I wouldn't say it was 'keep it simple, stupid' – we went into rather more detail than that! – but by focusing on different aspects of the design and development story in bite-sized chunks we rapidly built up an idea of just what goes into a product such as this.īut first, that market overview, Esposti (above) explaining that Naim has been asking owners of its network products about their buying patterns, and getting an idea of where they're going. Naim had got it right when it comes to 'letting the engineers do their thing' for what is clearly a highly engineering-led product: after an introduction from company boss Paul Stephenson and an overview of the streaming market as Naim sees it from marketing manager Alison Esposti, the R&D team took centre stage, each explaining their own contribution to the project.

I managed to fit neither of those categories. However, as said, you need a PSU to 'energise' FC drivers.Īnd the driver tends to be bigger & heavier - due to the big wire coil of the electromagnet.Brave, then, of Naim to go against the grain and let the engineers off the leash – well, almost – at the first showing of its new NDS high-end player, held at its Salisbury HQ on Monday.Ī smattering of journalists from around Europe were in attendance, with one or two notable by their absence – playing the 'I'll only come if you guarantee me an exclusive' card apparently cuts little ice with Naim – and we gathered in the company's boardroom after lunch in the works canteen for early arrivals, and factory tours for those paying their first visit to the company. The flux strength of a FC driver can, to some extent, be varied by altering supply voltage & thus the character of the driver too. They say that the magnetic flux field generated by an electric power supply, is less effected (modulated) by music signal - ie, the music produced sounds more dynamic, more resolution & 'real'. What advantages do Field Coils offer, if any, over Permanent Magnet (PM) loudspeakers? Voxativ, Shindo, Feastrex, Rullit, Line Magnetic, G.I.P., Supravox, EMS, Wolf von Langa, Cogent. In recent times & today, permanent magnets are the norm - AlNiCo, neodymium, ferrit/ceramic, etc.īut modern Field Coil (FC) drivers and/or loudspeakers are being offered my a number of niche manufacturers - eg. Later, home audio & commercial cone drivers too (eg Voigt, RCA, Lansing, Western Electric)- before 'permanent magnets' became economically widely available.

'Field Coil' loudspeakers is another name for Electromagnet loudspeaker drivers - as opposed to the 'Permanent magnet' loudspeakers drivers used by almost all cone loudspeakers today.Ĭone loudspeakers in (valve) radios back in the 1920s-40s were driven my an electromagnet powered by electric current.

Cogent field coil horn speakers