Sneak Peek: FR-30, now FR-80

Not to my knowledge. We’ve made no allowances for that.

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Thanks for asking. Yes, the planar midrange is crossed over to the midbass at ~350 Hz. In arrays, this planar driver can cross over lower (in the 150-200 Hz range) but, in singles, this is a more appropriate range.

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So I guess the mid is either the BG Neo 10 or your own derivative/version of it?

Yes, it’s our own version of a similar unit, since I spent 5 years at BG and felt that that technology can lead to a world-class midrange.

At some point, we’ll do a technical run down or deep dive on things, I hope.

I did bump up the magnets to N48 grade (versus the N35 on the NEO10) and so sensitivity and output are higher.

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I don’t think the NEO 10 is currently available

Yes, that is true. It is no longer available and our drivers are all our own designs. Our mid similar enough that it is nearly a drop in (except for the increased sensitivity).

BG was purchased by Christie Digital (the professional projector company) a few years ago to use the BG drivers and technology as the foundation of a commercial cinema speaker line. The former VP of engineering at BG was doing work with them and is also doing a high quality line of planar drivers for Radian Audio.

The one thing I find disconcerting about this design is the side firing drivers in the upper cabinet. I’m not questioning their performance attributes, but rather the likely discontinuity between the auditory and visual impression, assuming a bit of toe in towards the listener. It seems to me that the sound field imaging would have to compete with the visual cues. I sort of get the side drivers on the bottom, but the top? Anyway, good luck with the design.

The easy thing with communicating a finished product is, that no one discusses such theories happening since a few hundred forum posts, if the product just sounds great as it was designed :wink:

Thanks Chris. That is an interesting bit of history. I was looking for some NEO 10’s a while ago and was informed they are out of production for one reason or another.
I think they have the right guy to carry this design forward. I wish you great success.

Side-“firing” passive midbass couplers, as I understand it. The actual mid is the planar being discussed above, which is the biggest thing in the front face of the top half, with coincident tweeter in the middle.

Rega here in the UK have had side firing drivers in their speaker range for many years now.

Of course, it’s up to you if the side drivers are outward firing or inward firing…have a listen and pick your preferred flavour.

Thank you!

I would agree that it is always better to show more than tell and I hope that we can transition more into that activity with the future loudspeaker efforts.

Yes, however, in our case, there are drivers on both sides and so there isn’t a “lefty” and “righty”.

Part of the reasoning for this is that the horizontally opposed drivers greatly reduces unwanted enclosure vibration.

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Another useful “machine” that uses opposing forces to cancel vibration. Works great on my BMW R1200RT motorcycle.

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Nice - and I truly mean that, now that I recognize it. At first I thought it was a Transformer’s/Bionicle’s "junk":cowboy_hat_face:

Proudly driven by some local police forces, also in the US.

Hope the FR30‘s will make their way globally as the BMW, or the Harleys for that matter. Now wait … it just occurs to me, Yamaha and Canton speakers and a BMW / Harley motor cycle or new speakers?

I bet my chances to live longer are better when choosing those speakers.

Those flat twin Beemers were always as smooth as silk. A good friend bought one in '67 or '68 in SanFran when he got discharged from his tour of duty in Viet Nam. He drove it all the way back home to Michigan and never had to tighten a bolt or add fluid to anything. It was an R50/2 or R60/2. I think he put 100,000 miles on it.

Ah…
Hadn’t picked up that there were drivers on both sides.

Good design call balancing out resonances, interesting!


Here you can see our record store - our entire HIFI store was designed by Bang & Olufsen. Note that remote control has been created in the disc for boat recorder and record player. Year 1978. I’m on the right in the photo.
more love michael

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