SB Acoustics SATORI

[Jonasz]

Just discovered these new drivers over at their homepage.

http://www.sbacoustics.com/index.php/products/midwoofers/6-1-2-satori-mw16r/

http://www.sbacoustics.com/index.php/products/tweeters/satori-tw29r/

That midwoofer hardly needs a tweeter... 8O



It looks kind of sexy too... :B

[mkc]

Hi Jonaz,

Yes, very impressive for a 6½", although it will beam like h...

I think I have linked to the danish forum before. The guy writting as USXX is responsible for this driver and other SB drivers.

http://forum.speakerbuilder.dk/forum_posts.asp?TID=352&PN=1&title=sb-zantori

Best regards,
Mogens

[Jim Holtz]

Interesting looking driver. 8O

Are these available in the US yet?

Thanks!

Jim

[tktran]

USXX is none other than Ulrik Schmidt, former Scanspeak engineer, responsible for drivers such as the Revelator 18W/8531G.

If only they could get rid of that dip just above 1Khz...

[Jim Holtz]

The design is very similar to the Vifa/Peerless NE180. I've not seen any designs or further discussion about the NExxx series of drivers since the original testing was done by Jon and Zaph.

They look like they are potentially excellent midrange drivers.

Jim

[Jed]

I wonder what pricing will be like and how the increase of neo pricing will influence the availability of this driver.

[Silversmoky]

Just noticed that the first midwoofer in the Satori line is in stock at Madisound. Specs look pretty decent. Definitely has that SB Acoustics dip in the midrange although that is usually workable. Pricing is a bit steeper than I thought they would be but that is probably directly linked to the increase in Neo lately.http://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com...ian-reed-cone/

[mjgeorge]

Something is up with the pricing. Madisound shows the price of the MW16P at $287.80, but Meniscus shows the price at $187.87. I wonder which one is correct?

[5th element]

Maybe one has a batch made before neo prices went up and the other doesn't.

[Silversmoky]

That is odd. Maybe stock up at Meniscus while you can. That is definitely a much more attractive price for these and closer to what I was expecting.

[mjgeorge]

Actually, Meniscus already updated the price on their website. It's now $287.87.

[Silversmoky]

That was my fear. I was hoping ,for once, Meniscus was the one with the correct price. I have noticed this a couple of times with different drivers being listed at two very different prices between Madisound and Meniscus. Madisound seems to always be the one with the higher price at first but Meniscus changes soon after. Kind of puts these drivers out of the ball park a bit in my opinion but I am sure they are excellent and will have many fans.

[Hdale85]

Should have ordered a bunch before they changed the price

[Bear]

That was my fear. I was hoping ,for once, Meniscus was the one with the correct price. I have noticed this a couple of times with different drivers being listed at two very different prices between Madisound and Meniscus. Madisound seems to always be the one with the higher price at first but Meniscus changes soon after. Kind of puts these drivers out of the ball park a bit in my opinion but I am sure they are excellent and will have many fans.

'Correct' isn't really the right term. These guys are most likely doing a simple Cost-Plus markup to set prices, and when the inventory gets low enough to trigger a new purchase order, the "shelf" price gets adjusted accordingly.

Given the pricing on the NE180, this is probably a little steep unless it turns out to have considerably more low-end grunt. This is starting to get into the Illuminator neighborhood, and that becomes a tough fight to win.

[Silversmoky]

'Correct' isn't really the right term. These guys are most likely doing a simple Cost-Plus markup to set prices, and when the inventory gets low enough to trigger a new purchase order, the "shelf" price gets adjusted accordingly.

Given the pricing on the NE180, this is probably a little steep unless it turns out to have considerably more low-end grunt. This is starting to get into the Illuminator neighborhood, and that becomes a tough fight to win.

True enough, although in this case, with the Satori line being brand new to the market, with no previous inventory on hand, is the "shelf" price set at $100 less than another competitor? Maybe a simple misprint in this case. Anyway, I agree they have put themselves in an interesting league with the pricing and it will also be interesting to see how they settle in.

[5th element]

Considering the brand and who's designed the Satori driver it is quite possible that it will show measurements similar to, or perhaps better then the Illuminator. After-all Zaph's distortion sweep of the Paper coned 6.5" Illu vs the Revelator really goes in the Revelators favour for the most part. Of course the Satori does cost more then the Revelator equivalent...maybe the pricing would have been far more competitive had the neo prices not gone wooosh. I hope Zaph manages to get a Satori into the November testing, I am sure lots of us are eager to see how it does.

