Jump to content
IGNORED

Dragonfire Acoustics Debuts Audiophile Desktop Nearfield Monitor System


Recommended Posts

This looks interesting.

 

https://www.dragonfireacoustics.com/

 

Screen Shot 2018-10-01 at 10.47.44 AM.png

 

 

Screen Shot 2018-10-01 at 10.45.11 AM.png

 

 

 

Press Release:

 

Dragonfire Acoustics Debuts Audiophile Desktop Nearfield Monitor System Room 4007 at RMAF 
Planar Magnetic Speakers | DAC/AMP/DSP | Room Correction
Dragonfire | Fire Breathing Audio

10/1/2018 | Orange, California | The Dragonfire Acoustics Mini Dragon DAC/AMP/DSP Speaker System is a technological breakthrough in full-range two-channel nearfield listening. The sophisticated DSP-controlled planar magnetic speakers deliver an astonishingly vivid, dynamic, full-range sound with one of the available subwoofer options.

The Mini Dragon System is for stylish music lovers, sleek and elegant, housed in adjustable, collapsible, aircraft-grade anodized aluminum frames. A statement product on your office desk, a second system at home, or for mixing and mastering engineers who need unrivaled precision, accuracy, and mastery of the frequency, phase, and time domains.

Dragonfire Mini Dragon Satellites
You won’t have to turn them up loud for full-range, full-impact sound; they’ll do that at any SPL level with spectacular sound and imaging. How so? Conventional dynamic-driver speakers diffract soundwaves off speaker cabinets and nearby surfaces. The soundwaves bounce back and crash into each other causing interfering peaks and nulls.

Soundwaves from a planar magnetic source coherently propagate along the axis of the originating plane – like a laser beam – interfering far less with surrounding surfaces for much less distortion. Results are more dynamic lifelike sound with spectacular imaging and soundstaging.

The Mini Dragons’ planar driver is ultra-efficient and requires only few watts to generate normal listening levels. As a purely resistive load, the DFA Mini Dragons can be driven by a wide variety of high-end audio amplifiers. For best performance Dragonfire recommends the DFA MD-4 amplifier with built-in DAC/DSP/Crossover.

Dragonfire MD-4 Amplifier
Built into a matching anodized aluminum enclosure, the DFA MD-4 is a beautifully built class-D DAC/AMP/DSP engine featuring high-quality A/D conversion for its balanced analog XLRs, SPDIF and USB digital inputs. There’s advanced DSP for speaker correction with a total of 120 parametric filters, crossovers, delays and compression limiting circuits too. The powerful MD-4 offers an amazing full-power spectrum of 1-to-100kHz, taking advantage of its great efficiency for vivid and exciting sound at any volume.

Free of high-frequency damping networks, the MD-4 delivers full power up to 100kHz while the extremely high-voltage-rail-to-RMS-power-rating-ratio for up to 250W RMS per channel at over 93% efficiency ensures minimal cooling requirements and maximum long-term reliability.

Dragonfire SB-8P Subwoofer
The SB-8P Subwoofer seamlessly matches the Mini Dragons with tuning down to 30Hz. The bottom end is essential in setting up the size of the recording venue or one that’s mixed in. The SB-8P is self-powered with 180W on tap, cutting off at 200Hz to blend in perfectly with the Mini Dragons. The SB-8P features a long-excursion, high-speed, low-distortion woofer plus a custom long-excursion 8" passive radiator and is part of the full system price.

Dirac Room Correction System
Many people don’t realize they’re listening to their speakers and their interaction with the room. While absorptive and refractive acoustic panels are typical these days to tame splashy acoustics, Dirac's Live Room Correction Suite (LRCS) includes digital room correction so the Mini Dragons sound even better. Dirac measures the room and speakers, establishes target curves, and calculates correcting digital filters. The Dirac is supplied with the premium Dragonfire system with calibrated microphone.

The result is seriously more impact, lifelike and focused imaging, with a detailed and airy soundstage that escape the boundaries of the speakers. It’s music you can feel.

