Frequently Asked Questions

 There are several considerations we attempted to address in bringing these to market.  First was to provide a single point source speaker.  This is a speaker that produces all its sound from a single speaker to minimize arrival time differences and phase related issues when a crossover is used.  Several advantages are immediately apparent.  First, cost is reduced as there is no separate woofer or tweeter.  There is also no crossover and the cabinet can be made smaller.  The second advantage is a reduction in cost due to smaller size and fewer components.

Another major consideration in the development of this speaker was to present a speaker that had very high resolution, dynamics and wide response covering almost 10 octaves.  This allows a full bodied presentation that is free from crossover distortion and the midrange peaks that are so common in full range speakers.  For future applications this speaker will work well with the new ambisonic hemispheric surround that will quite possibly be a successor to Dolby Atmos.  Multi way speakers with crossovers have difficulty reproducing the phase related soundfield due to arrival time differences using multiple drivers.

 The first is the format of the speaker.  In this case specifics will be discussed in relation to both the magnet and field coil version.  Man on the Moon speakers come in 2 types but have similar specifications and use many interchangeable parts including the cabinets.  Both are 8 inch full range in what is called a single point source speaker.  This is where the full frequency band is generated from a single point source location that is the result of using only one speaker.  The advantages of this are huge.  Arrival time of all the frequencies to the listener is coherent and the same regardless of listening position.  For the most part phase relation differences are coherent limited to only small differences inherent in the electronics over the full audio bandwidth.  This allows for a stereo image that can recreate for the listener a better perspective of location of instruments in the mix as well as the acoustics of the room that was used in the recording.  Most speakers gain power handling and a wider frequency range by breaking up the audio spectrum using a woofer and tweeter and in more expensive systems adding a midrange and extra or multiple drivers.  By doing this the dispersion pattern can be better controlled and matched to the listening room.  It allows in many cases a larger sound image and higher listening levels are possible.  But there are some large tradeoffs in doing this.  First is increased cost vs performance due to larger cabinets and greater complexity using more drivers and a crossover.  

The second consideration is the loss of detail in the stereo image due to comb filtering, different arrival times and phase shifting in the crossovers.  High end speakers use extensive engineering in the design of the crossover and location of the drivers to each other to minimize these defects and to a certain extent they can disappear if the listener is in a large room and sufficiently back from the speaker in question.  Unfortunately, most listening rooms will not allow this luxury and if these multiway speakers can be directly compared to a good single point source speaker at close range the multi way speaker deficiencies listed above become apparent.  Another difficulty encountered in multiway systems is the difference in transient response between the drivers.  For example, most multiway systems use a woofer with relatively high mass to achieve lower bass in a small cabinet.  The voice coil is generally 2 inches or larger and a large foam or butyl half roll surround is used.  When compared to a small dome tweeter the transients do not match as the tweeter is generally capable of very rapid response to a transient due to its inherent low mass.  While the untrained ear may not pick this up at first,  a musician with a good ear will notice something is not quite right and does not match what they experience playing live music.  Man on the Moon speakers have a consistent dynamic bandwidth over the full frequency range due to very low mass of the cones and small size of the voice coil, so do not exhibit this problem.  While not having quite the dispersion control of a multiway speaker, the full range speaker is fairly uniform over its full bandwidth with a 90 degree dispersion that narrows with the decreasing wavelength of the higher frequencies similar to the multiway speaker.  Careful placement of the point source Man on the Moon speakers relative to each other and surrounding walls will mitigate most of the placement problems.

The second consideration that makes our Man on the Moon speakers unique is their size and cost relative to the quality of the sound they produce.  The discussion above focuses on the more technical aspects.  Here the advantages of size and weight are taken into consideration.  Many listeners at the show commented on how the speakers sounded much larger and clearer than others that were of similar size.  In a large system horns can be used which greatly increase the dynamics that are possible.  The primary consideration in the design of Man on the Moon speakers was the size to make them usable to a larger audience that includes audiophiles with small listening rooms and studio and dubbing room applications.  It was also desired to try and achieve a wider frequency bandwidth and transient dynamics than had been achieved with a single small full range speaker to date.  Many innovative solutions have been applied to achieve this.  Initially it was thought to only be possible using field coils instead of magnets.  There are distinct advantages to using a field coil and they will be covered in the field coil tutorial.  But the high cost involved with the manufacture of these speakers was felt to limit the total market that is available.  So, for the last year our primary focus has been to try and achieve as much of the potential of the field coil as possible and present it in a more modestly priced format to broaden its penetration in the market.  The result is an affordable version that achieves perhaps 80% of the outstanding sound characteristics of the field coil.  Weight and complexity are reduced as the magnet version is much lighter in weight and does not need a separate power supply.  Both versions use the same cabinet so upgrade to the field coil version can be easily achieved any time in the future if an upgrade is desired.  Both the field coil and magnet version exhibit the same sensitivity and frequency response and share similar TS parameters.  A high quality 2 channel audio system using field coils can be mixed with the 3 surround speakers using the less expensive magnet version for a compatible 5.1 home theater application which will reduce cost yet provide the maximum sonic detail for critical applications.  The cabinets are small and light enough to work on typical table top applications and can be used on modest stands if out in the room application is needed.  They have a non fussy style decor to fit into most applications and not call attention to themselves.  Multiple wood finishes are available and use of a subwoofer is recommended if bass response below 40hz is desired.