[Bear]

True enough, although in this case, with the Satori line being brand new to the market, with no previous inventory on hand, is the "shelf" price set at $100 less than another competitor? Maybe a simple misprint in this case. Anyway, I agree they have put themselves in an interesting league with the pricing and it will also be interesting to see how they settle in.

I think you are over-thinking the problem. Vendor A announces new product, including availability and pricing. Retailer B takes release announcement, creates new part, establishes retail pricing and cuts a PO for shipment. Vendor A runs into availability issues for raw materials, misses initial release date, negotiates new raw materials contact at much higher cost, and issues correction to business partners. Retailer C receives stock, and then releases updated information to its website. Retailer B, having better things to do, doesn't update information until shipment comes in, along with the invoice and new pricing. Retailer B then updates pricing.

Remember: while this is "The Web", there are still people who are fundamentally running/executing these businesses.

[JonMarsh]

Well, I would like for this to be a slam dunk driver, but the measured response plots and impedance curves sure seem to point to an issue at 1.2 kHz, possibly with a cone or surround resonance.

Now, the paper SS Illuminator has some similar issues, which show up in the impedance curve.



In the 80's onward, my experience was always that this type of bobble and impedance resonance was associated with linear distortion and a less articulated sound in the midrange (hit this with SL's shaped sine testing near the frequency of the bobble and you see substantial energy storage).

Interestingly, the aluminum version of the Illuminator 7 doesn't show the impedance bobble or the glitch in SPL- indicating that's it's likely NOT the surround resonance, as one could expect it to still be there.



This freedom from artifacts in this frequency region in the RS180 is a contributing factor, I think, to why it is as popular sonically as it is- apart from the value proposition.

An iron clad case? No... but not a consideration to be ignored, either.

Also, as another aside, note that the SB Acoustics driver has a conventional overhung voice coil, while the Illuminator has an underhung gap design which the whole coil is in during the linear travel. My experience to date is that all things being similar, I seem to prefer the sound of underhung drivers- they do usually measure lower in distortion (the big Accuton midrange, for example, and the Aurasound woofers). I'm curious to get a sample of the Transducer Lab ceramic dome tweeter to test, as it also has an underhung motor.

In a similar vein, the Vifa NE180W looks very extended in range, but also has some quirks in the 1.4 kHz area. Makes me wonder about the wisdom of paper... though it certainly had it's day in the past.



Back to the aluminum SS (OK, thread hijack, time to kick me off the forum!), I am playing with it in a sort of two way configuration, like a MTM 2.5 way (more like a TMM concept, but arranged like an MTM), and have some very promising sims with a 4th order LR at 1600 Hz. The tweeter is an SS in waveguide. Its started off with a more NatalieP like crossover, but that got scrapped and the Modula MT HE TMM configuration was evaluated, with changes. This could be done sealed box, but the current effort is dipole. Hope to have something to listen to by Xmas.

[5th element]

All of Scanspeaks paper coned drivers typically show similar resonances @~1khz and more often then not they do show something for it in the HD plots but they tend to be rather benign, this is mainly due to the drivers being so clean in the first place.

The Satori looks to have a better cone then the Illuminators anyway, it certainly isn't as peaky. Of course good quality 6.5" drive units aren't difficult to come by these days either, but as you said, it does make you question the sense behind using cones that display less then ideal properties.

I'm quite interested to see how the Satori tweeter measures. It's use of ferrite could help keep its price extremely competitive, but will it do enough to stand out from the standard SB dimple dome?

[JonMarsh]

I'm quite interested to see how the Satori tweeter measures. It's use of ferrite could help keep its price extremely competitive, but will it do enough to stand out from the standard SB dimple dome?

Very good question....


Besides the Satori parts not being available at Madisound yet, well, I have my own prejudices, willing to own up to that, and dimple dome tweeters certainly can never be accused of having overly pistonic behavior!

Which is why I'm more curious about this... from a US company at a reasonable price.



As measured by Jeff Bagby



And distortion levels measured at 90 dB by Jeff Bagby. :T



Interesting... I think they know something about what they're doing. Underhung voice coil, remember? One of my check box items. :W

[5th element]

Indeed I saw the measurements of that a couple of days ago and was quite impressed. When those tweeters first emerged I have to say I was unimpressed by the way the drivers physically looked, but then looks can be deceiving. I HATE square frames too although one can see why it comes with one as the C-C spacing will already be limited by the magnet size, going circular would only push this further in the wrong direction. If thrown onto a wave-guide however that problem sort of goes away.

I'd say the top scan tweeters might just have the edge in measured performance, although its not really fair to directly compare Jeffs measurements to Zaphs as the conditions were probably different. Of course the price on the Transducer lab tweeter is definitely right when compared to scan's BE dome and Accuton's ceramics'.

