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PLANAR SPEAKER MANUFACTURERS
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The major electrostatic speaker manufacturers are Marin Logan, Audiostatic, Innersound, Acoustat and Quad. The major Ribbon speaker manufacturers are Magnepan (Magneplanar), Eminent Technology, Wisdom Audio, VMPS and, of course, Newform Research. These companies represent the best of the planar world.
Electrostatic and ribbon loudspeakers are a class of speaker in which the diaphragms are flat ie, a single plane. The advantage of flat diaphragms is when they move, all the air they move is in phase because it all moves forward or back from the exact same plane - the surface of the diaphragm. Contrast this to dome and cone speakers where the diaphragms have some height or depth and when they move, the air is compressed over a distance corresponding to the height of the dome or the depth of the cone. This distance represents “time smear” or “cone smear”.
Because planar diaphragms are flat, they must necessarily be driven over their entire surface area. Dome and cone speaker diaphragms can be driven from their perimeter (dome) or apex (cone) by a voice coil. The walls of the diaphragm then flex as the force from the voice coil moves through it whereas all areas of the planar diaphragm are propelled uniformly and at the same time.
The voice coils of cone and dome drivers are actually small inductors and therefore introduce some phase shift over their operational bandwidth. Planar drivers have virtually zero phase shift induced by their “engines” because they don’t involve cylindrical coils.
These two factors go a long way to account for a purity of sound from planar speakers that cone and dome loudspeakers simply can’t match. Dispersion patterns account for most of the rest.
There are different approaches to motivating planar diaphragms and these are mainly by electrostatic and magnetic means. We won’t discuss piezo electric films here. Electrostatic loudspeakers suspend the diaphragm between two charged plates and ribbon speakers use magnets to establish the field against which the audio signal running through the diaphragm reacts.
Planar speakers also have radically different dispersion patterns from round speakers. Most of the differences amount to advantages for the planar drivers as they are de facto linesources and reduce ceiling and floor slap echo.
Of the major manufactures, Martin Logan, Innersound, Quad, Audiostatic and Acoustat are electrostatic designs while Magnepan, Apogee, VMPS, Eminent Technology, BG Radia and Newform Research are Ribbons. Among these manufactures, despite their planar approach, there are vastly different methods of making and propagating sound.
Electrostatic and ribbon speakers have been the gold standard for audiophiles for the past several decades. Cost and practicality have kept planar speakers from dominating the home speaker market but we believe that Newforms unique Ribbon approach maintains the planar magic and reduces their obstacles to an unprecedented degree.
Our new Coaxial Ribbon LineSource designs come in at higher price levels than we have occupied before but they offer significant improvements in both fidelity and practicality over most loudspeakers, regardless of price- conventional or planar - in most listening rooms. They are just as electronics friendly as our other speakers and thus, for $15,000 total system cost, it is possible to attain ultra system performance.
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