Greetings, hope you all had a great Thanksgiving here in the US and a great weekend elsewhere.
Following the template:
1. Introduce yourself. My name is Paul Hilgeman (obviously), I live in the NW Suburbs of Chicago, but have previously lived in Milwaukee, WI and Valparaiso, IN. I have a EE from Valparaiso University. For the last decade I have been literally obsessed with audio reproduction from several fronts, electronics, speakers, and even a bit of recording. For many of those years I was a poor college student and did most of it myself, amps, preamps, speakers, you name it. I developed my skills in speaker design and found the most enjoyment and challenge there. About 3 years ago, I made the decision that I would bring to market a truly unique loudspeaker that fills a niche occupied by no one. The goals, objectives and features of this speaker would be extremely unique based on several things that I had been working on; it was the combination of these things that resulted in the design called the "Ronin".
2. Introduce your product. The Ronin is a very unique loudspeaker; I will summarize the basics and then go into the details. It is a 3-way, with a silk dome tweeter, an 8" magnesium cone midrange and a 10" aluminum woofer. The crossover from woofer to midrange are 3rd order acoustic, and from the midrange to the tweeter are 4th order acoustic. The crossover points are 250Hz and 1300Hz respectively. The woofer is in a sealed box, with an F3 of 42Hz and an F10 of 24Hz, in most rooms, the measured F3 will be in the mid 20's. Impedance is 3.5 ohms or greater, sensitivity is 87.5dB/W. They are easily driven by most amplifiers tube and SS that can put out 30W or more depending on listening tastes and environement.
The midrange is mounted on an open baffle and there is no containment of the rear-wave. This is done for two main reasons. First, no sound waves are bounced around the cabinet and re-radiated through the cone or cabinet walls coloring the reproduced sound. Second, this sets up the speaker for proper power response. Typically a speaker will transition from radiating only forward to radiating in an omni-directional pattern through about 300Hz to 1000Hz. This is the most difficult part of a speaker to voice and is very room and placement dependant. The dipole midrange reduces the output of the midrange to the sides of the speaker to a large degree. This allows the speaker to have a very flat frequency response on axis and off-axis. More typical closed box speakers will have excess radiation in the range below the 'baffle step' resulting in a bloated sound if placed too close to a boundary.
The tweeter is mounted in the center of the midrange. This again is done for two main reasons. First, the acoustic centers of both drivers are aligned; at no angle above or below will the listener be non-equidistant from both drivers. Second, it forms a waveguide that limits the radiation of the tweeter at it's lower operating range and reduces distortion, allowing it to cross over pretty low. Typically a tweeter mounted on a flat baffle will have quite a bit of output directly to the sides and up and down. A midrange or midwoofer will generally start beaming by the time it crosses over to the tweeter. This means that the tweeter will almost always have excess off-axis output just above the crossover region. This is why the 'BBC Dip' was created, to offset this effect. The waveguide loading reduces the off-axis output of the tweeter through it's lower operating range, providing a very smooth transition from the midrange to the tweeter both on and off-axis.
The cabinet is constructed of solid bamboo, and is well braced in the woofer chamber. Bamboo was chosen for a variety of reasons. First, it is very stiff and strong because of the fact that it is constructed in a cross-ply construction with strips running vertically on both the front and rear face and strips running perpendicular through the core. There are literally thousands of glue joins per speaker. Bamboo is also a very quickly renewable resource, growing to maturity in 5 years. The glues used in making the cross-ply bamboo are completely formaldehyde free and non-toxic. This is in sharp contrast to typical MDF which has been banned several countries. The bamboo is available in both a natural color and caramelized, which is darker. It can also be stained a variety of colors and veneer and piano black are always options. The finish is a very tough water based lacquer; it too is non-toxic.
Nomad Audio also sells a UcD based Class D amplifier called the Niagara. It is simply a very good amplifier. I make no testament to it being the ultimate amplifier, but it is far better than anything I could afford with more than 75 watts, therefore I offer it. It is a dual-mono amplifier based on the UcD400 module by Hypex. I hand-modify each module.
Within the next few months, a second speaker model will be available; it will be a stand-mounted sibling of the Ronin. Construction is complete and several drivers have been tested, I am currently voicing out the crossover on a couple different sets of drivers right now and listening. I can post some pics soon, but I'd expect final details in January. It will be called the Sentinel and will use a 7" coaxial driver and an 8" woofer. Current prototypes are 9.5" wide, 15" deep and 21" tall.
3. Explain why our products are good match for the site. I personally think that Nomad Audio's products, both speaker and amplifiers, exude value and good sound. There have been several reviews of the Ronin, anywhere from generally positive to extremely positive. Most of these are based on the Ronin Road Trip that will probably be going through February. The pricing of the Niagara Amplifier is extremely competitive with the new chassis model on special for $1600 through January 1st. The Ronin is also very competitively priced for a large floor standing three-way using top shelf drivers and crossover components. Both products are priced below their respective sound quality values.
4. Acknowledge that you understand the "30-day inactivity rule". Acknowledged.
Lastly, please post your opinions of this in addition to just voting, I would be curious to hear your thoughts.
Thank you,
Paul Hilgeman
Nomad Audio
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