The star of the VMPS ribbon speakers are their midrange panels, a rebuilt Level 9 products. “Neo” comes from Neodymium, element that is a part of magnet material (NeFeB). Level 9 built about 300,000 of these panels most of which ended up in computers, where they worked OK. In high fidelity and automotive applications they failed at a high rate due to a mechanical design flaw, which requires us to rebuild each one.
With our rebuilt they have been durable and good sounding. They are the only such panels which extend down to 200 Hz and below, a critical range. Neo panels are available only at VMPS loudspeakers. Similar competing products are not nearly up to it, not having enough upper bass response, or having large nonlinearities etc.
Neodymium (chemically NeFeB) is a relatively new alloy that can hold a much more powerful magnetic charge than previous champion Alnico (aluminum-nickel-cobalt), boasting eight times the field strength for weight of strontium ferrite, the speaker magnetic material of choice for over thirty years (civil wars in Africa having made cobalt and therefore Alnico a rare and costly commodity).
Neodymium can be shaped and molded into small, thin strips that effectively focus its magnetic field with great precision, as opposed to strontium ferrite where about 80% of the magnetic field shoots out in the wrong direction, useless for driving a speaker motor and causing distortion of nearby TV screens and other objects sensitive to stray EMF. Neodymium has been very expensive until recently, but we have been at work on NeFeB ribbon speaker panels several years and the long labor has paid off.
Our Neo midrange panel goes lower (-3dB at 166 Hz!), higher (flat to 10 kHz!), is more linear (within 2 dB over its range), more efficient (88 dB/1W/1M per panel), lower distortion (typically under 0.4% THD with nearly unmeasurable 3rd harmonics), more rugged (100W rms per panel) and with greater fidelity than any planar transducer ever made regardless of price. Assembled from American parts, our panel is sonically superior to offshore competitors we have seen, and its price is reasonable enough to be included in our RM floorstanders and 626 Ribbon compact bookshelf 3-way.
Hear our new Neodymium ribbon systems for yourself and then write us your impressions. If your enthusiasm does not match ours we’ll eat our hats.
