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Foil vs Wire: What difference does it make?

Posted by Joe Schmo (A) on December 26, 2022 at 09:49:01

I have a pair of Magnepan 1.6qr and 1.7i speakers. The .7 iteration of the Magnepan lineup was of course when the transition from the use of round wire conductors to flat foil conductors was made in the bass/mid frequency portion of the driver. This got me thinking about the differences between the two different conductor characteristics recently and why this change was made.

I seem to remember reading something along the concept that the foil (quasi-ribbon) conductor had a lower mass, making it closer to the ideal material for exciting the Mylar membrane truer to the actual audio signal. In other words, it sounded better.

I also think there was some discussion about the physical traits of the two materials and that the foil had much better adhesion to the Mylar. This made the drivers way less prone to delamination issues, something the wire drivers were notorious for having.

What ever the reason, this brings me to my question. Given the same input signal to the drivers, one with wire and one with foil conductors, how does the change in conductor material change the response characteristics of the driver? Has anyone actually measured the raw drivers and their differences without the effects of the crossover circuit?



-Joe

They're not that big!

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