Design Ideologies
Many have said the Thesis range of speakers sound head and shoulders above the competition. This search for the best acoustic result started by overcoming the intrinsic limits of traditional loudspeakers. Through a finite element simulation software (FEM) conceived by the Audison engineering team a mathematical model was developed to create the ideal transducer. With the Thesis speakers the team reached a significant revolution; producing a speaker system that can reveal every minute detail and nuance from your high-end amplifier.
Design Features
When listening to the beautiful tones of the Thesis speakers you can tell immediate there is some unique and groundbreaking about them. Their clarity, their cleanliness, their superb response. Just everything about them is brilliant. Without further ado let’s have a look at what goes into them shall we?
Handling The Highs – The Thesis Violino Tweeter
The TH 1.5 II Violino project can be defined with only one word: unique. The materials, tolerances and assembly process were designed from scratch and without any compromise, to overcome the absolute. Extensive research has been dedicated to the selection of proper fibre size, textile weaving and profile geometry of the natural silk dome to obtain an extremely linear phase and frequency response up to 26 kHz; an exceptional goal for a 29 mm dome.
High Frequency Engine Room – The Motor
The top plate and T-Yoke are made of low-carbon content steel CNC machined from solid. A magnet tailored to the Audison TH 1.5 II has also played a key role on its compactness, allowing cables in pure OFC 16 AWG section copper to cross the whole magnetic / acoustic structure from the point of electrical contact with the coil terminals to the exit on the bottom case. In this way the cables are integrated without increasing the footprint.
Only a 34 mm coil would allow the TH 1.5 II to express its best in the most complex musical passages thanks to the low dynamic compression. A single layer copper clad aluminium wire is wound on an aluminium former, a material selected for optimal damping. The choice of the single layer and a higher than average electrical resistance of the car audio tweeters at 6.1 ohms derives from the need to combine a low thermal resistance to a relatively low weight winding considering the size of the voice coil.
The magnetic circuit was sized with a flux saturation which can guarantee a low residual inductance at high frequencies, thus not requiring a magnetic short-circuit solution such as copper rings. As these reduce the flux into the magnetic gap.
High Speed membrane – The Dome
Even more than in a cone speaker the tweeter membrane is directly responsible for its sonic characteristics. Even before designing and testing the profile the designers have selected the suitable varieties of silk membrane cataloguing them by the weaving material, density and damping treatments to characterize them with the use of the Klippel Scanning Vibrometer. Only after a thorough physical analysis of the various materials available and the creation of a refined model of vibro-acoustic simulation was it possible to offer a set of eleven different dome profiles. These profiles matrix-combined with the material variants in the finite elements simulation software generated 33 different combinations for as many frequency and phase responses. Three of these lived to see the light and have then been tested and subjected to extensive listening assessments, they’ve since been combined to form the current structure used in the TH 1.5 II so successful.
Rock Solid Foundation – The Body
The solidity of TH 1.5 II is also well noticeable in its mechanical all-metal structure, for a considerable weight of 370 g. Each part was designed exclusively for the TH 1.5 II including the screws. The faceplate, also made of die-cast aluminium; s a perfect example of harmony between elegance and technique. The Audison logo is cut into a solid piece of material that’s been finished using a CNC high precision machine. While the radial profile of the faceplate is engineered for minimum acoustic impact ensuring optimal frequency dispersion Unparalleled low-frequency roll-off has been achieved by a sophisticated air-loading system. A high precision aluminium die-cast bottom case offers an electro-acoustic load to lower the system total compliance for a resonance frequency below 800Hz.
Twelve radial vents around the T-yoke centre hole guarantee uniform pressure between the gap chamber and the bottom case. A high-density porous absorber under the dome combined with a disc of compressed felt minimises the resonances caused by internal geometries for a smooth frequency response over the whole range. All these measures result in an incredibly natural low-midrange reproduction and allow for crossover point with woofer starting as low as 1500 Hz. All efforts in the design would have been vain if the industrialization of assembly processes had not been obsessive. The dome and coil combination encompasses the real heart of the TH 1.5 II, for this reason its assembly is totally independent from the rest of the production. In a high automation department, using a high-density support reinforced with glass fibres. Allowing a 34mm diameter coil to extend at high frequency up to 26 kHz would have been unthinkable unless supported by an exhausting phase of tuning of the dome / former junction coupling, both in terms of choice of glue and geometry. A special high technology glue is applied using 3D robotic systems to ensure high repeatability of glue quantity and perimeter of application.
The TH 1.5 II tweeter has been developed with the aim of achieving the highest performance possible, as well as flexibility of in-car integration. This is why the engineering team offered two types of electro-acoustic loads; bottom case or bottom disk. By using the bottom case the low frequency response of the tweeter further extends so that the crossover point with the woofer can be lowered, for the benefit of the acoustic stage and image. When space is limited the bottom case can be removed and space saved using the bottom disk, with this still maintaining a high-performance level.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.