With planars, how low can you go?

WrineX, I like that you do measurements after you've completed the drivers. Learned a lot from it. If you can, in future videos, please try to explain slower (I'm a slow learner) what each spikes (anomalies) in the distortion and SPL response.
Thanks, well i am no expert in measurements, and often they are only valid to 400hz. ill try to think about not going to fast :) i know i am a bit all over the place soemtimes. not sure what that is, its something from the past 3 years
 
I have listened to Apogee Scintilla's (1 Ohm version) many times, and I really know these speakers rather well.
With the correct amplification, these are still very very difficult to beat, even with todays very high end speakers.
Deep basss, without subwoofer, is no problem at all, best I have heard.
 
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Crossed the sounderlink 8 with bold north 8 at 509hz, 2nd order. Pr behind. Padded tweeter heavily. Incredible sound.
 
A large or huge electrostatic can reproduce one or two standing notes of an organ at a frequency of e.g. 35 or 32Hz, it depends on what is the basic resonance of the room in which the transmitter is located.
But such a huge radiator will NOT be able to reproduce a very simple beat of a beater on a large drum, because it will not be able to create the proper pressure in the sound, the electrostatic does not have enough force in the diaphragm to energetically move a large connected mass of air to the same large diaphragm.
That's the trouble with all planars, including big planars.
 
That beat is probably within the midbass. Not that low but low enough to be in the 'suckout' region of many fullrange ESLs. So you can have an ESL with great bass extension but still sounding thin, anemic, without punch simply because the frequency response shows a large suckout. So first thing to do when comparing planar bass with non planar bass is to have frequency response somewhat comparable. Many box speakers have peaky bass response. A big fat sound many people expect and like. A full range ESL is quite the opposite with that large suckout. No wonder the sound is completely different.
 
It has nothing to do with frequency range, but only with the creation of instantaneous displacement of large masses of air.
Here on the forum there is a topic in which I try to get away from this by building a package of membranes of isobaric type, which is oriented to create more pressure on a smaller volume of the bass register panel.This partially succeeds in doing.
 
How we know that it has nothing to do with frequency response? These suckouts of full range ESLs can easily be around 6db or more. That is 4 times less energy. It is like having 4 kickbass instruments but 3 of them are completely broke in certain frequency regions. This is the reason why a small bookshelf speaker (little displacement of air) can have better 'kick" than s much larger ESL. Not because it displaces more air but it has a bump around 100Hz instead of a huge suckout.
 
It has nothing to do with frequency range, but only with the creation of instantaneous displacement of large masses of air.
Here on the forum there is a topic in which I try to get away from this by building a package of membranes of isobaric type, which is oriented to create more pressure on a smaller volume of the bass register panel.This partially succeeds in doing.

Dijkstra has a point there,, often the resonance of planars are used somewhat to extend low end in an open baffle. the suck out he mentions is i think normally where the front and back are starting to be phasing out. then lower in frequency the resonance lifts a part of the FR. leaving a gap between the 2. if you would measure this panel really close you would end up with a flat response and then a peak from resonance. so its not what a panel does but the implementation of such panel in an open baffle (witch they always are) that's my theory at least :)
 
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An acoustic short circuit is something completely different.
I'm talking about the inability of the motor in a planar emitter to move large masses of air; it does not have the strength to do this.
The emitter is too large and the attached air masses are too heavy for this task.
I repeat, in order to solve this, I made a package of six membranes, five of which work on one extreme one, which is connected to the air masses of the surrounding space, and thus we got six motors instead of one, this gives the result.
Nothing else works in this regard. At all.
 

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Lets assume that you are right and the driving force is " too weak" to displace the air. What would be the result? The Mylar will push but being "too weak" it stays behind. Lower frequencies (requiring more displacement for the same SPL) result in lower excursions and output. Now take a microphone and take some measurement in close proximity. You will find no lower output in bass frequency. This shows driving force is not the issue. It can even be argued that higher frequencies require more force as airload is increasing.
 
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Lets assume that you are right and the driving force is " too weak" to displace the air. What would be the result? The Mylar will push but being "too weak" it stays behind. Lower frequencies (requiring more displacement for the same SPL) result in lower excursions and output. Now take a microphone and take some measurement in close proximity. You will find no lower output in bass frequency. This shows driving force is not the issue. It can even be argued that higher frequencies require more force as airload is increasing.
hihi i was just saying the same :) hence why the suckout might be more a open baffle thing in combination with the very high Peak on res. creating a valley in between the two.. the suckout :)
 
These Martin Logan speakers have this system in the bass register. They have two diaphragms arranged one behind the other and three stators.
This is done to increase the pressure in the bass.

this is done to get a little more efficient as far as i know. plus resonance goes up. maybe together they are more stable then one alone over that distance. i made a few esl's with multiple membranes, and besides more output, nothing changes in slam , whatever that is. nothing changes in fr besides raising resonance, and more output. if there was a suckout it would be still there.