I am really looking forward to that Derek
Obviously I heard your 16 BMR arrays at your house which sounded amazing but you can't beat having some time with a speaker in your own familiar listening room to really evaluate it.
With only 4 rubber surround BMR's sounding so good it's got me wondering what speaker would perform better,for a finite amount of money,a speaker with the silk BMR's or a speaker with the rubber BMR's but more of them ?
Small silk Vs big rubber....!
Hi Jason,
Thats a good question....!
I am not 100%sure of the answer as I have only had the production silk drivers for 2 months and it takes a long time to fully understand and compare all the options. My thoughts so far are:
(1) Minimising cone movement is always my number one goal, be it pistonic or bending mode, less is always more. Each time you double the Sd ( driver cone area) you half the cone movement and that in turn halves distortion...Both frequency and time domain distortion.
(2) The silk drivers are nearly six times faster with an energy decay time of under 1 ms compared to 5 ms for the rubber surround drivers. In listening tests the drivers disappear....They simply vanish and you are left with voices and instruments (or movie sound effects) just hanging in space.
I am currently listening to 6 silk surround BMR's crossed over at 200Hz to a pair of subs....Its the best sound I have ever heard.
Next month I am going to build a 12 silk driver array and test that....I cant wait!
Cheers
Derek.
Hi Jason,
Thats a good question....!
I am not 100%sure of the answer as I have only had the production silk drivers for 2 months and it takes a long time to fully understand and compare all the options. My thoughts so far are:
(1) Minimising cone movement is always my number one goal, be it pistonic or bending mode, less is always more. Each time you double the Sd ( driver cone area) you half the cone movement and that in turn halves distortion...Both frequency and time domain distortion.
(2) The silk drivers are nearly six times faster with an energy decay time of under 1 ms compared to 5 ms for the rubber surround drivers. In listening tests the drivers disappear....They simply vanish and you are left with voices and instruments (or movie sound effects) just hanging in space.
I am currently listening to 6 silk surround BMR's crossed over at 200Hz to a pair of subs....Its the best sound I have ever heard.
Next month I am going to build a 12 silk driver array and test that....I cant wait!
Cheers
Derek.
Thanks Derek,
Something I have noted,even though I can barely see the BMR's moving,my cabinets vibrate a surprising amount to the touch,they are 18mm mdf & each BMR has its own sealed pod so it's not like the panels aren't braced,just shows how much energy is produced & I think it makes another good reason to have a fairly high cross over to dedicated woofers.
I will be making the cabinets bomb proof when I build my permanent versions
Pic of Silk surround BMR
Hi Jason,
Yes the BMR's do need a very solid cabinet, its surprising just how much energy these little guys produce.
Internal cabinet resonance control and damping are also very important.
I have attached an updated DIY design guide and also a pic of the silk surround BMR driver. This pic is just drivers sitting on a table, not installed in a cabinet.
Cheers
Derek.
Hi Jason,
Yes the BMR's do need a very solid cabinet, its surprising just how much energy these little guys produce.
Internal cabinet resonance control and damping are also very important.
I have attached an updated DIY design guide and also a pic of the silk surround BMR driver. This pic is just drivers sitting on a table, not installed in a cabinet.
Cheers
Derek.
Attachments
" Sherlock Shep"....!!
Hey Jason,
You really are a driver geek!
I can just imagine you zooming in to study the surround and hypothesise over each nuance of the design....Sad thing is I do that too!!
I cant say anything about the function of the surround other than it works rather well!!
I just finished a late night demo for a top guy, he is a classical music producer and does a lot of live sound for orchestral gigs....
He had just finished a 14 hour day in Cambridge installing a system in a big church venue ready for a weekend recording, so he only planed to stay for an hour....After 3 hours he headed home!
After about an hour of various demo tracks and all sorts of musical styles I played 10 mins of the Gladiator soundtrack.....He said the most amazing thing I have ever heard.....
" Thats what it sounds like when you go on stage to change a mic....."
I almost cried I was so happy!!
Going to listen to the whole of Gladiator now, low volume as the kids are asleep, and finish of the Merlot!
Cheers
D.
Hey Jason,
You really are a driver geek!
I can just imagine you zooming in to study the surround and hypothesise over each nuance of the design....Sad thing is I do that too!!
I cant say anything about the function of the surround other than it works rather well!!
I just finished a late night demo for a top guy, he is a classical music producer and does a lot of live sound for orchestral gigs....
He had just finished a 14 hour day in Cambridge installing a system in a big church venue ready for a weekend recording, so he only planed to stay for an hour....After 3 hours he headed home!
After about an hour of various demo tracks and all sorts of musical styles I played 10 mins of the Gladiator soundtrack.....He said the most amazing thing I have ever heard.....
" Thats what it sounds like when you go on stage to change a mic....."
I almost cried I was so happy!!
Going to listen to the whole of Gladiator now, low volume as the kids are asleep, and finish of the Merlot!
Cheers
D.
Into the music....
Hi Jason,
Luv Ed Sheeran....Also Ben Howard's " Every Kingdom" is a fantastic album....Ben is one of the best young singer songwriters around and the album is well recorded.
Active BMR's give you a new insight to music, you get so much more of the tiny details....Like when the artist presses keys or plucks strings that fraction harder or softer, or when they snatch a breath or their voice wavers with emotion or when the sing through a smile....
I find myself getting a much clearer picture mental image of the facial expressions and mood of the artist.
All quite remarkable when you get all this even with a basic source / electronics package....It becomes addictive and spooky in equal measure when you really start to max out the drivers performance.
All the best
D.
Hi Jason,
Luv Ed Sheeran....Also Ben Howard's " Every Kingdom" is a fantastic album....Ben is one of the best young singer songwriters around and the album is well recorded.
Active BMR's give you a new insight to music, you get so much more of the tiny details....Like when the artist presses keys or plucks strings that fraction harder or softer, or when they snatch a breath or their voice wavers with emotion or when the sing through a smile....
I find myself getting a much clearer picture mental image of the facial expressions and mood of the artist.
All quite remarkable when you get all this even with a basic source / electronics package....It becomes addictive and spooky in equal measure when you really start to max out the drivers performance.
All the best
D.
Thanks Derek for the BMR array demo at the weekend - killer system indeed. I support all your claims, simply stunning dynamics and integration. Probably the most impressive system I have heard to date. Bass to die for! Must have play with BMR's myself. I can see why EQ is necessary but just about essential with any system to get the best anyway. Here's to no more passive crossovers!
Very nice Alvipet
Thanks Jason! Next planned step will be Tectonic Elements line array speakers: 4 TEBM65 + 1 TEBM46 per single speaker
Those look great. Did you have a build thread for those?
I like the feedback everyone is providing for the silk surround and other drivers that Derek provides. It's unfortunate that those types of drivers are not as widely available.
Thanks guys! This is not my first experience with BMR. I started with Dayton Audio BMT25-4 and immediately appreciated the potential of this technology. Now I have tested Tectonic Elements TEBM65C20F-8. As I sad above my next planned step is line array speakers based on four TEBM65C20F-8 and one TEBM46C20N-4B unit
Attachments
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