Audience

For the DIY speaker builder, one of the most challenging aspects of speaker building is the crossover network. These drivers and arrays do not need a crossover!

We have had better than expected sales experience with our A3 drivers and are temporarily sold out. Our next shipment will be the dual 8 ohm drivers expected to arrive on May 1st, 2010.

This new order of the dual voice coil drivers will have the same exact specs of the 16 ohm drivers that have been selling so well.

They have a flat response throughout the audio spectrum from 40hz to 22Khz. 22Khz to -20 at 20Hz with high power handling and dynamic range. Our new order of dual 8 ohm coil drivers have arrived and are now available. There are several different wiring methods to be able to use these drivers in a 2, 4, 8, 16, & 24 driver line array loudspeaker.

Read the review we have received from Voice Coil magazine. The review and tests were done by Vance Dickason, one of the most notable audiophiles in the industry. Click on the button below:

AVGuide.com has published a review made by Robert Harley, a very distinguished high end audio specialist with many credits to his record. Follow the link below:

Audience captured the 2010 CES in Las Vegas again with their products. Here is a link to from one of the reports from the show:

Below are the finished pics with some nice 24" stands placing the drivers at ear level.

I would recommend four or more drivers per cabinet for the mains, and two drivers for each of the surrounds. Four driver surrounds would really be incredible! I built this pair ported, but after many hours of research both by myself and Audience, we recommend a sealed enclosure with 1.5 liters of cabinet volume per driver. We also recommend only 4 drivers per internal cabinet space to eliminate standing waves simply by using a divider between every 4 drivers. I can guide you through your build process.

The Audience A3 is a breakthrough full range loudspeaker driver design comprised of the patented XBL motor, patent-pending suspension and patent pending basket. The A3 has an exceptionally flat response from 40Hz to 22Khz and -20 at 20Hz with very high power handling and dynamic range. The A3 is built like a high power sub woofer driver using a large neodymium motor structure, big voice coil and suspension venting. The A3 is ultra responsive at 2.5 grams total moving mass providing state of the art resolution and dynamic range. The A3 sports 12mm of usable excursion with less than 1 dB compression at levels up to 95 dB SPL.

The XBL A3 motor design generates an extremely uniform force over the excursion range, resulting in much less distortion and compression . The A3 motor design also allows for an extremely low voice coil inductance, insuring exceptional flat response to higher frequencies.

The A3 surround, patent-pending, is uniquely s shaped allowing for the surround to provide large excursions without shrouding the cone and with uniform resistance in both directions.

The A3 basket, patent-pending, supports the structure while free of typical design resonances, it is unobstructive and avoids trapped air volumes. The mechanical design was extensively refined using state of the art Finite Element Analysis to have no mechanical resonance problems.

The A3 spider was designed with special materials and design that provide for large linear excursions and is of a size usually associated only with much larger drivers.

The A3 pole piece venting is also unusual in that a vent of this size is usually only seen in much larger sub woofer type drivers. This large vent has radiuses on both ends to prevent turbulence. This large vent supports high volume air flow for cooling the voice coil for superior power handling.

The Cone is a curvilinear design executed with an anodized aluminum magnesium alloy making for an exceptionally rigid cone. The concave dust cap is made of a proprietary material providing constrained layer damping to control cone break up at high frequency and to provide high frequency desperation.

The above are some, not all, of the unique and special design features of the A3.

We are experimenting with passive radiators to be used with these A3 drivers in some future offerings and had a pair in our line up for the 2009 SHOW at Las Vegas in our 2 + 2 ClairAudient loudspeaker. They performed very well and the show was a huge success! The low Q of these drivers make the passive radiators a very good design option.

Audience A3 Applications

Audience has done a lot of testing at the factory with many different cabinets for this new driver. Even though I built the ported cabinets, Audience is now recommending that these drivers should be used in a sealed enclosure for the highest resolution. The ported cabinet can still be used, but is not recommended due to driver unloading at the lower frequencies, thus sacrificing some SPL and the chance of driver over excursion.