[Bear]

In the 80's onward, my experience was always that this type of bobble and impedance resonance was associated with linear distortion and a less articulated sound in the midrange (hit this with SL's shaped sine testing near the frequency of the bobble and you see substantial energy storage).

Jon - Is my memory correct in that you had once said that such impedance bobbles often show up in the HD plots an integer multiple up from where they occur (e.g., 1.2kHz bobble increases F2 at 2.4kHz)?

[JonMarsh]

Usually that is the case. Cone resonance is cone resonance. Now, where you really see this phenomena is when you get close to the sub multiples of the main break up mode- unless some real efforts have been expended damping them, like in the top Accuton midrange.

Based on that, one could make the argument not to use metal cone woofers like the RS180, or the W22 Seas, or these Scanspeak Illuminators (the 18WU-8747t00 aluminum ones). But based on the measured distortion, I think I'm OK running them up to 1500-1600 Hz.



We'll see how that works out- I think with 4th order L-R they'll be OK. I'm looking at using these from 140-150 up to 1600.

Sorry for the thread jack of sorts- just illustrating my concerns with data.

[JonMarsh]

Back on topic, re the Satori

Once again, Jeff Bagby to the rescue for curious minds. His distortion plot would seem to indicate that something IS going on more than just a little bit of surround resonance, and as Bear commented, it does even impact the standard nonlinear distortion plot.




Note that the closely spaced grid lines are 5 dB/division and the distortion peak is 10 dB above the nominal level. Also, this is a near field measurement, so the absolute SPL should not be correlated with standard measurements done at 1 meter. I.E., the readings of SPL are substantially higher.

How audible in practice? Who nows? Would be interesting to listen to chirp sweeps and to pink noise to assess. It all depends on your application; for example, with a more conventional two way waveguide approach with low order networks, L-R 2nd acoustical target, this driver would be very easy to work with, and measures quite nicely next to the Seas ER18RNX.

The Satori could be quite handy in some applications. But...
The 18wu has nearly twice the linear throw as tested by Patrick Turnmire for Voice Coil. 4.6mm limited by suspension for the Satori, whereas the Scan illuminator gets 9.1mm, due to it's excellent underhung motor and well designed suspension. :E

That might give the nod to the Illuminator. Neither is cheap.

For bang for the buck, it's still hard to beat the good ole RS180! :lol:

[5th element]

If you don't mind going for metal cones I think it's almost impossible to beat most of the RS series when it comes to bang for buck.

I have to say I was expecting more from the Satori and in a driver costing that much you shouldn't have to face distortion peaks like that slap bang in the critical region. It's one thing to have them at the end of the transition band or well into the stop band, but there's not a lot you can do when the peak occurs at ~1khz.

Maybe I'm being too harsh of a critic, but if I'm going to be spending that much money on a driver I want better performance then that. If the satori really is suspension limited @ 4.6mm I can't really see any reason to pick it over the NE 6.5" from vifa.

If I'm buying a soft cone driver @ 6.5" I'm doing it mainly because they lack the distortion peaks inherent in stiff cones and allow more flexible crossovers. As you said a 2nd order acoustic target + ~6" wave-guide around 2-2.5khz would give you a good directivity match and sound fantastic to boot. When configured like that I am prioritising the midrange of the mid/bass over the bass too and from what I can see the satori really wouldn't be the best choice.

Also is the spike in the 2nd or 3rd harmonic? I'm not sure what the colours on Jeffs graphs represent.

[Jonasz]

Sorry for OT John, but do you have any info about the Arvo Pärt Picante in your signature? :P

[mkc]

Hi Guys,

I have previously linked to the danish forum where the designer (USXX) of the Satori, is very kind to participate and share his knowledge. He is actually very generous guy in this respect.

It's my understanding that the he could easily remove the dip above 1 KHz. But, that would be at the expense of not using a low-loss suspension, which I understand that he prefers.

I exchanged a few PM's with him on this subject as some 8" DALI woofers I had showed similar behaviour. He told me that in his opinion it was not as degrading to the sound quality as one might think compared to using a stiffer suspension.

Please be aware this is my interpretation of his words.

Best regards,
Mogens

[JonMarsh]

Thanks for the sharing the exchange and the additional feedback. There are many trade-offs in driver design, and I recall this aspect of behavior in the older SS drivers I was working with in the 90's. Similar suspension design; but also then it was Scanspeak's desire to decouple the center from the outside of the cone around 1 kHz, in a away to allow a single inductor achieving both the main two way crossover point and the BSC; it was a away of engineering the driver to work with a specific crossover system approach.

