Fluxtone Speakers

[Masco]

http://www.fluxtonespeakers.com/
Another cranked tone at lower SPLs product.
Anyone out there know how these tick? They're REAL expensive and come w/ a box of active electronics. Their site doesn't exactly tell you how they work, just what they do.

[stephenl]

It's a field coil speaker with a variable voltage supply to control field strength. He uses OEM parts for the basket/cone/spider.

I have the Celestion Gold version. I bought it about 5 years ago for about 1/2 the price he has listed now.

It's a good sounding speaker. The attenuation works well down to about half way. Below that starts to sound fizzy.

I use it in conjunction with a PowerScaled amp to get to home practice levels.

By itself it can be used to scale your output to the size of the venue your playing at.

[stephenl]

Personally, I think that PowerScaling/VVR is the best route to go. It also gives the added benefit of reducing wear on the powersection when running less than full power.

[Structo]

Not sure about that, seems like people have a lot of trouble getting VVR to work good in amps here.

Don't know much about London amps circuit

[vibratoking]

That's interesting, cause VVR always works for me?

The Fluxtone speakers are way to expensive for me. This has come up before. Do a search for Fluxtone and you'll find quite a bit of discussion.

[stephenl]

Hi Tom,
I've used the PowerScale circuit in three different amps successfully - two fixed bias and one cathode bias.

It's important to have a good "master volume" in front of the PI to control drive to the power amp. A bootstrapped MV works well with the long tailed pair.

[Diablo1]

It's a field coil speaker with a variable voltage supply to control field strength. He uses OEM parts for the basket/cone/spider.

I have the Celestion Gold version. I bought it about 5 years ago for about 1/2 the price he has listed now.

It's a good sounding speaker. The attenuation works well down to about half way. Below that starts to sound fizzy.

I use it in conjunction with a PowerScaled amp to get to home practice levels.

By itself it can be used to scale your output to the size of the venue your playing at.

With the Fluxtone, when you turn down the field coil voltage, does it start to add distortion especially to the low notes?

[guitarmike2107]

I have used the VVR successfully on a rocket type build, but there is nothing like a loud amp flapping your trouser legs to make you smile

[Masco]

Yup, I've power scaled/VVR'ed dozens of amps w/ success. I find them to work really well in the range I usually scale, which is above the halfway mark. Appears the fluxtone exhibits the same results.
Doesn't seem like the components involved would justify the cost. Would like to know what it is that makes them so expensive.?

[Teleguy61]

The snake oil.

[pdf64]

There's no snake oil discernible to me?
If it's important to hear to true sound of a cranked amp but at a controllable sound pressure level, then it seems to be the best option.
It's unfortunate the price has risen so much in the past few years.
However, my Model 10 is best sounding and most useful speaker I own.

[BLT]

This falls into the realm of justification for Mercury Magnetics pricing.

[Diablo1]

There's no snake oil discernible to me?
If it's important to hear to true sound of a cranked amp but at a controllable sound pressure level, then it seems to be the best option.
It's unfortunate the price has risen so much in the past few years.
However, my Model 10 is best sounding and most useful speaker I own.

Hello pdf64. Can you tell me how your Model 10 speaker behaves at very low field coil voltage? Does the speaker sound like it loses control of the voice coil, i.e. do the low notes start to buzz? Do you get increased compression at low field coil voltage? The reason I'm asking is that I have three vintage field coil speakers, two Jensens and a Rola. All of them behave the same way as the field coil voltage is reduced. In order to cut the speaker volume way down, I get a large increase in compression and low note distortion. I'm just trying to figure out if this is characteristic of all field coil speakers including Fluxtone, or is it something characteristic of the way I reconed the speakers. Any input is appreciated.

[Diablo1]

This falls into the realm of justification for Mercury Magnetics pricing.

Fluxtone has high cost to build the speakers. They are machining the iron flux path, and also winding a large electromagnet. Then they are buying OEM speaker cone parts with some arrangement from the original speaker manufacturers, and also building a low voltage DC power supply to power the field coil. They are using low voltage DC for safety reasons to avoid electrocuting their customers. The vintage field coil speakers used much higher DC voltage supply which could be an electrocution hazard if someone got careless or stupid.

[pdf64]

No question that FluxTone are horribly expensive.
However, whereas MM seem to require overly hyped marketing to distinguish their offering from the competition, FluxTone have no direct competition.
This may be partly due to their patent covering the application of the technology, and also to it (currently) being a niche market.

I was hoping that the Brad Paisley endorsement would lead to FluxTone expanding and economies of scale bring the prices down.

I don't perceive that the tone of my FluxTone changes as the field coil voltage is lowered; it's not fizzy at low settings.

With the Fluxtone, when you turn down the field coil voltage, does it start to add distortion especially to the low notes?

I don't perceive that such an effect is occurring; no noticeable change in compression etc over the field coil control range.
The Q and magnitude of the speaker's bass resonance does seem to change according to the field coil voltage, such that with the field coil voltage at zero, the bass resonance magnitude is smaller than at full field coil voltage.
I was surprised when I discovered that effect, as I couldn't hear any difference!

I have three vintage field coil speakers, two Jensens and a Rola. All of them behave the same way as the field coil voltage is reduced. In order to cut the speaker volume way down, I get a large increase in compression and low note distortion

Does the B+ for the field coil have it's own PSU?
I'm thinking that there may be some interaction between your amp's B+ and that for the field coil, with the amp B+ sagging at low field coil settings.