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Post by pcalu on Nov 13, 2021 9:32:26 GMT -5
Doing a little info search on Bob Gault the founder of Eminence speakers. Found a great interview on the Internet, done by Tone Quest.
Imbedded within the interview was...
Tone Quest: On building Alnico speakers : Your (i.e. Eminence) still building them, everyone is.
Gault: Because they are vintage. What my son brought up the other day (the current president at the time of the interview) What's the difference between the magnetic fields of Alnico and Ceramic? There is none.
Tone Quest: People are always talking asking about the differences between Alnico and Ceramic speakers.
Gault: As far as I can tell... unless there are anomalies between the two speakers, there shouldn't be any difference.
Tone Quest: seems to be a consensus among guitarist that Ceramic speakers have a little more top end.
Gault: There is a little difference in the air cavity in the magnet structure, but I don't think there would be a magnetic difference.
My understanding (and I could be wrong) is that many of the current speaker manufacturers are using the same cones etc just changing the drivers to Alnico or vice a versa
He goes on to say if you want vintage tone you basically have to use Vintage equipment (small amps with speakers with paper formers that don't overdrive the voice coils etc)
Are modern high powered Alnico speakers just a sales gimmick???
Myself personally... have always preferred the tone, price tag and performance of a Ceramic over an Alnico.
If the above is true.. neodymium??
any thoughts ... anyone?
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Nov 13, 2021 9:53:39 GMT -5
There's always a wise guy who wants to say "it doesn't make a difference" when something has demonstrated itself to make an impact again and again. The flaw in thinking is that "component X only affects the equation in one way, and this one way doesn't change, so there is no difference."
The most famous example of this is the guys on the old Harmony Central reviews who insist woods NEVER make a difference on electric guitars, because the pickups sense the strings. This is demonstrably false. How many wise guys have Epiphone LPs with replacement pickups that insist it sounds just as good as a good '59 replica?
Speaker construction isn't my area of expertise, but Gault here is making that exact same error in logic. It is kinda annoying and pedantic. To decide based on what you know prior to experimentation that there will be no difference between A and B and insist there is no difference after testing because your initial hypothesis didn't allow for it is sloppy science, though those who make the assertions usually pride themselves on being the most scientific.
I've heard arguments that Alnico will slightly degauss when a lot of current is going through the voice coil which accounts for its compression. I can't verify this (or even say if it accurately describes the phenomenon). Failing that argument, the geometry of each magnet is dramatically different which would change the shape and vector of the magnets and flux, and even if it was as simple as "magnetism is magnetism" you could never get a ceramic magnet the same size/shape as an Alnico in a speaker cabinet and vice versa. In guitar pickups, one major difference (among others) in the magnets is that alnico is conductive and will provide some degree of eddy current loading against the coil while ceramic won't - this is why DiMarzio often will use brass baseplates (more conductive than traditional steel) in tandem with ceramic magnets to help tame the high end. It seems reasonable there could be an analog to speakers there. Again, speakers aren't my specialty so I look forward to someone else weighing in, but there are plenty of ways to imagine differences happening.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Nov 13, 2021 9:56:23 GMT -5
Oh, another interesting thing is that he is basically saying there IS a difference after saying there is no difference, because he says he prefers one over the other. So... which is it?
Probably whichever one sells more of his own product!
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Post by Leftee on Nov 13, 2021 10:38:41 GMT -5
In my vast inexperience…
A speaker, like an amp or guitar, is the sum of its parts. It’s all formulas. And I’ll go as far as to say sometimes a variable or two eludes.
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Post by LTB on Nov 13, 2021 13:37:25 GMT -5
Are modern high powered Alnico speakers just a sales gimmick???Myself personally... have always preferred the tone, price tag and performance of a Ceramic over an Alnico. If the above is true.. neodymium?? any thoughts ... anyone? I have preferred Ceramic over Alnico but when I bought my first Eminence NEO for bass cabs and even couple for guitar cabs I now prefer NEO. I am finding it has a cleaner sweeter tone not to mention extremely light weight. Having said that I am sure some guitarist prefer Alnico for it's breakup properties but I am not one. |
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DrKev
Wholenote
It's just a guitar, it's not rocket science.
Posts: 424
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Post by DrKev on Nov 14, 2021 9:10:42 GMT -5
There is no meaningful difference between AlNiCo and Ceramic unless you are driving the speaker to its absolute design limits (when the field generated by the current in the coil can temporarily partially demagnetize the AlNiCo and produce a kind of compression, on top of all the other madness that overdriving a speaker does). However, just about nobody ever does that. It requires an amp more powerful that the speaker is designed to handle running 100% flat out with no attenuation (most amps are underpowered compared to their speaker ratings these days). But up until that point they are both just magnets. Speaker Manufacturers choose one or the other on the basis of size/shape/strength and of course, marketing.
Speakers can be designed to sound shockingly different to one another, even all using the exact same magnet. Saying "AlNiCo is better than Ceramic because..." or vice versa is about as meaningful as saying "Chicken is better than Beef" because a small number of recipes that you like happen to use one more often than the other.