[JonMarsh]

Sorry for OT John, but do you have any info about the Arvo Pärt Picante in your signature? :P

Oops! Caught out! :W

Things have been easing up, and I have found myself recovering a bit of a personal life, as well as able to work on some more interesting things at work.

The Arvo Pärt Picante is a very new project (about a week old!) which has been motivated/inspired by a number of diverse factors.

• Metric Halo LIO-8: my main DAC is capable of a lot more than just two channel audio playback, and with it's fairly powerful DSP front end and 8 main channels, it seems like a natural for an active or partially active speaker system. It's about time I tried that out.
  
• Earlier this year I bought a full Mamba XDB I/O interface box for the LIO-8, so I've all the physical I/O for the DB25 connectors solved.
  
• Seas has released the L26RO47 10" driver optimized for open baffle- a lot of changes to parameters, spider design, etc. - and at nearly the same price as the original- this represents a new level of performance possible with just a 10" nominal OB woofer.
  
• I've got a couple of pairs of Scanspeak 18wu-8747t00 that were originally intended just for LF, but some testing has shown they can likely be used up through the mids, say with an LR4 1600 Hz crossover? And their LF performance is phenomenal, due to the underhung motor design and suspension.
  
• I have three pairs of the Jantzen waveguides, and have gotten nice results with the 6640 in them, but also have a pair of Transducer Labs N26c on the way for testing- SS or Accuton level performance at lowline SS pricing
  
• I already have a good TMM 2.5 way crossover designed at 1600 Hz with measured data from the 18WU/8747t00 and 6640 - using the Jantzen waveguide on the tweeter
  
• I have enough Pau Ferro and LBL bamboo and high density birch ply that's phenolic veneered on hand to build something new in an Arvo configuration
  
• I have been a bit inspired by the web site Eric S put together for the Arvo Part Mk II, made be a little nostaligic for some of the "good old days" stuff (five years ago?!?). The section of Eric's site covering the Arvo was exactly what I would have like to put together, but I usually spend my spare time building speakers, not web sites….

If this doesn't constitute all the planets and stars coming into alignment, then I don't know what does... plus I'm going to have a bit of time off and be spending time in town, as my girlfriend is having a hip replacement surgery, so no travel for us for a while.

I'm cutting wood this afternoon, for the first test article, and some pieces for the final pair. I should probably just lay low on this until we've got hardware and results in hand, but I have a good feeling about it...

[5th element]

Wow I hadn't noticed the L26RO4Y. It will be interesting to see some measurements of that compared to the standard edition.

[Bear]

Thanks for the sharing the exchange and the additional feedback. There are many trade-offs in driver design, and I recall this aspect of behavior in the older SS drivers I was working with in the 90's. Similar suspension design; but also then it was Scanspeak's desire to decouple the center from the outside of the cone around 1 kHz, in a away to allow a single inductor achieving both the main two way crossover point and the BSC; it was a away of engineering the driver to work with a specific crossover system approach.

Coming fresh off of the Google translator:

Sven, it is the classic / typical dive at the transition between the piston area and opbrydningsområdet. There are many devices that have - and this is followed by a little bump in the impedance curve (this bump can also sometimes be seen on devices that do not have visibility dive - but the reason / problem is the same). It can be seen on devices with low loss in the edge suspension but is also very much with the geometry of the membrane / edge suspension. We have chosen to prioritize some other considerations (such as bandwidth and maturity in the membrane), which requires a flatter membrane. Should we also avoid diving while maintaining an edge bracket with low loss, we would have to use a wider rim suspension, which could be hospitalized more curves in the transitions, without that it would go beyond the stroke and the symmetry and linearity in suspension. That would mean more rubber, more weight and therefore more mass decoupling, which would contribute to a (more) increasing frequency before unreeling.
The dive may not look so nice for people who buy units for frequency response, but sonically it's a little problem. This dive, which perhaps can be called a breakdown, has not a resonant character as typical membranopbrydninger, seen as peaks further up the frequency on most units. It is also in so narrow a field that you practically do not notice any bias in the sound balance. Looking at the distortion that comes with this dive, you will find that only follows a rise in the second harmonic distortion with a hump just around the dive area. This is the "ear friendly" distortion, which may well color the sound - but not in the bad way. There must always be chosen compromises when developing drivers (especially bass-mid tones), and our compromise implies that this dive included.

