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I've been pretty busy with my CNC project lately, so speaker building has been way, way in the back of my head (though with a caveat). However, I went over to Madisound's website to window shop on Accuton drivers this morning and saw the new '191 series of 173mm woofers (c173-6-191 and -191E). So, I went over to Accuton's website to see if there was more information, and I was greeted with an article on the rising price of Neodymium (and other rare earth metals) and how it was forcing Accuton to redesign its drivers.
In looking at Accuton's driver roster, it looks like the '95 and '95E are the first casualties, since they are no longer on the list of standard drivers. That seems to make the '191 and '191E their direct replacements. However, at close to $400 each, those 3rd order harmonic distortion levels don't exactly make the check write itself.
While Accuton is an extreme, this starts to beg the question for other, more popular drivers that rely heavily on Nd magnets (e.g., Tang Band), and basically for almost all popular tweeters (the HDS tweeter is one of the few in my arsenal that uses a standard ferrite magnet, IIRC).
Has anyone else started noticing price changes, design changes or availability problems with Nd-reliant drivers?
In looking at Accuton's driver roster, it looks like the '95 and '95E are the first casualties, since they are no longer on the list of standard drivers. That seems to make the '191 and '191E their direct replacements. However, at close to $400 each, those 3rd order harmonic distortion levels don't exactly make the check write itself.
While Accuton is an extreme, this starts to beg the question for other, more popular drivers that rely heavily on Nd magnets (e.g., Tang Band), and basically for almost all popular tweeters (the HDS tweeter is one of the few in my arsenal that uses a standard ferrite magnet, IIRC).
Has anyone else started noticing price changes, design changes or availability problems with Nd-reliant drivers?
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