For in room positioning, ports can be used to increase the bass output, however, with some tradeoffs. At frequencies below the port tuning the driver becomes unloaded allowing free motion. This can lead to over excursion and driver damage if played to loud. One way to avoid this is to tune the port to 45Hz or less leaving little program material below this frequency to cause a problem. With a 6L volume per driver, 45Hz tuning will give 40Hz at -3db.

Here is Audience's response graph with the 4 driver ported design, cabinet tuned to 45 hz. The chart below should represent my speakers performance as I've built them to the factory's recommended specs for a four driver ported cabinet.

Materials used including the cabinet's wood or MDF, dampening material, the cabinet's actual internal volume and room effects may make these numbers change.

Standard inside dimensions of a 5 L sealed enclosure are 10” high x 6” deep X 5.25” wide. We recommended that ¾” material be used and that the box be well sealed as these drivers are capable of generating real bass power. No bracing is required with ¾” enclosure material. A full handful of loose wool is recommended as the cabinet stuffing and adjust to your taste. The A3 drivers should be flush mounted and the cutouts inside need to be very generously beveled away from the driver to un-shroud the back side of the cones, this is very important for the best sound. I used a 3/4" round over router bit on the inside of the cabinets.

When building a sealed cabinet housing these drivers, use an internal measurement of 1.5 liters per driver, like the example above. The same rule applies to the 24 driver unit. When building a large line array of drivers, divide the cabinets with 4 drivers per cabinet. A sixteen driver unit will have 3 dividers and 4 cabinets with 4 drivers. This eliminates the pipe effect ie standing waves in the cabinet. Line the back and one side with 1/2" wool. Use about a hand full of real wool.

If you want to go to 4, 8, 16, or 24 drivers, you would series-parallel them to obtain the correct ohms you would like your amplifier to see.

Two of these drivers would make an excellent center, surround, or center back speaker for the home theater.

Audience is proud to announce that they have licensed the XBL technology and is used in their build and design of the A3 loudspeaker driver, with 3 patents pending.

Coupled with the super powerful N45SH neodymium magnetic material used in this amazing driver's motor, you can only expect the best in the high end audio quality that Audience is so well known for. The magnet for this driver was originally designed for a 6" driver and is perfectly suited for the A3's application. I have tested this magnet's power against another driver's neodymium magnet, and this is a much more powerful magnet.

XBL motors are useful for all audio transducers. While many applications have been focused on woofers, the advantages are also applicable for midranges and tweeters. In fact, the low inductance and moving mass of this motor are extremely beneficial in wideband transducers. Typically, XBL will halve the inductance of a comparable excursion overhung motor, which can result in adding a full octave of extension on the high end. Add in the lower moving mass from the short coil, and the driver designer has a greater degree of flexibility in driver creation.

Compared to the overhung designs, the shorter coil length means more mechanical clearance in the motor and higher tolerance of rocking, meaning dual spiders are not required for high excursions. Combine this with a flatter BL curve, lower inductance, and lower moving mass and the advantages of XBL over overhung topologies are readily apparent.

The A3 surround; patent-pending, is uniquely s shaped allowing for the surround to provide large excursions without shrouding the cone and with uniform resistance in both directions. The A3 spider was designed with special materials and design that provide for large linear excursions and is of a size usually associated only with much larger drivers.

"Our intent and design goal was to do a design suitable for multiple driver use so we weren’t limited with dynamic range or power handling, we just add more drivers".

These are truly high end speakers for those seeking only the best in audio reproduction. Audience has 3 patents pending for this fantastic driver. We will be offering 4 and 8 ohm versions of this driver in the future. I am proud to be able to market these drivers because they are designed by Audience. Audience is truly a high end audio manufacturer, accepting no compromises in quality.

Audience will be releasing some new 5", 6", & 8" woofers with the same XBL2 technology in the near future. Here is some pre-release specifications and charts for our new woofers. The xmax on these drivers are 11mm one way and use the same motor structure. These fine woofers should compliment the smaller A3 cabinet builds that use the 2 or 4 driver alignments.

Below is a graph worked up on the WinIsd modeling software for the three woofers:

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