See the specification section for full details of size and performance parameters.

The full range cabinet is the same size and weight for both the magnet and field coil version.  It is 16 inches high by 12 inches wide and 15 inches deep.  The weight for the magnet version is around 25 pounds and 50 pounds for the field coil version.  Best results are obtained by using the supplied stands which are 31 inches tall.  They can be filled with sand to make them more stable and transmit less vibration to a wood floor.  The new subwoofer is available also with either magnet or field coil.  It is 16 inches tall with spike risers, 17 inches deep and 14 inches wide.  Its weight is approx 35 pounds in either field coil or magnet version. 

 The 8 inch speaker covers a range of almost 10 octaves from 40 to 20k using a single speaker with no sub or tweeter.  It uses a special cabinet of multiple woods and incorporates a drone cone that works in phase to extend the lows more than an octave to 40 hz.  Experience has found that a full range speaker needs to extend to below 50 hz to properly couple to a subwoofer and minimize phase cancellation and not introduce muddiness to the lower midrange of the full range speaker.  The high frequency extension is the result of a careful balance and tuning of a small whizzer cone to the full range cone.  It is mounted directly above the attach point of the main cone to the shared voicecoil so both work as a single unit. 

We do not live in a perfect world and the finest speaker systems have to work with compromises in their effort to get the best sound.  Much of what we hear is subjective and is influenced by the surrounding aesthetics and acoustics of the listening room.  A multiway speaker gains advantage from breaking up the frequency spectrum into smaller bandwidths and feeding to speakers best designed to reproduce that sound range.  The result is greater dynamics and potential loudness capability for a given room size.  Unfortunately there are several major tradeoffs.  The first is the difficulty in getting all the driver elements in phase and time align so the arrival time is the same at the listening position.  Also greater complexity is required to split the signal to the individual speakers using a crossover.  This can be an active electronic version that splits the signal ahead of multiple amplifiers or a more conventional passive crossover that is introduced in the speaker cabinet post amplifier output.  A crossover introduces phase issues that need to be addressed and minimized.  The rolloff slope of the crossover also effects the sound relationships to the room acoustics and can make a multiway speaker more sensitive to room acoustic problems.

Man on the Moon speakers were developed after working on many different approaches in both the pro and consumer audio world.  Many years of doing speaker setup and repair in major recording studios introduced the designer to the problems the recording engineer must contend with to produce a quality musical sounding mix.  Most mix down rooms gravitated to what we call a point source speaker.  That was generally a coaxial design that generated the audio signal from a single point in space to minimize arrival time difference.  Generally a small high frequency driver/horn was mounted concentrically in a large 15 inch woofer.  This gave the engineer a perspective of all frequencies coming from the same location.  However,  it still needed compensation for the high frequency to arrive at the engineer's ear by using a delay with the low frequency to delay it slightly to line up with the high frequency unit mounted slightly behind.  The tradeoff was some minor comb filtering and phase smearing in the octave above and below the crossover point.  Adequate to good but not perfect.

Because of the above problems a hybrid solution was sought to overcome deficiencies in coaxial speakers and multiway home audio speakers.  There have been many attempts to build a full range speaker and over the last 90 years many musical 8 inch full range speakers have come on the market.  They are adequate for nominal listening levels playing LP records but all lack the attack and detail possible with large systems.  The development of Man on the Moon speakers was an attempt to overcome this problem by using special application techniques that had been overlooked by the other designers.  Primary requirements were very high definition approaching a small horn system with ultra smooth flat response over at least 9 octaves.  A very tough assignment indeed!

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