Speaker Philosophy
We at ELTIM are technical audiophiles, so don't expect the known commercial bla, bla here. We simply try to build speakers with the highest possible audio experience at a reasonable price for over 40 years. You won't find "out of space" drive units, parts, nor cabinets like that in our port folio. We have idea's different from others and don't follow the same and easy principles ("rules") most others do. We check in an audible way what happens with our feeling. Tears, smile, goosepimps, tapping? Then it works. We are not measuring till we drop dead and neither have the smoothest frequency graph; makes no sense since every room and even the position in it changes this as most of you already experienced. Your ears are "designed" to detect the phase coherence (= orientation) of sounds, so unlike about everybody else we focus on a flat phase response of our speakers, the more since your ears are most sensitive to phase errors, not frequency errors.
About everbody else is using 12/12dB / Octave (or even higher) crossovers feeding the correct signals to the according drive units. This is done because the sound level of all built bands are easy to "match", resulting in a flat frequency response. Unfortunatelly due to this method there are several flaws to be noted:
- The impedance (load) graph mostly shows huge peaks at the crossing frequencie(s), meaning that the amplifier doesn't see a constant load and sounds differently in that area. Reason why so many speaker / amplifier combinations sound so different.
- Our ears are constructed to locate phase shifts (direction!) in order to warn us for danger, not listening to music. Due to the commonly used filter techniques mostly used today also the phase graph will show huge shifts around the crossover frequency(s), causing "listening fatigue" since your mind is "calculating" all the time.
- A speaker should sound in a more or less "balloon shape", but mostly doesn't, at least not at all frequencies. Due to this higher order filtering audio "lobes" occur at certain frequencies (as the way a flashlight lights up), noticeable if you walk around. Simply law of nature: the higher order crossed, the more intense this lobing occurs. The sound of most speakers change while walking around or listening off axis and the best position is "the hotspot", the only location the speaker is measured and tuned to/for.
We tried to find a way to solve these problems and believe we found the solution in hardly used serial crossovers, which was never a succes because they need to be calculated carefully, and since with every part value change also the character of the complete speaker changes. So it is very difficult to design it properly in the common (mostly trial and error) way. Also the drive units behaviour have to be taken into account. No speaker calculation program we know is doing so.
We made a calculation program ourselves where we enter all the drive units graphs and components behaviour and change components values till both the phase and the impedance graphs are about flat. We see this change in graphs while changing component values.
Another problem: the advantages of a serial crossover work best with just a 6/6dB crossover slope and most (95%?) drive units aren't able to cope with that and simply break down or start to sound dramatically at higher sound levels. We use AUDIO TECHNOLOGY and MOREL drive units, easy capable of doing the job perfectly, even at 150Wrms/bass unit. An extra advantage of this low order crossing is that due to the minimum amount of parts, the speaker produces rocksolid, easy listening sound and the price of the ready product is, due to less parts required, significantly lower. We made a single PCB where all filters fit and can use wire- or foilcoils.
With our setup the stereo "hotspot" is wide and you can walk around or sit about everywhere and enjoy the same sound character, even while not in the same room, similar as with a fullrange system. We surprise everybody with that phenomenon.
Most designers start to design a speaker looking nice in their mind and hope buyers feel the same. So, you see all kinds of shapes, sizes, etc. beeing a combination of the phantasy of the designer and the parameters of the drive units used. And the number of expected sales of course....
Ever heard of the mathematical number PHI (1,618, no not PI)? Most of our cabinets are designed while using this natural "golden ratio" number about everywhere. Due to this the cabinet could have some different dimensions as you are used to and the drivers could be located on different positions as with others. They are located in a PHI specific location as all panel sizes and even positions of strengthening ribs and reflex ports are.
We build your speaker completely in house from top to bottom, completely by hand, without CNC machines, etc. We use professional Topan MDF (free of Formaldehyde, etc.), having a neutral sound character, is easy to work with and is easy to paint as well, so higher quality at lower cost, the more since we do all in our own facilities. It is relatively soft at the inside, while the outer 2mm are very solid and smooth.
Due to the use of this material and the cabinet design we are even able to deliver your speakers "naked", meaning that the MDF is only treated with a glossy laquer, protecting it from moisture and dirt. There are no panel sides nor glued seams visible and we don't have to sand unflat surfaces.We have to be careful while processing angled panels, because we could cut ourself, that rasorsharp they are. A speaker finished like that looks as a massive MDF pillar. All our prices are based on this finish. But, we can finish (paint or spray) all of them any way you want in f.e. any RAL-colour in matt, smooth- or high gloss or even use veneer or other material, like a massive wooden frontpanel.
ELTIM E-621 frontpanels in production (in house).
Check out what 6moons.com reviewers Marja & Henk (RIP) found out about this "Solo" speaker
using only a MOREL SCM-634 driver. Their gen. and export manager had the same experience.
Send us a mail about your ideas.