B&C DCX464

[Ro808]

A glimpse of the innards:

[Ro808]

Estimated price: between 600-800 EUR.

It appears to be (more or less) the successor to the DCX-50.

[Ro808]

The driver won't be available before the end of June.

[LineSource]

One might think that the B&C engineers CAREFULLY studied the BMS 4594HE + expired patents, and made a few IMPROVEMENTs.
One might think that the B&C marketing CAREFULLY set an initial low price to CAPTURE new designs and CAPTURE BMS customers.

Personally.... I hope the B&C DCX464 forces BMS to lower prices on the BMS 4594HE to keep their customers. I only need two...

[pk]

Looking at the impedance graphs for both the BMS 4594HE and the B&C DCX464, it seems that the B&C has a lower Fs than the BMS - actually around 250 Hz, which means that that on the 'right' horn and for hifi-use, the B&C may load down close to 200 Hz which would make it a lot easier to integrate to woofers:-).

Best regards
Peter

[blossom]

Originally Posted by LineSource

One might think that the B&C engineers CAREFULLY studied the BMS 4594HE + expired patents, and made a few IMPROVEMENTs.
One might think that the B&C marketing CAREFULLY set an initial low price to CAPTURE new designs and CAPTURE BMS customers.

Personally.... I hope the B&C DCX464 forces BMS to lower prices on the BMS 4594HE to keep their customers. I only need two...

Moteurs bms4594 16+15homs 1.4pouces BO ETAT DE FONCTIONNEMENT | eBay

[Ro808]

The overlap between the mid and high diaphragm is a key feature of the B&C and the impedance peak is about 100Hz lower.


BMS 4594HE:





B&C DCX464:




Impedance:

[Patrick Bateman]

Originally Posted by ErnieM

New coaxial compression driver with 65mm high-frequency voicecoil and 100mm mid-frequency coil. Annular diaphragms.

More info in a couple weeks.

B&C has clearly been working on this one for a while: they literally announced this the day that the BMS patent expired.

To me, the weirdest thing about the BMS patent is that it appears to come from Cerwin Vega, of all places. Both of the patent holders never worked for BMS.

The names on the patent are Eugene J. Czerwinski and Alexander G. Voishvillo. The former is the founder of Cerwin Vega, and the latter works at JBL now (He worked at CV when the patent was filed.) He has a pile of patents for enhancements to the ring radiator design, in particular the JBL M2 varies the geometry all the way from the phase plug of the ring radiator to the exit of the JBL Image Control Waveguide. Check out my latest project on diyaudio, I use many of the idea in it.

more info on the patent here : JBL M2 for The Poors

my current project here: "Unitized" Image Control Waveguide

[Patrick Bateman]

I did some more digging.

From what I can see, BMS never had a patent on annular compression drivers until they were granted this, in Europe:

EP2640089B1

This patent covers their planar wave drivers. That might explain why they're so pricey; BMS owns a patent on it. Nobody else can produce one without a license.

But from everything I can see, the annular compression driver made famous by BMS is actually a Cerwin Vega design. BMS references the CV patent, so I guess they're licensing it?

Also, I am no lawyer, but it seems like the Eminence ring radiators violated the CV patent. Eugene J. Czerwinski, the founder of CV, died nine years ago. So maybe that plays a part here.

RIP - Eugene "Gene" Czerwinski - founder of the Cerwin-Vega Amplifier Company* | Steve Hoffman Music Forums

[Patrick Bateman]

Originally Posted by bwaslo

Any idea of what cost might be on these? Or is it one of those "if you have to ask, then...." things?

It's kinda funny that BMS, JBL and B&C sell dual diaphragm compression drivers that cover six octaves and sell for about $1000-$1500 a pair... when you can achieve similar performance from a Unity horn that costs about $200 a pair.

You would think at some point someone would just start selling them.