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Post subject: Neo vs AlNiCo vs Ceramic
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 7:03 am
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Are magnets just magnets? Are there tonal differences from one to the other?

:arrow: :?: :? :?:

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Post subject: Re: Neo vs AlNiCo vs Ceramic
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 3:03 pm
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Perhaps this might help you.

http://www.webervst.com/sptalk.html

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Post subject: Re: Neo vs AlNiCo vs Ceramic
Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2013 6:56 am
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From Eminence FAQ's:

What differences will I hear between ceramic, alnico, and neodymium magnets?

Each material, of course, has different magnetic properties and cost. Neodymium seems to be the wave of the future, especially with reduced weight and overall costs coming down. It produces the most magnetic flux per ounce, making it ideal for use in multiple speaker cabinets to maintain performance while reducing handling and shipping weight. Alnico is a composite of aluminum, nickel, and cobalt. It is the most rare and most expensive. Alnico is commonly thought to produce the most "Vintage" tone and has a reputation for sounding compressed. Ceramic is the cheapest and most common material. If you are comparing speakers that have the same magnetic flux, but generated from different magnet compositions, you probably won't notice a difference in tonality. Differences in tonality that are often attributed to the magnet material probably have more to do with the positioning of the magnet and resultant differences in magnetic flux within the motor structure. There in lies the mojo!

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Post subject: Re: Neo vs AlNiCo vs Ceramic
Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 9:08 am
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AlNiCo - Musically Magic MoJo, Or Mystical Myth?

It's both really. Most of us bass players are well aquainted with AlNiCo5 in our pickups, but not in our speakers. In my reasearch I was surprized to learn that the now legendary JBL D & K140 15" woofers of yore were actually ceramic magnet driven and not AlNiCo as I had previously thought.

It is the G-Wankers {my warmly affectionate pet name for guitarists} that wank off over AlNiCo drivers in a tube powered circle-jerk of vintage ecstasy.

Here's some scientific stuff :arrow: "Alnico is an alloy containing Aluminium (Al), Nickel (Ni), Cobalt (Co) hence its name Alnico. But Alnico actually contains more than just these three elements. It also contains Iron and Copper with some versions also containing Titanium and even Niobium (the Titanium versions were sometimes called Ticonal, derived from the elements TiCoNiAl). Alnico magnets were developed in the 1930’s and were the first “Real” performance permanent magnets (the first “magnets”, called magnetic steels, were quickly replaced by the vastly superior Alnico)... The most commonly used Alnico is Alnico 5."

http://www.alnico-info.com/

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Post subject: Re: Neo vs AlNiCo vs Ceramic
Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 2:20 pm
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Ceramic Driven Drivers - More Common Than You Thought!

When I first started this magnetic research, I didn't think that I had all that much exposure to ceramic driven speakers.

WRONG!

These things have been around since the 1950's and as best as I can tell have been in every bass amp I've ever owned! :oops:

Plus they're in your TV's; radios, and stereos (remember them?). They're inexpensive to manufacture {that means they're cheap}, but they don't sound cheap until you push 'em too hard. At that point the cheapness is revealed, but it's not as ugly as you might think. Celestion's world famous "greenback" 12's are ceramic and sound pretty damn good when driven to distortion.

My favorite story of my 1977 Bassman Ten is how I just couldn't get enough volume out of the poor little beastie, so I: 1) Dimed the Master; 2) Found that '7' on the channel volume was better sounding than '10', 3) Plugged my '76 Precision into an Electro-Harmonix LPB-1 power booster, and

WHAM-OH!

I sounded like Jack Bruce and Jimi Hendrix rolled into one extremely radical bass player dude! Ahhhhh, those were the days! I flogged those poor little CTS ceramic 10's to within an inch of their life. Yet, that was the very best distorted bass tone I've ever heard in my very long life. If I could put that sound in a stompbox, I'd be hailed a bass hero & a genius, and I'd be a multi-millionaire too. :mrgreen:

Here's some science for ya! :arrow: "The Ferrite permanent magnet is also known as a Ceramic Magnet and even as hard ferrite magnet. The name is interchangeable but they all refer to exactly the same material type. They are known as Ceramic Magnets because they are electrically insulating. Ferrite permanent magnets exist in two forms - Strontium Ferrite magnets and Barium Ferrite Magnets. The Strontium Ferrite Magnets is the most common."

http://www.ferrite-info.com/

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2018 Rumble Studio 40 Combo
2016 Rumble 200 Combo
One day they shall name a GREAT city after me, and they shall call it LINNINGRAD


Last edited by linnin on Tue Nov 05, 2013 12:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: Neo vs AlNiCo vs Ceramic
Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 2:23 am
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Neodymium - The Future Is Now!