If I read this correctly, the essence of the tradeoff was a lighter suspension and wider frequency response vs. a heavier suspension and less wide of frequency response. The gist of the issue is that this is where the driver ceases being pistonic (@1.2kHz), and they have to make tradeoffs to generate performance outside this area.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=da&u=http://forum.speakerbuilder.dk/forum_posts.asp%3FTID%3D352%26title%3Dsb-zantori&ei=-OfPTqD1C-n20gHyuK0n&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CD0Q7gEwAg&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dusxx%2Bsatori%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DfrM%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26prmd%3Dimvns

[JonMarsh]

Thanks - this correlates well with the older SS designs; probably they and the new Satori mid woofer are to a degree the product of the same philosophy, though evolved, and most likely the same person!

[CraigJ]

Oops! Caught out! :W


The Arvo Pärt Picante is a very new project (about a week old!) which has been motivated/inspired by a number of diverse factors.

• Metric Halo LIO-8: my main DAC is capable of a lot more than just two channel audio playback, and with it's fairly powerful DSP front end and 8 main channels, it seems like a natural for an active or partially active speaker system. It's about time I tried that out.
  
• Earlier this year I bought a full Mamba XDB I/O interface box for the LIO-8, so I've all the physical I/O for the DB25 connectors solved.
  
• Seas has released the L26RO47 10" driver optimized for open baffle- a lot of changes to parameters, spider design, etc. - and at nearly the same price as the original- this represents a new level of performance possible with just a 10" nominal OB woofer.
  
• I've got a couple of pairs of Scanspeak 18wu-8747t00 that were originally intended just for LF, but some testing has shown they can likely be used up through the mids, say with an LR4 1600 Hz crossover? And their LF performance is phenomenal, due to the underhung motor design and suspension.
  
• I have three pairs of the Jantzen waveguides, and have gotten nice results with the 6640 in them, but also have a pair of Transducer Labs N26c on the way for testing- SS or Accuton level performance at lowline SS pricing
  
• I already have a good TMM 2.5 way crossover designed at 1600 Hz with measured data from the 18WU/8747t00 and 6640 - using the Jantzen waveguide on the tweeter
  
• I have enough Pau Ferro and LBL bamboo and high density birch ply that's phenolic veneered on hand to build something new in an Arvo configuration
  
• I have been a bit inspired by the web site Eric S put together for the Arvo Part Mk II, made be a little nostaligic for some of the "good old days" stuff (five years ago?!?). The section of Eric's site covering the Arvo was exactly what I would have like to put together, but I usually spend my spare time building speakers, not web sites….

If this doesn't constitute all the planets and stars coming into alignment, then I don't know what does... plus I'm going to have a bit of time off and be spending time in town, as my girlfriend is having a hip replacement surgery, so no travel for us for a while.

I'm cutting wood this afternoon, for the first test article, and some pieces for the final pair. I should probably just lay low on this until we've got hardware and results in hand, but I have a good feeling about it...

Hold on, stop the bus. I am the Arvo Pärt guy! What, no pm, no warning, no Dr. call? Gotta run and sharpen the saw blades.

Note to self, upgrade Pyle to Jantzen waveguide and ditch Raals.

Welcome back John.

Cj

[JonMarsh]

Hold on, stop the bus. I am the Arvo Pärt guy! What, no pm, no warning, no Dr. call? Gotta run and sharpen the saw blades.

Note to self, upgrade Pyle to Jantzen waveguide and ditch Raals.

Welcome back John.

Cj

Ok, Craig, Ok, I should have informed the lead developer, YOU! but ya know, it's been a kind of sudden thing. One week, not even crossing my mind or a glimmer in my eye, and by this Sunday afternoon, I have cut up hunks of Pau Ferro, laminated HDF, phenolic veneered tooling grade baltic birch plywood, and LBL bamboo; two waveguides freshly milled, a stack of the adhesive backed felt rings just arrived from Madisound, some increasingly complicated EazyDraw 2D sketches (3D takes more time), a stack of new router bits and saw blades (Pau Ferro is HARD!) and a serious hole in my bank account.

Beverly's never seen me in speaker building mode before, and I think she's a little surprised.... :E

I also figure it was better to keep this on the QT until I have some real results, in case I get sent somewhere unexpectedly for work or we have an alien invasion. So I'll stay busy working instead of posting, until I've got something to listen to.

[CraigJ]

I also figure it was better to keep this on the QT until I have some real results, in case I get sent somewhere unexpectedly for work or we have an alien invasion.

:rofl: I have leftover Corian available, Madisound is only 5 minutes away, I can keep this on the QT, and my email address for the 2d sketch is......

Enjoy your fun time!

Cj

[JimS]

subscribed :B

[TacoD]

Satori MW16P is now listed in Intertechnik.de webshop (not in stock though)

Intertechnik

also available at Madisound
Madisound