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Magnets! Neodymium vs AlNiCo vs Ceramic-Ferrite

What is your favorite tone magnet?

  • AlNiCo

    Votes: 40 26.0%

  • Ceramic-Ferrite

    Votes: 18 11.7%

  • Neodymium

    Votes: 53 34.4%

  • Beets

    Votes: 43 27.9%
  • Total voters
    154
  • Poll closed .
#61
Favorite tone for what? Guitar? Bass? Saving my back?

Guitar: Alnico or ceramic. Really like the ceramic Jensens.
Bass in my dreams where I'm 24, have roadies and am playing arenas: Ceramic
Bass in the real club world where I'm 50 years old: Neo all the way.

Gotta say my new (new to me, anyway) SWR GoLight 15s have been a real pleasant surprise. I haven't liked most neo speakers. These are great. Never thought I'd be back playing 15s but these have tone for days.
 
#62
Here are my view of the facts in this case: you can make a speaker perform identically using either neodymium or ferrite magnets. When I worked at EV back in the 80s, we developed drivers in sizes from 10 - 18 inches that delivered the same performance with neo and alnico (EV was the first company to use neodymium magnets in speakers and microphones). Neodymium is approximately 4 times more magnetically powerful per lb than ferrite or alnico, hence speakers can be made lower in weight. That's its only advantage - lighter weight.

The price of neodymium was very volatile 5 - 10 years ago because China created for themselves a virtual monopoly. China simply made it economically unfeasible for other sources in the world to continue production - and then raised the price considerably. Although prices for the basic material have evened out, its still very pricey compared to ferrite.
 
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#63
There is another advantage to Neo motors in speakers. Because of the placement of the magnetic material inside the gap rather in a ring around the gap, the inductance (static and dynamic) is typically lower which can be used as an advantage when it comes to options for midrange voicing. This is something (many)designers have wanted for years.
 
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#64
agedhorse said:
There is another advantage to Neo motors in speakers. Because of the placement of the magnetic material inside the gap rather in a ring around the gap, the inductance (static and dynamic) is typically lower which can be used as an advantage when it comes to options for midrange voicing. This is something (many)designers have wanted for years.
Click to expand...

Thank you VERY MUCH for explaining that. I'd noticed a difference in inductance between what seemed to be otherwise identical drivers and didn't understand why. So when I included the qualifier "assuming identical voice coil/gap geometry" in post #51, that was actually a bluff... I was guessing that geometry was somehow responsible for the lower inductance of neo motors but didn't know how or why.
 
#65
There are also ways to decrease the inductance of ceramic speakers, but like everything, there are tradeoffs that limit practicality.

For those who have tried the GB Focus and Countour series speakers, these used a new driver developed at the beginning of the Neo supply disaster. While I had done some previous R&D with lighter weight ceramic design alproaches, all of these came with a cost penalty that doomed the project... UNTIL the cost of Neo made these approached downright attractive. Instead of the ceramic driver being 4x as heavy as Neo, I was successful getting them to a little less than 2x the weight with very little loss of performance. This involved using a different grade of ceramic, different alloy of steel for the magnetic circuit, and a different pole piece geonetry. Sometimes, a more expensive compromise can become a bargain in the bigger picture.

Designing a driver is easy, it's designing a really good driver that's difficult. ;)
 
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#66
I have three cabinets that are fav for bass guitar right now. One is a Berg NV115, the others are a Mesa Subway 115 and a Ampeg SVT 210av. Whatever magnets are used in those cabinets are my favorite. I'm sure they are all different.:-) I bet if I switched the Mesa neo driver over to the Berg cab and vice versa I would of wasted a lot of time and ruined some great designs.
 
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#69
Let me repeat that the differencea are most likely design choices but, I have a basement full of cabs which have all been fogged and I can both hear and feel the difference in drivers. Even among the best neos, there are still certain differences. I hear a certain sweetness in the mids and top from ceramics while neos are more hard and clear. A good neo can put out a pile of clean low end but, a good ceramic always has that sandbag to the chest low end where as neos seem a bit hollow, even though they may model the same. It is probably caused by distortions in the ceramic. Either way, this subject to me is like sealed vs ported. You can design one to behave like the other but, they will never be the same.
 
