According to this individual the use of permanent magnets in drivers is inferior to field coil drivers.
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Stereophile did a review not long ago of a pair of speakers that used field coil bass drivers. If I remember correctly it made a remarkable difference.
I personally donāt care how they make the drivers. I demand the speakers disappear. I need to watch that video.
Oh yippee! Think about all the cool new stuff that will appear in the ānext upgradeā thread.
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Sounds cool. Long as you can plug in your speakers.
I love the look of those speakers!
Would love to hear them itās pitty they didnāt make quick comparison , the described difference should be apparent even via YT video I guessā¦
Interesting they still sell also permanent magnet speakers besides the filed coil based.
Have Pure Audio Project Trio 15 Classic speakers with the Voxative PiFe full range drive a have been aware of the advantages of a field coil driver. While mine are not field coil drivers I have heard the Voxative field coil driver. It offers a greater naturalness, sense of ease and immediacy in comparison to the PiFe I have. The gain comes at a price, approximately $17,500 for a pair whereas mine were $4,500.
They sound great with an SET amp or Pass Labs class A amplification. Class AB need not apply IMO.
Well, field coils do offer a āstifferā magnetic field when it comes to the influence and modulation effects of the AC field of the voice coil being superimposed on the DC magnetic field of the magnet structure.
However, there is heat constantly being dissipated in a field coil magnet and this has negative implications for thermal power compression. The motor āruns hotā and this is more off an issue in higher power speakers (not these little wideband driver being powered by flea watt tube amps or something).
Yes, you can adjust the magnetic damping and woofer alignment by adjusting the field coil power supply and this will adjust the Q (the amount of peaking around the system resonance) but, in practice, this wonāt align with room modes or the actual EQ that you would want to do to correct frequency and time domain issues of room resonances in domestic sized spaces.
Also, itās not as if you canāt get enough magnetic flux out of permanent magnets. That was an issue back in the 1920ās when field coils were used on the original rice and kellog moving coil speakers but certainly isnāt the case now. There have been massive advancements in magnetic materials.
The extra cost and needing to plug in these power supplies are a pretty big negative.
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Thanks Chris! You are who I wanted to hear from!
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So how do you really feel Chris?
When done properly they can sound sublime IME, proper amplification mating is imperative, as with many speakers. Odd that some have an aversion to powering a field coil amplifier but not multiple subwoofers, or electrostatic speakers.
To the question about whether driver technology is regressing, Iād say ādefinitely notā. The other day I stopped at a friendās house and he had a pair of high end speakers that I used to sell in the late 70ās-early 80ās which had nothing like the soundstage of just about all decent (but not necessarily expensive) speakers for sale today.
In the video he mentioned that the power supply makes a huge difference. He only uses tube power supplies which have high voltage and lower current. Would love to hear a pair some day.
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They could go to the expense of water cooling the coil. Thereās a power supply so the water could be pumped and the rear of the speaker enclosure could be one large radiator. Iāve a car with a water cooled gearbox so why not a speaker ):-
Good idea for a fresh cup of tea!
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These field core speakers sound quite remarkable even via YouTube.
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It seems that a lot of advances in audio have been advances in convenience, and not necessarily sound quality. Yes digital, solid state amplifiers, and driver technology has advanced over the years, but thereās something inherently right about vinyl, tubes, and field core drivers.
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Well, I didnāt mean to sound too harsh but powered subs and arenāt constantly burning power in the driver that heats them up in a way that has significant power compression.
A powered sub is a compromise to EQ for the size of the subwoofer (because people donāt want refrigerator sized boxes to get infrasonic extension), but the power isnāt dissipated unless there is signal in that region bass and the duty cycle is pretty low.
A field coil is constantly dissipating power in the motor like a light bulb.
Iām not saying that these still canāt sound great but using a big slug of neo and some shorting rings a better solution for most applications.
Probably the SOTA in this kind of current gen hifi woofer motor design is something like purifi
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Ken Songer is a super nice guy and itās doing some interesting stuff with his speakers (including very custom / hand made drivers and everything.
We met back at RMAF in 2019 and have kept in touch every so often. He even gave me a shout out when explaining a bit about his journey with his designs.
While Iām sure they sound great, please understand that you canāt do any sort of assessment of sound of a speaker over youtube at all.
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NOW you tell us? I bought my entire system based on sound samples on YT. 
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