OK, let's 'wiki-up' right off the bat, shall we?

"Neodymium is a chemical element with the symbol Nd and atomic number 60. It is a soft silvery metal that tarnishes in air. Neodymium was discovered in 1885 by the Austrian chemist Carl Auer von Welsbach. It is present in significant quantities in the ore minerals monazite and bastnäsite. Neodymium is not found naturally in metallic form or unmixed with other lanthanides, and it is usually refined for general use. Although neodymium is classed as a "rare earth", it is a fairly common element, no rarer than cobalt, nickel, and copper, and is widely distributed in the Earth's crust.[2] Most of the world's neodymium is mined in China." ... and ... "A neodymium magnet (also known as NdFeB, NIB or Neo magnet), the most widely used[1] type of rare-earth magnet, is a permanent magnet made from an alloy of neodymium, iron and boron to form the Nd2Fe14B tetragonal crystalline structure.[2] Developed in 1982 by General Motors and Sumitomo Special Metals, neodymium magnets are the strongest type of permanent magnet made."

Neo woofers are all the rage right now, and their appeal goes far beyond their light weight. Just look at Fender's line of Pro Bassman speaker cabs and you'll see they are all built with neo drivers by Eminence. Even Fender Rumble 112 and 2x8 cabs come stock with Eminence neo's. Indeed, every manufacturer of bass speaker cabinets offer neo drivers, and are widely considered to be 'top of the line'.

If you have a pair of modern headphones it is very likely that you've had a very close listen to neo driven speakers albeit very small ones, and yes, they do sound great. :)

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2018 Rumble Studio 40 Combo
2016 Rumble 200 Combo
One day they shall name a GREAT city after me, and they shall call it LINNINGRAD


Last edited by linnin on Sat Nov 02, 2013 12:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: Neo vs AlNiCo vs Ceramic
Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 2:49 am
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Neo Driven Woofers

My first real life exposure to a neo bass cab was at an open air music fest. One bass player had a Genz Benz Streamliner with matching Neo 212 cab. He played a Music Man 5-string, and let me tell you it was a knockout bass rig. Sounded Absolutely Fabulous!

That pretty much nailed it for me, and I ordered an Eminence S2012 Basslite neo woofer to upgrade my Rumble 75. It gave me an astounding increase in good tone straight across the board: tighter lows and more of them - clear and well defined; punchy mids with plenty of low-mid growl, a smoother midrange overall with crisp high-mid snarl, the highs are clear, light & airy. I couldn't have asked for more. I will be ordering a matching pair of Rumble 112 neo's to compliment my Rumble 350 head. Soon, I hope. :D

In my research, I ran across a fascinating man by the name of Alex Claber. He is the founder/owner/designer of Barefaced bass cabs in England. Right smart fellow too. :wink: He has this to say: "Neo is actually much closer to AlNiCo than it is to ferrite (ceramic) magnets - it's a conductive metal alloy which can produce higher flux densities rather than a non-conductive ceramic composite filled with magnetic particles with lower flux density. The conductivity reduces distortion whilst the higher flux density allows you to get a more potent balance of excursion, sensitivity and treble response out of a given design...The on-axis treble extension you'll get from a speaker is most closely connected to the voice coil design but the off-axis treble response and the midrange response depends hugely on the cone/cap/surround and their non-pistonic behaviour. Those bits of paper/cloth matter far more than what the magnet is made of!" ...and..."The key difference (which you probably wouldn't know if you hadn't actually designed a driver!) is that the neo magnet allows you to use a shorter magnetic gap but still get as much flux through the voice coil. This shorter magnetic gap means you get more Xmax and lower Le, so you gain both in max LF output and in HF extension, as Xmax (clean excursion) determines the former and inductance (Le) determines the latter."
http://barefacedbass.com/

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2016 Rumble 200 Combo
One day they shall name a GREAT city after me, and they shall call it LINNINGRAD


Last edited by linnin on Sat Nov 02, 2013 12:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: Neo vs AlNiCo vs Ceramic
Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 3:25 am
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My Conclusion

As many of you already know, I take a holistic approach to life, and the making of music is a large part of who I am not just what I do.