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#70
There is no difference to sound created by different magnet materials. You need to audition a compleat loudspeaker in its matching cabinet.
Experience is what creates great sounding speakers. The JBL d/k140 is the result of many years of slight design modifications to an alnico magnet structure.
This is much like the development of a motorcycle like the old BMW boxer twin, there have been a few small changes to improve the breed since the spec of the ones Adolf Hitler ordered in the late thirties.:-)
 
#72
I'd like to see neo drivers that are designed to sound like a few well loved ceramics then. The companies could even use that as a marketing tool. I will say that I have used a few stock versions of ampeg 810 drivers directly next to a neo clone made for fliptops and there was a difference. The parameters were very similar. The neo sounded like a "snap shot" of the ceramic. Same frequency response but, it felt different and presented frequencies in a different way. So there you go, somebody make me a that sound like familiar ceramics. It looks like bergantino is trying to do it with the hdn line but, I think it is strictly a frequency response thing.
 
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#73
:rolleyes:
S-Bigbottom said:
The pager system in my building has ceramic speakers and they have no bass and are very tiny compared to the neodymium in my bass cab.
Alnico in my pickups make my bass sound really good though, so I am going to say, all the above.
Now give me a carrot.
Click to expand...

I wonder if that big capacitor in series with the pager speaker has any affect on the low end:rolleyes:
 
#74
Linnin said:
Precisely so. Leave objectivity behind. We are not scientists. We are artists.
Click to expand...

You want a comparison, then you have to have to be objective. Otherwise you have sputtered forth nothing of meaning.

Linnin said:
Not at all. Musicians are artists. Artists don't care about science or objectivity.
Click to expand...

Im calling BS on this. Maybe you don't, but if that is the case I reject your opinion of both musicians and artists.

Lo-E said:
Magnet materials don't have any intrinsic sound of their own. They're simply materials used in making magnets, which engineers then design speakers around.

Those materials have different magnetic and physical properties which may or may not make it easier for the speaker designer to reach his or her design goals, but every design is a series of choices and compromises and and it's the culmination of those that leads to a particular driver's tone.

Faital, Eminence and Celestion all use neodymium magnets to make 12" bass drivers, but they sound nothing alike, nor do they share the same operating characteristics. If I say "I prefer neo", which neo driver would I be referring to? There are too many other aspects of driver design to consider. The magnet material can't be considered on it's own and out of context.

I do like beets, however. Beets of all types and in any context. I am completely on board with beets.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

AlexanderB said:
I actually would like to object here. Mid 40s (-3 dB) unassisted can hardly be described as "deep bass" nowadays, not even for a bass cab. ACMEs do deep bass. JBL PRX718XLF does deep bass. Danley CS 30 does deep bass. Anything vented (that I have seen) with an Eminence 3015LF will do "middle of the road" bass extension, but go fairly low. Eminence simply does not focus on doing infra bass ready drivers.
Click to expand...

Compared to 99.99% of bass gear used currently, anything that goes below the mid 50hz range is pretty deep. Doing it at volume, even more so.
 
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#80
madjazzbass said:
In all seriousness, I've read on other threads, that although the cabs using neodymium magnets/cones are lighter in weight making them much easier to haul around, they can't get as deep as a cab with cones loaded with ceramic magnets ... in a side by side (A/B) comparison. ... Any truth in that? ... in other words, the neo cabs are "lacking" in the low end when compared to the ceramics.
Click to expand...

As someone who uses neo loaded cabs and neo loaded basses and also generally has to use a high pass filter set to ~30hz, this is a completely false assumption. I believe that the early development of neo speakers (with an emphasis on mid and high frequency extension) combined with the fact that many manufacturers were retrofitting them in boxes that were designed for traditional magnet speakers bred a false assumption that Neo speakers didn't 'go low'.
 
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