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Post by pcalu on Nov 14, 2021 9:11:43 GMT -5
There's always a wise guy who wants to say "it doesn't make a difference" when something has demonstrated itself to make an impact again and again. Again, speakers aren't my specialty so I look forward to someone else weighing in, but there are plenty of ways to imagine differences happening. IMO ...The answer lies in the engineering .. I just don't think Bob Gault's opinions are that easily dismissed. Years ago I did a deep dive into the world of guitar speaker manufacturing Why? Because over on TGP and TDPRI most opinions didn't add up to what I know as a Material Manager. In small niche markets like speaker manufacturing ... the reality is there are only a few handful of manufacturers, the rest outsource, they just don't have infrastructure *** keep this in mind when I get back around to speakers ( this is true for a lot of industries.. Examples: Hot water heaters and Appliances.. just like guitar speakers... Maytag, Frigidaire etc get most of their parts or... most of their subassemblies manufacture buy a few outsourced companies.. Maytag, Frigidaire etc put their branding on it assemble the sub assemblies to the parent part... and sell it. Anything not bespoke/boutique in musical gear, i.e. amps... guitars and "guitar speakers"... the above applies. That said... there are different levels of quality in manufacturing. Simply stated... A company get's what they pay for. If a company like Fender or Marshall is willing, they can make in-house or outsourced parts of high quality... One shouldn't assume because a company isn't a small boutique company making bespoke wares that it's junk. Modern manufacturing is actually no joke.. in order for a speaker company to land a contract with a company like Fender, Marshall or Vox they have to demonstrate and monitor their quality through the manufacturing. This entails a QT department run by engineers, a strict manufacturing process governed by ISO (usually) and often a unionized skilled workforce to boot. These speaker companies like any other supplier get fined if their quality dips below the agreed upon level. Since companies are in the business to make money it's almost a guarantee that subassembly or parent part will do what it's sold for. (exceptions abound this is true, design flaws and poor management are just a few examples) Back to speakers. There truly are only 3 major speaker manufactures in the world. Eminence (mostly American made) Celestion (half made in China, half in Britain) Sica Jensen (Mostly made in Itally/Europe) All the rest...(Weber, Warehouse Scumbacks etc) in some form or fashion use R&D that the big 3 have developed. (One exception would be Tone Tubby, specializing in hemp cones, they had to go it alone as far as R&D.. they truly are Bespoke.. hand made when it comes to their cones and driver construction... yet they too are outsource al lot of their sub parts (i.e things like the spiders, diagrams, and magnets and baskets ,,, maybe etc) Who is making what?
With the exception of the big 3... everyone else procure their parts from the same few manufactures Some of their parts they even are probably procuring from the big 3, i.e baskets they have to be cast ... or they get sourced from China, Let's note all rare earth metals in manufacturing now sourced from China... think Alnico and Neodymium etc) These small companies are not milling and casting their own magnets or baskets.. They are pulling parts sourced, and assembling a driver. I'm of the opinion that Bob Gault is NOT so far off the truth with his statements on Alnico vs Cermaic...(when a company is using the same cone, same diagram, same spider, same dope etc etc...in both models. few have the money to buy a $250 Alnico just to compare it to the $120 ceramic... _ Don't know if that is happening... I do know a few companies do indeed use the same cone.
As a material manager for a tier 1 suppliers I have had some decent well informed conversations with Sica/Jesen reps, technicians and audio engineers, and a few Eminence audio technicians/engineers also. ( they all have drawn serious contention with some claims made by a few of the smaller speakers companies) Smaller companies have to distinguish themselves to get noticed...IMO a lot of what the smaller companies do is hype.. Pure and Simple.. My two favorite hyped companies in the guitar speaker market are Weber and Scumbacks.. both make a decent product, but feel the need stretch industry truths. Does Soaking the cone (that they sourced from China) in a proprietary softer solution make it bespoke?
Does Sourcing the 4 types of cones that a famous Chicago speaker manufacture used (again probably from China) then assembling them to a modern driver (again the parts were sourced) make them any more authentic than their competitor(s) ??
Are Maytag's really better than Frigidaire when much of them have the same parts? yea its' all in the engineering, the design,,, the some of the whole... I agree |
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Nov 14, 2021 10:57:44 GMT -5
Speakers can be designed to sound shockingly different to one another, even all using the exact same magnet. Saying "AlNiCo is better than Ceramic because..." or vice versa is about as meaningful as saying "Chicken is better than Beef" because a small number of recipes that you like happen to use one more often than the other. Are those designs inherent to the magnet, though? That's closer to my point. For some high power modern speakers they seem to have designed them to be interchangeable, but with low- to mid-powered speakers I'm not certain it is always apples-to-apples.
Kinda like your chicken/beef analogy, if you flat out can't do the same things with one that you can do with the other, then that is enough to say there is a difference. Even if you argue that the magnetism itself never changes (which is likely doesn't), if other elements change in the voice coil, cone, or overall geometry of the cage, then while you could quibble on the semantics of "does it make a difference", the practical answer will be "yes".
Thought experiment and question for those who know more about this than me: is it plausible that a 4x10 cab loaded with p10rs and one loaded with c10rs will sound different? If yes, does this justify saying "alnico speakers sound different"?
If the theory holds true that the magnet itself is less of a big deal than simply how it fits in geometrically, then there should be a huge untapped potential for Neo-D magnets in lower powered speakers. Thus far they seem to be used mostly as a weight reduction on high powered speakers. Some creative design in lower powered speakers should be able chase that vintage alnico dragon, since their small size would give so much elbow room. |
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