Dragonfire Planar Magnetic Technology
We’re confident the Dragonfire Acoustics Mini Dragon System literally defines the state-of-the-art in professional, full-range, nearfield monitoring. The strongest high-temperature rare-earth Neodymium magnets are arrayed into proprietary dual-pole push-pull motor structures for a combined magnetic flux density of an astonishing 1.8 Tesla.

Aerospace-grade polyamide film is mechanically drawn to less than 2 micron thickness. The film is then cryogenically-tempered, electro-conductively traced, and precisely tensioned to achieve a uniform planar magnetic driving surface.

About Dragonfire Acoustics
The Dragonfire Acoustics System is the result of over 40-years research and development in planar magnetic physics and design by legendary designer Dr. Dragoslav Colich. As he points out, “Dragonfire constantly innovates the underlying planar technology, improving and evolving the experience of nearfield listening.” Lovingly handmade in America, each system is carefully tested and approved before shipping.

Dragonfire Acoustics | Orange, CA | Tel: 657.667.6187 | www.dragonfireacoustics.com 

Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems AudiophileStyleStickerWhite2.0.png AudiophileStyleStickerWhite7.1.4.png

Link to comment

Interesting, but $5,000 for just the speakers?  That seems to be a pretty steep price for desktop speakers from an unknown company (at least to me).    

 

Due to personal experiences with having bought gear from newer companies that ended up folding (goodbye warranty and resale value), I am now more hesitant than ever to buy from relatively new companies without a solid operating history.  If the gear is inexpensive, then fine, I am not too concerned.  But dropping that kind of money?   I wouldn't do it. 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Speaker Room: Lumin U1X | Lampizator Pacific 2 | Viva Linea | Constellation Inspiration Stereo 1.0 | FinkTeam Kim | Revel subs  

Office Headphone System: Lumin U1X | Lampizator Golden Gate 3 | Viva Egoista | Abyss AB1266 Phi TC 

Link to comment

The problem with planar placement is the back wave. I don't see any mention in the quoted article. The other problem, directivity shouldn't be an issue with a desktop system where only one person listens.

Main System: QNAP TS-451+ NAS > Silent Angel Bonn N8 > Sonore opticalModule Deluxe v2 > Corning SMF with Finisar FTLF1318P3BTL SFPs > Uptone EtherREGEN > exaSound PlayPoint and e32 Mk-II DAC > Meitner MTR-101 Plus monoblocks > Bamberg S5-MTM sealed standmount speakers. 

Crown XLi 1500 powering  AV123 Rocket UFW10 stereo subwoofers

Upgraded power on all switches, renderer and DAC. 

 

Link to comment
16 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

It goes down to 200 Hz. Suplimented with a sub at RMAF. 

 

Oh I know there was a sub there. It just didn't integrate well and sounded like there was no upper bass, like I said. Subs don't integrate very well with a tiny satellite that high, especially if you hide it behind a several pieces of heavy wooden furniture.

Link to comment

 

When I go to a pro or Hi-Fi show i enjoy seeing & hearing all the variety but what i really care about is performance.  I want the best sound.

 

I listened to the mini dragons at RMAF, and here are my thoughts:  

 

To be clear, the $5k price was for the two mini dragon speakers (if you prefer to use a different DAC, Amp, DSP, etc). 

 

The system demoed in the DFA and TTVJ rooms at RMAF included the premium Kimber cables, the 8”/8” active subwoofer, and the 4 channel DAC/DSP/AMP goes for $10k.  

 

Todd the vinyl junkie was offering a $7.5k show special.

 

As to this being an Unkown company....

 

Dragonfire is owned by Dragoslav Colich (“Drag+On Fire”), who is the Chief Technology Officer and Senior Designer for Audeze.

 

Audeze makes the best headphones i have ever heard (IMHO).  If you haven’t listened to any of their stuff i encourage you to do so and share your listening impressions.    

 

According to Dr. C, the mini dragons are the same speaker driver technology as in the Audeze LCD-MX4s which go for $3k/pair.  

