Full-range Speaker - Atypical Designs

Atypical Designs

A German company, Manger, produces an unusual full-range driver in the form of a differentially flexing flat diaphragm driver, about eight inches in diameter. Manger claims performance, both maximum level and extended low frequency response, which is rather better than traditional full-range drivers.

Another unusual full-range driver design is the Walsh driver, popularized in Ohm hi-fi speaker systems, where they reproduced almost the entire audible range of frequencies. Early Walsh units were large and expensive. These drivers used a single cone made with paper at the base, reproducing low frequencies, aluminium in the middle area, and titanium at the neck zone, to produce high frequencies. Slits in the paper area of the cone, covered with silicone damping, together with internal foam pads provided mechanisms for tailoring the frequency response to be as flat as possible. Loudspeakers using the Walsh driver are still in production, though they have adopted a tweeter so no longer qualify as full-range drivers. A variation on the Walsh driver, from a German firm, is available in two forms (a titanium cone and a carbon fibre cone) and incorporated into commercial loudspeaker systems.

Large electrostatic loudspeakers may be considered as full-range speakers in the sense that they are capable of reproducing most of the audio frequency band.