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In Reply to: RE: Tympani 1d ad posted by josh358 on August 03, 2012 at 18:04:08
An 20.7 with an extra bass driver should not double the price of the 20.7. They can just build a 20.7 without the mid and tweeter section. Tooling and CNC-programming should not be necessary as I see it. I do not believe they would make a large number of speakers in this price categori... How many Tympanis were made? How many 20.1?
Roger Gustavsson
Follow Ups:
I assume a Tympani would be three panels, but of course that isn't certain, they could do something like you suggest, e.g., a double 20.7.
In any case, even a three panel Tympani probably wouldn't cost twice as much as a 20.7. But it would be more expensive.
According to Wendell, the smaller the speaker, the more they sell. I doubt very much they'd do this without tooling, doing everything by hand would drive the price into the stratosphere. They do have equipment in the repair department that can be used to repair models that are no longer in production but it isn't part of the regular factory workflow, where speakers are made in batches of a model at specialized stations.
Well Josh, you have been to the factory. Pictures of it show some jigs, a streching table for the Mylar, how they sort the plastic bonded magnets, the CNC milling machine etc. The production seems to rely on charing as many parts as possible. The magnets, the perforated sheet metal, the particle board etc. There seems to be a lot of manual work involved, like glueing the wire to the Mylar. The push-pull drivers need special jigs, the hinged ones. Most of these manufactoring steps can be replicated at home. What is difficult, it is to get the know-how that come by trial and error. Just look at the 3.7 and how it is different from the earlier designs. The tension/clamping of the diaphragm must have taken some time to optimise!Tympanis before the IV, had some panels requireing more work than later ones. Sure, nowdays, they buy the perforated sheet metal customised. The first years they used standard sheet metal. The drivers of I-C, IIIA, I-D and IIIB are very similar. 12x60" (bass) or 8x48" (tweeters) sheet metal, spacers of 1/8" particle board, magnets has the same dimensions etc.
Roger Gustavsson
Edits: 08/04/12
Yep. Their assembly line is optimized for small scale batch manufacturing, e.g., they can swap out a jig at a station and work on 3.7's while the other station is working on 1.7's. It's a very professional factory operation and over the years they've learned many tricks to improve efficiency and economy. The skill of the factory staff is impressive as well -- they work with impressive speed and have a great knowledge of what to check, pitfalls, etc.
There's lots of black art in the design and manufacturing. Every time I talk to Wendell I learn something else that I didn't know about why they do what they do.
I can't imagine where they find the time to do the R&D. But I know they've done an immense amount of it over the years, because whenever I suggest an idea or one of us mentions something here Wendell says "Oh, yeah, Jim Winey tried that a few decades ago." They're inveterate tinkerers and have tried lots of stuff that we don't always see, e.g., Wendell said a little while back that Jim has been experimenting with Maggie headphones for years.
They definitely standardize as much as possible. Mark Winey said that one of the requirements for the .7's was that they have the same form factor as the earlier models. That way, they could use many of the same jigs, as well as boxes, magnets, MDF, perforated metal, etc.
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