Cast frame vs pressed steel woofers?

cast frames are just more solid, and having pressed steel means the frame is slightly fatigued

I dont know if thiers any sonic differences, or if the increased stability of cast is even that noticable

 

a pressed frame is cheaper to make.

I like to point out the obvious.

here are some quotes (I put the quotes on them) I found on the eminence speaker website:

"Eminence pressed steel baskets possess remarkable strength and are often stronger than the cast frames of other manufacturers. "

"Pressed steel loudspeakers have been the backbone of Eminence Speaker LLC for nearly 40 years. You could say we have had a lot of practice at making these! "

For cast speakers: "It has often been said that Eminence professional loudspeakers are not expensive enough. A genuine American-built cast-frame high performance transducer must surely cost considerably more — after all, most other premium speakers do. The fact is that nobody else in the world makes quantities like Eminence and nobody else can waste as little during the manufacturing process. If we made fewer and rejected more, we could match their prices… Eminence ‘Pro’ models have always been a remarkably good value. Following a series of detail revisions, they are now an even better value."

"We offer two basket materials - pressed steel and die cast aluminum. While pressed steel is adequate for most applications, die cast aluminum baskets are superior cosmetically, structurally, and magnetically. Aluminum does not conduct the magnetic field out of the gap thereby making the motor strength higher and the stray magnetic field lower."

my observation from the website: higher wattage speakers from eminence tend to be "cast" (over 500w) and pressed (up to 500w).

 

Cast aluminum frames are stiffer, which is beneficial with magnet weights of 60 ounces or more. They also can be machined to tighter tolerances than stamped frames, and they allow tighter magnetic flux patterns. They also act as heat sinks, which is especially important with neodymium magnets, which will lose their magnetic properties when overheated.

 

Speaking of neodymium, Eden claims to be working on a line of neodymium drivers, but they say that currently they only last two years before the drivers need to be replaced, presumably due to demagnetization. Companies like EA have been working with neodymium bass drivers for some time, and I have not heard of these problems with their drivers.

Any thoughts on this?

 

Re neo speakers-if you can wail until Feb 1/06, my Walkabout Scout turns two then. I'll post and let you know if the speaker still works. So far, there's no sign of it weakening and it sounds as good as when I bought it.

 

Steel is more resonant and is also magnetically permeable, so it adds an extra layer of complexity to the magnetics.

Steel and die-cast aluminium alloys are not the only ways to make a basket. Bose have been using injection moulded glass-reinforced plastic, and if you look at wilson benesch's (top end hifi) infrasonic generator, they have created a chassis out of carbon fiber which doubles as the speaker enclosure.

 

How do people decide to bring a topic back to the top after 8 years ?

 

Search function.

 

It's the weird weather patterns we are experiencing. It's disturbing the Zombies in their resting places!