 

They are are 5”x10” each so $5k pair sounds about right when you calculate the driver area

 

DFA Mini Dragon speakers: 2x(5x10”) = 100 square inches of  2 micron cryo polyamide in a 1.8 T inductive field at $5k

 

=$50/square inch of PMD

 

 

Audeze MX4 Headphones = 2x(2” x 2” x 3.14) =  25.12” square inches of planar magnetic driver for $3k

 

=$119.43/ square inch of PMD.

 

 So per driver area, the mini dragons are actually less than half the price of the equivalent headphone driver tech in the LCD-MX4s.

 

If you have heard Audeze LCDs, you know why bands, musicians and engineers like Noisia, Mala, James K Lewis, and Hannes Bieger use them to make music.  

 

As far as the long-term lifespan and success of the company, i imagine the mini dragons will become as popular in the producer, mix, master, post-production, and audiophile/lifestyle/executive worlds as Audeze has become for Headphones.    

 

As for the backwave...

 

What’s special about these speakers is that the 5”x10” driver is full range from  200 to 40,000 Hz.  

 

There’s no cabinet and no baffle.  The frame is about a 1/4” of anodized aluminum around the the driver.  

 

Any wave above 500 cycles is directional in nature.  

 

The front wave and the back waves below 500 Hz are designed to collide 180 degrees out of phase outside the frame so there are no  cabinet diffractions or acoustic room reflections. 

 

The directivity is a major strength for a nearfield monitor system.  

 

Because the driver itself is full range down to 200 Hz and planar waves are coherent (e.g. like a laser beam or LED panel compared to a light bulb), the nearfield listening position was full range with astonishing detail and without room artifacts.  

 

You know how you can listen to headphones on the subway even though it is mad noisy and yet your brain becomes totally immersed in the sound?  

 

It was like that but you weren’t wearing headphones you were sitting in a chair.     

 

It was interesting to see how many people at the show 1, came into the room because they heard the sound from the hallway, 2, complimented the sound while standing in the room, 3 became silent, speechless, and simply nodded their heads once they sat down in the sweetspot to listen.  

     

The touring, mix, and master pros are going to be all over these once they get out in the wild.  

 

Anyone who sits at a desk all day working like business executives with their own offices or people who work from home will be all about it too once they understand the value.

 

If you work at a sitting (or standing) desk for 8 hours a day (Bueller?) for 40 hrs a week (Bueller?) for 50 weeks a year (Bueller?), that’s 2,000 hours of listening/year.  

 

After 5 years of owning the system your cost per hour for the flagship $10k system would be $1/hr.    

 

As far as the bass, i thought the extension (played down to about 30 Hz) and coverage of its 2 and half octaves to 200 Hz was just fine.  

 

For a nearfield monitor system, sitting above a single active 8” with an 8” radiator thats flat from 30 to 200 Hz will meet the needs for most music production and playback. 

 

 If i am going to mix LFE for film or TV then i might supplement with some dedicated infrasonic solution to get that last octave or two...

 

As far as the bass integrating with the speakers...

 

200 Hz is about the point where speed turns to power in terms of the demands on a system.  

 

Anytime you go down one octave (e.g. from 200 to 100 to 50 to 25, Hz etc) the system requires 4x the power index so the demoed   sub design made sense to me for the intended application.  

 

To get lower bass response from the planars would require them being much much bigger, much much more expensive, and would defeat the point of a portable, works in every room without acoustic treatment nearfield desktop monitoring system.   

 

What you might have heard  in the upper bass could have been a resonance from the desk or other furniture in the hotel demo room.  

 

The system doesn’t give off any room reflections, and they were using Dirac Live to correct the impulse response. 

 

To fix furniture resonance you just get new furniture.  

 

There was a lot of music to demo (especially in the TTVJ room).

 

I listened to all kinds of genres- classical, rock,  R&B, hip hop, Electronica, and film soundtracks.  In all cases i heard new information in the mix of tunes I’ve known my whole life.  

 

I cannot wait to produce, mix, master, and my own music with these lil fellas.  

 

What’s that expression- something about the proof being in the eating of the pudding?  

 

Lucky the mini dragons speak for themselves ? ??

