Planar Magnetic Loudspeakers and Ribbon Tweeters
Planar magnetic drivers, ribbon tweeters and other speakers with dynamic characteristics have several advantages. Their large diaphragms need only just a tiny amount of movement (excursion), allowing them to produce the same sound quality as traditional speakers.
They also feature a dipolar radiation pattern that means they radiate equally to the front and back of the speaker.
High-Resolution Sound
Ribbon and planar magnetic speakers are known for their ability to deliver precise, clear sound. They are renowned for their high-resolution, revealing subtle variations in music that other drivers are unable to reproduce or even reveal.
Ribbon and planar drivers aren't just precise, but also provide superior soundstages, allowing them to recreate a vast soundstage with outstanding clarity. This makes them a fantastic choice for audiophiles as well as home theatre enthusiasts who are looking to enjoy their music to the highest level possible.
Planar and ribbon drivers are distinguished by their dipole pattern. This pattern emits equal amounts of energy in the front and back, with an inverted phase, creating an organic soundstage. This, along with their wide dispersion, makes them ideal for large rooms, where they can fill the room with a wide and natural soundstage without producing unnatural reflections off walls and furniture.
Planar magnetic drivers have a rapid response time that allows them to reproduce transients with greater accuracy and quickly than cone drivers. This produces a clear and detailed sound even at higher frequencies.
Planar magnetic drivers are also known for their low distortion. This is due to the fact that they don't use a voice coil, but instead an electrostatic field. This allows the diaphragms to move without causing vibrations which could cause distortion.
A planar driver also has a larger gap between the magnets than cone speakers. This results in a better frequency response and less distortion at low amplitudes, while still providing good bass performance.
While many of the benefits of planar magnetic drivers are appealing, they do have some limitations that should be taken into consideration. For instance, they can be quite costly and require more power than other kinds of speakers. They can also be bulky which makes it difficult to fit into specific spaces. Additionally, they are sensitive to room acoustics and require a lot of room treatment to ensure optimal performance. Fortunately, there are ways to minimize these problems, such as by adding an attenuation resistor (provided by your speakers) in the attenuation location, or by performing some type of room treatment.
Wide Dispersion
Planar magnetic speakers also create sound by controlling electrical currents that pass through wires that are suspended between magnets. However they directly move a flat diaphragm instead than an electrostatic charge, which gives them a larger surface area and more precision. This operational principle also makes it possible to build them into smaller, more affordable headphones and speakers compared to electrostatic models.
Planar drivers are not just capable of dispersing sound effectively, but also deliver a higher quality image and clarity at higher frequencies. This is a huge benefit for audiophiles who love listening to their music or movies in an expansive living room or other open space.
Planar drivers also can produce a very deep bass, since they can be augmented by boxed subwoofers that are connected to or separated from the ribbon-like membrane. This is different from traditional cone-type speakers that have woofers located at the bottom, which cannot reproduce bass frequencies because of the physical limitations of enclosures for woofers.
A planar driver has a low distortion rate, which is directly correlated to the size and travel of the diaphragm. As a result, a planar speaker can produce a huge volume of sound with very little distortion, which is why it can produce such crisp and precise reproduction.
Dynamic drivers in conventional headphones and speakers typically exhibit significant distortion when driven to their extreme limit of excursion. In the end, dynamic drivers typically create a booming or hollow sound.
Planar magnetic drivers are extremely efficient. They require less energy to drive, resulting in a lower energy consumption and impact on the environment. Furthermore, magnet planar composed of lighter materials than traditional speakers, which reduces the amount of energy required to propel them to create a given sound pressure.
Many audiophiles have heard of speakers made of ribbon and planar like those produced by Magnepan Infinity and Apogee Acoustics. However, a new brand is now on the market. For example new planar loudspeakers made by manufacturers such as Diptyque and Clarisys Audio are incorporating the most advanced ribbon technology.
Low Distortion
Because planar magnetic speakers don't have a conventional cone or dome shaped diaphragm, they produce extremely low distortion. This is the direct result of their unique design, which eliminates the voice coil inductance associated with conventional dynamic speakers (see U.S. Patent 6,353,560). This results in the diaphragm never being out of phase with its surroundings magnetic field, resulting in the output level remains constant. In general, distortion only occurs when high-amplitude waveforms are reproduced. With a single-ended planar magnetic driver, distortion is virtually nonexistent in all frequencies that go beyond the bass.
In addition to their extremely low distortion and low distortion, planar magnetic loudspeakers provide extremely high efficiency. This allows the drive to use much less power than other types of speakers. This translates into lower costs of ownership as well as less energy consumption.
Planar magnetic drivers also have significantly lower distortion than conventional dynamic speakers, and even less distortion for electrostatic speakers. This is because the diaphragm that is flat in the planar magnetic driver is equipped with a conductor trace around it that allows it to react to the magnetic fields generated by the magnets that are on either side of it.
The two magnets need to be placed so that the voice element stays in the magnetic field optimally throughout the time. This is the reason for the extremely linear performance of planar magnetic drivers in all frequencies above the bass.
There are many other benefits of planar magnetic drivers, the most notable is that they can to be constructed to be dipole (radiating equally and in opposing phases both in front and back of the speaker, similar to an ESL) or Monopole (radiating forward, more like the traditional dynamic). This allows for a variety of designs, particularly when used with a ribbon-tweeter.
There are many planar magnetic loudspeakers on the market today, from manufacturers such as Hifiman Dan Clark Audeze and Fostex. Each company has its own signature sound that is the result of their own patented driver configurations and other engineering innovations. The commonality of these speakers is their amazing detail, dynamics and their controlled directivity.
High Power Handling
Planar magnetic drivers can handle lots of power without the audible strain or stress that can be caused by traditional moving coil dynamic speakers. The "voice coil" is not squeezed into the small gap between the cones and baskets as in traditional dynamic drivers. Instead it is spread over an area larger. This gives the voice coil a larger surface area to dissipate heat effectively.
Planar drivers can handle a lot of power because they are so light in comparison to conventional drivers. Dynamic drivers use thick, heavy diaphragms that are several orders of magnitude larger and thicker than ultra-light and thin diaphragms employed in planar magnetic drivers. Because of their mass, conventional diaphragms require a greater amount of force to move forward and backwards (a measurement known as excursion) to create the required sound pressure.
Therefore, they can't be driven as effectively as a planar magnetic driver could because the voice coil will begin to generate substantial amounts of distortion. This is why it's crucial to only purchase loudspeakers that are designed for the amplifier that you intend to drive them with.
A planar magnetic driver's large excursion allows it to produce more soundstages than conventional drivers. This is because the diaphragm itself vibrates to create a flat, even wavefront rather than the more focused spherical wavefront that is common in traditional drivers. This larger soundstage improves the precision and detail of the speakers and allows them to reproduce subtle nuances and complex sound effects.
The disadvantage of the superior power handling of planar magnetic drivers is that they tend to be more expensive to produce and require more powerful amplifiers in order to be driven at full capacity. They can also be quite heavy and large which makes them difficult to install in certain environments. You may also need to install a separate subwoofer in order to achieve satisfactory results at lower frequencies.