the conversation

[AVWERK]

This reminds me of a speaker that Sumo (high end electroincs) was selling at one time, even though yours is quite different in operation.

It looked like a flat planar with a conventional foice coil attached to it's center.

They were promoting it with the "pebble thrown in the water ripple effect" or something like that. Someone reviewed at one time Stereophile or Absolute Sound I think.

Not much came of it, but it got a decent review.

sorry if this is WOT, but memory's have to start somewhere!

David

[moray james]

Avwerk: the speaker you are referring to was the Sumo Aria and was designed and manufactured by Highwood Audio of Calgary Alberta Canada. The review you spoke of was first published in Audio June 1992. There were also one or more reviews in Stereophile on Hybrid versions later. Sumo had financial troubles and the team of Sumo (distribution) and Highwood (manufacturer) split. Highwood Audio then merged with Museatex Audio (Ed Meitner) and released a new version under the Museatex name. That went for a couple of years until Museatex management killed the speaker after ******* around with it. The speaker was designed by myself Paul Burton and John Wright. John has since taken over service and modification of Museatex and Meitner equipment as well as designing new equipment, Paul is now back working in Britain and I am designing ausio cables and interconnects. Was a good design as a point source. Our first version (and best) was a line source which we never got to market. Maybe some day who knows. Ed carried on to start EMM Labs which you probably know about and is still here in Calgary. Hope that this helps.
The two designs are not at all alike but it is interesting to read that somebody remembered the old highwood speaker. Best regards Moray James.

[AVWERK]

Moray

Thanks for bringing that information back from the source!

Maybe a DIY design someday.....?

Regards,

David