Beale Street comes to A/NZ
It seems like every year it’s a case of ‘another show, another architectural speaker brand’. In 2015, though, things were different: there were two new architectural speaker brands. But where other new brands have failed, both of these new brands – Beale Street Audio and Origin Acoustics – are properly funded ventures that are demonstrating quite interesting technologies.
For Beale Street Audio, that technology is called ‘Sonic Vortex’.
Put simply, Sonic Vortex combines proven design methods with what would traditionally be a very long port and wraps it around the internal cavity of the enclosure. This produces bass that far exceeds what you would expect from a small cabinet.
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The main port is separated into multiple ports containing what the company calls ‘fins’. The fins can be designed and adjusted to maximise the sound in enclosures of various sizes and depths, even very shallow ones.
The fins compress and move air at a high rate of speed without port noise and also add to the cabinet’s rigidity for further acoustical reinforcement. Compared to sealed models, the Sonic Vortex design reportedly provides a 6db to 9db boost in the mid-lower bass ranges and a flatter frequency response across the audio spectrum.
Beale Street Audio executive director Mark Cichowski – who is well known to the Australian market thanks to his involvement with TruAudio and Sonance, and helping to launch CEDIA in the APAC region – says his brand marks the first real technological development in loudspeaker design for two decades.
“There haven’t been any real developments in speaker design for 20 years,” Mark says.
“That’s not to knock pivoting tweeters. We use those, too. We also use edgeless grilles, but that’s not technology; that’s aesthetics.
“Our Sonic Vortex technology is based on a ported transmission line. That forces air through the speaker at very high velocity, which means you achieve great levels of bass from a very small enclosure.
“Jim Murray, who founded Beale Street Audio, took that concept and put it into an architectural speaker by wrapping it around the internal cavity of the enclosure.
“We don’t use backboxes like other manufacturers. Backboxes have a purpose but that is typically to keep debris out, or to keep sound bleeding into adjoining rooms, but they actually make speakers sound worse. An open back speaker is meant to be in an open cavity and if you put a backbox on it, it hurts it sonically.”
The challenge for in-ceiling and in-wall subwoofers has always been to produce deep, articulate low frequency effects without damaging walls and creating sonic artifacts in the room. Sonic Vortex technology re-imagines the traditional ported subwoofer enclosure to deliver significantly more bass and a flatter frequency response from an in-ceiling design. By moving air more efficiently and at higher speeds through multiple ports in the specially designed, vortex-shaped enclosure, Beale Street Audio has created an architectural subwoofer that delivers “sonic slam” and an expansive soundstage from a driver that barely moves the enclosure.
These new subwoofers are engineered with an extremely rigid Kevlar woofer material and a butyl rubber surround that delivers balanced performance, even when listeners are off-axis. Both the 6” and 8” models offer deceptively strong bass for their compact size and work with existing in-ceiling and in-wall speaker systems or Beale Street Audio’s own series of in-ceiling and in-wall speakers.
“When it comes to in-ceiling subs, you obviously have to brace them so they don’t crack the dry wall,” Mark says.
“A big benefit of Sonic Vortex is that it doesn’t give you energy transfer from the driver to the enclosure. At the 2014 CEDIA Expo in Denver, Colorado, we hung our (operational) subwoofers from fishing wire and they didn’t move.
“It’s all about balanced air flow.”
Beale Street Audio in-ceiling subwoofers are also highly scalable. Infinite variable designs for both cabinet air volume and port dimensions allows for flexible industrial design options. The depth and width of the integrated enclosure can vary based on the models, while still providing enhanced bass and better overall performance compared to similar products. The new subwoofers are also amplifier-friendly since they sound and perform like a sealed subwoofer cabinet with the same impedance curve.
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