These new driver units arrived at my door step! 🙂
It’s the new mid-woofer from SB Acoustics more exclusive series “Satori”. Satori in Japanese is a Zen Buddhist term for enlightenment. The word literally means “awakening”, “comprehension” and understanding”. The Satori drivers are designed for subtlety and realism.
My driver samples are the MW16P-4, which is the 4ohm version of the mid-woofer. The MW16P-8, 8ohm specification can be found here: MW16P-8. The driver has a very nice looks and build quality. The small but yet powerful neodymium magnet together with the shape of the chassis contributes to an optimal airflow behavior.
To sum-up the Satori mid-woofer features:
- Vented aerodynamic cast aluminum chassis for optimum strength and low compression
- Proprietary cone material with EGYPTIAN PAPYRUSTM fibres made in-house
- Soft low damping rubber surround for optimum transient response
- Advanced BIMAX spider for improved linearity
- Powerful optimized low distortion neodymium motor system
- Non-conducting fibre glass voice coil former for minimum damping
- Extended copper sleeve on pole piece for low inductance and reduced distortion
- CCAW voice coil for reduced moving mass
- Long life silver lead wires attached 180° apart for improved stability
- Vented pole piece for reduced compression
- High piston to chassis diameter ratio
- Gasket and bolt hole protrusions for reduced coupling to speaker cabinet
Preliminary T/S parameters measurements:
With >90dB @ 2.83v/1m, the 4ohm version is a fairly efficient mid-woofer. It’s most likely to achieve a system sensitivity of about 86-87dB @ 2.83v/1m, when the right amount of “baffle Step Compensation” is applied. Nice consistency between the two driver unit samples. About 25% higher Mms compared to the official spec sheet for the 8ohm version.
Preliminary Impedance measurements:
(click on picture to zoom)
Left: Free-air impedance sample 1 vs. sample 2.
Right: Close-up of free-air impedance sample 1 vs. sample 2.
A very sharp and narrow impedance peak at the resonance frequency of the driver unit, which indicates a mid-woofer with low mechanical losses. The edge resonance occurs somewhere between 1-1.2kHz and will most likely give a hole in the frequency response and some elevated 2nd order harmonics at the same frequencies. From the impedance measurements, cone break-ups are visible at about 4kHz and 6kHz. How severe these break-ups are to be determined in the frequency and distortion measurements.
This mid-woofer should be able to be used up to about 3kHz, but some frequency and distortion measurements analysis remains to be certain.
Preliminary Box Simulation:
This is a versatile mid-woofer that would work in an enclosure anything between 18-22 liters. A text book QB3 alignment gives an 18 liter enclosure, but even a 14 liter would work with some elevated mid-bass response. With its +/- 6mm linear x-max, this mid-woofer has the potential to produce some serious bass considering its size.
The question is what kind of tweeter to combine the Satori mid-woofer with? 🙂