The scientific western mind wants to compartmentalize everything into neatly labled catagories by applied quantative analysis. So that you'd have something like:
AlNiCo = these tonal qualities
Ceramic = these other tonal qualities
Neo = yet some other tonal qualities

To my ears neo woofers do sound better, but it is the total speaker design installed in a well designed cabinet that is key to great overall sound. In my tonequest, I am always looking for a 'whole' {Brain: Body; Bass (strings; wood, p'ups), pre-amp/amp, EQ, speaker cab} that adds up to more than the sum of it's parts.

Music Is An Art - Not A Mathematical Equation

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Post subject: Re: Neo vs AlNiCo vs Ceramic
Posted: Mon Nov 04, 2013 2:18 am
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linnin wrote:
AlNiCo - Musically Magic MoJo, Or Mystical Myth?

It's both really. Most of us bass players are well aquainted with AlNiCo5 in our pickups, but not in our speakers. In my reasearch I was surprized to learn that the now legendary JBL D & K140 15" woofers of yore were actually ceramic magnet driven and not AlNiCo as I had previously thought.


Whatever you say, pal......

http://www.jblpro.com/pub/obsolete/k_series.pdf

The D-series JBL's are also alnico.

The E-series are ceramic -- which accounts for the fact that nobody wants them.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Neo vs AlNiCo vs Ceramic
Posted: Mon Nov 04, 2013 5:49 am
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I misread this article from Guitar Player
http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/all-about-speakers/7201

"In developing the loud Showman amps of the early ’60s for surf guitar sensation Dick Dale—as well as the unusual ported and closed-backed speaker cabinets that accompanied them—Fender sought a sturdy, efficient driver, and came up with the JBL D120F and D130F (12" and 15" speakers, respectively). Based on the JBL D120 and D130 models used in the hi-fi audio industry—the “F” added to denote Fender OEM units—these speakers had enormous alnico magnets, sturdy cast-metal frames, and large voice coils, and, as a result, they exhibited power-handling capabilities like almost nothing else available in the world of guitar amps. They succeeded in making Showmans hellaciously loud amps, and when added as an option to Twin Reverb combos a few years later, they also helped to make these amps both unfathomably loud and excruciatingly heavy. JBLs classically present firm lows, a round midrange with an edge of bark and a slightly nasal honk, and ringing, occasionally piercing highs. There are speakers suited to loud playing—when you really want to cut through."

OK Arjay, this thread now stands corrected.

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One day they shall name a GREAT city after me, and they shall call it LINNINGRAD


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Post subject: Re: Neo vs AlNiCo vs Ceramic
Posted: Mon Nov 04, 2013 8:46 am
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RAWK ON, SIR!

8)

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Post subject: Re: Neo vs AlNiCo vs Ceramic
Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2013 12:37 am
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Another outstanding thread topic by Linnin. Spirited, informative and fun.

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Post subject: Re: Neo vs AlNiCo vs Ceramic
Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2013 8:55 am
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modwiz wrote:
Another outstanding thread topic by Linnin. Spirited, informative and fun.


Thanks modwiz, I do appreciate your kind comments. Just like the Tonequest thread, this is supposed to be an ongoing dialog, and not just an old bass player talking to himself.

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One day they shall name a GREAT city after me, and they shall call it LINNINGRAD


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Post subject: Re: Neo vs AlNiCo vs Ceramic
Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 6:42 pm
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linnin wrote:
modwiz wrote:
Another outstanding thread topic by Linnin. Spirited, informative and fun.


Thanks modwiz, I do appreciate your kind comments. Just like the Tonequest thread, this is supposed to be an ongoing dialog, and not just an old bass player talking to himself.


I am a poor typist, so I tend to remain far more quiet than I might be otherwise.

I hope to experience a neo magnet soon. Haven't experienced an alnico bass speaker either. I like hearing about the similarity of neo and alnico magnets in how they produce sound. Weight is a huge factor, and getting alnico magic from a lighter speaker is a good trade off. However, until I hear these two types pf speakers, ceramics do have the nice clean, punchy tome that I find desirable for bass. Even in my guitar speakers I find an alnico/ceramic mix provides a mix that I find very pleasing. Of course dB level matching is important, if not crucial, to getting that magic correct.

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