Oval / elliptical drivers are as common as it gets in car audio, and there's a few new hi-fi units in the works, along with the usual suspects like the infamous B139. Not a bad idea if you want a slim box & as much radiating area as possible.
That's correct. In reality it looks different though, the vast majority of the buyers want 'slimmer, smaller!' - and the industry answers with smaller drivers with low spl and more excursion. And ofcourse that leads to longer voice coil windings, to make up for the low spl, power capability has to go up, the diameter of the VC has to increase too, which makes the coil again heavier. Small- and big-scale dynamics suffer but noone will notice anyway with all the loudness-war-compression-madness, right? And it looks soo nice and with all the technical stuff the manufacturer promises, it's ofcourse the best thing ever since the invention of sliced bread. So the average joe buys it. And there you have it, the circle is complete, the look and the technical mumbo jumbo doesn't allow for oval drivers (remember, the ScanSpeak is actually round?) besides niche market.
Though, honestly, I doubt the optics of the cone makes this one a main attraction.
For tweeters, Audax's equally infamous HD3P piezo-electric gold dome comes to mind. I don't recall any with ovoid voice coils though, which appears to be the USP of these. It will be interesting to see the effects; the supplied data does not show any advances over conventional types, but is of too limited a scope to make major judgements on.
Well, the HD3P was very interesting but it was only oval to lessen radial foil resonance. Maybe the D3404/552000 tweeter actually gets some advantages from the shape, the diaphragma size is unusually big, so it probably improves the radiating pattern.
The difference is of course that those were elliptical drivers with circular voice coils while we are talking about circular drivers with elliptical coils.
Exactly! While I can see possible advantages from the shape at the tweeter, I cannot imagine the oval VC provides any benefits to a
round cone/driver - except for being that unicorn some ppl
have to have.
The impedance curves of these speakers hint to severe resonances.
That's exactly what I already said! It doesn't make sense to do something different just to be
different, if it doesn't provide any advantages.
I would not use them no matter how cheap they are.
Oh, believe me, they won't be cheap.
I expect them to have a suggested retail price of about 500.
If it looks like a duck, it probably is a duck.
>> Oh, well <<
J/K, I totally agree with you there, that WILL show.