New (Active) kid on the block

[Andrewjvt]

Good question Andrew - quite simply we don't have cooling fins because the amps don't need them! They're an efficient design and in all our stress testing we've never had one overheat or shut down. The steel rear panel and natural airflow through the ported cabinet is sufficient to keep them cool enough. The rear panel naturally gets quite warm in use but even after hours at high volume never gets too hot to touch, at worst you'd potentially get some self-limiting thermal compression rather than anything damaging but I've certainly never heard any. We had them running very loud for the duration of the Bristol Show and on the few occasions I turned the Bluesound Node up fully (speaker volumes set at around 90%) there were no signs of stress.

The only other pics I currently have are of the initial batch being built in the office (and the back of my head!), aside from that a few computer renders I've done for banners and brochures:

Im very keen to hear them so as soon as David has a pair set up, i'll be over at the little audio company. Good excuse to visit anyway.
I hope David offers his customers coffee?

 

[Frank Harvey]

Im very keen to hear them so as soon as David has a pair set up, i'll be over at the little audio company. Good excuse to visit anyway. I hope David offers his customers coffee?

Coffee, tea, hot chocolate, water (still or sparkling), or "other" by prior arrangement

 

[Andrewjvt]

Im very keen to hear them so as soon as David has a pair set up, i'll be over at the little audio company. Good excuse to visit anyway. I hope David offers his customers coffee?

Coffee, tea, hot chocolate, water (still or sparkling), or "other" by prior arrangement

Anything really as long as its not indian take away.

 

[luckylion100]

I can't say what I'm thinking, but my mind has warped. ;-) I'd like a little more meat on the bones of that particular answer Andrewjvt.

 

[tonky]

I still think it's a hifi website Luckylion (as strange as it may seem!)

tonky

 

[manicm]

These with a Bluesound Node 2 look like a match made in heaven, alas I'm looking at Cambridge Audio Yoyo M to put on a TV table!

 

[shadders]

Hi,

The speakers do look good. I am not able to see any pictures of the rear panel, but I assume 50watts is the limit without additional heatsinking, given the panel size. Small drivers seem to have a good impedance curve - bass/mid being 5ohms minimum. Would this be approximate for the AE1's?

Regards,

Shadders.

Hi Shadders, that's about right! There's a pic of the rear panel earlier in the thread but you've pretty much nailed it there. The 150w version of the amp we have does have additional heatsinking as it needs it.

Hi Jim,

I have a few questions - you may be able to answer them if it does not give away design principles :

I have been examining active crossovers, and I have some questions on the basic build of the AE active speakers.

Does AE use a capacitor on the output of the tweeter amplifier, and if so, is it a non polarised electrolytic or polypropylene ?

Does the bass-midrange/tweeter amplifier have any DC offset control, or is this omitted due to the output capacitor (for the tweeter) ?, and hence has manual offset control by a potentiometer ?

Is there hard limiting in the input of the speakers – such as using back to back zener diodes, to ensure that the speaker can only be driven to the amplifiers and speaker drivers maximum output ?.

I understand that not all questions may not be able to be answered.

Thanks and regards,

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Shadders.