 

Link to comment

Those calculations aren't particularly useful since it's not clear marginal cost of manufacturing a planar driver scales like that. The only dynamic drivers that really scale like that price wise are beryllium or diamond drivers which is a raw material price bottleneck that's limited to current pricing on the trading markets. In the OEM market mids and woofers for example aren't really more expensive from a manufacturer's line than tweeters despite having a lot more cone material.

 

Secondly, this is more of a lifestyle product along the lines of the Harmon Kardon GLA-55. High end headphones are simply priced astronomically compared to speakers for what you get. You can get a high end bookshelf speaker with a RAAL ribbon tweeter in the < $1500 price range that will absolutely outperform these things. It might make sense if you are extremely space limited and have a ton of money, like like a small Manhattan apartment or something. But even if you are space limited there is the Ascend Sierra Luna which isn't honestly that much bigger than these.

 

 

Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...

Firstly, do you manufacture dynamic drivers, let alone state-of-the-art full-range planar magnetic drivers?

 

Do you actually understand how they are different from conventional dynamic drivers? Both in performance and in the manufacturing process?

If you did, you’d know that the manufacturing  process does in fact scale linearly as the ratio of the magnetic circuit material to the surface area of the driver. 

 

More driver, more magnets, more diaphragm, etc...

 

Remember the old B&G Radia Corp RD line of professional planar magnetic drivers available on Parts express?

 

They were available in 40”,  48”, 50”, and 75” sections and the price and power handling linearly reflected the size of the driver because it was product of how much material went into the transducer... about $10/inch, e.g. the RD75, a 75” driver cost $750 and could handle 750W.  

 

Now check this out.  Those B&G Radias were a design from the late 1980s early 1990s, using ceramic magnets, much heavier thicker Kaladex diaphragms with about 88 dB/1W/1 Meter sensitivity.  I know this because I’m friends with the industrial engineer who designed them with Dave and Tommy.    

 

By comparison....the unique magnetic circuit in these DFA mini dragons is N50-grade Neodymium.  

 

For reference, ceramics and ferrous magnets are about 1-4 Newton/1 Watt compared to Neodymium which is closer to +10 Netwons/1 watt capable.  

 

But theres more...  This particular use of N50 neo involves a patented process of dissecting and reassembling the magnetic structure so that all the magnetic flux is focused to one side.  

 

When built up on both sides as a push-pull driver, it generates an insane 1.8 Tesla worth of inductive force, about 3x more powerful than anything else out there.

 

For reference, these mini dragon transducers are on average 100dB/1W/1m and above 114db/1W/1m at 10KHz.  

 

How you could possibly compare that to a traditional electrodynamic woofer when: 

 

1.) often a manufacturer’s 8”, 10”, 12” woofer will use the same magnetic circuit assembly with different sized baskets and cones.  

 

2.) the cones used in traditional woofers are usually made of urethane foams of varying mass densities depending on the bandwidth covered, and weigh in the 100s of grams.

 

3.) a cone/dome is out of control outside the magnetic circuit when it slips its gap and must return via the surround suspension (vs a planar is always within its electromagnetic control circuit)

 

4.) cones/domes radiate incoherently, diffract off boxes, and reflect off walls...  

 

Now for the diaphragm, since we should really be comparing tweeters to tweeters (though the dragons are of course FULL RANGE) 

 

I’m not really interested in comparing a 2 micron 1.8 T to conventional dynamic drivers, diamond, Beryllium or otherwise.  But just for fun, lets look deeper....

 

Beyond the mining of both diamond and beryllium being 1.) toxic 2.) environmentally destructive and 2.) potentially involved in less than ethical supply chains...

 

Just so everyone understands, Beryllium and to a lesser extent diamond have been used as a material in traditional point source dome tweeters because it has a high stiffness to low mass ratio relative to the cost and toxicity to manufacture.  

 

Nevertheless, air as a highly compressible fluid, is very difficult to transfer energy into.  All Materials have what’s called a bulk modulus, which is a measure of the resistance to compressibility.  

 

So of all the metals and alloys available, the low weight: high rigidity ratio of Beryllium makes it the “best” metal to use in a tweeter.  This is why Focal uses Beryllium.  It’s first break up modes occur above 20 KHz...

 

Nevertheless, the impedance of Beryllium is still about 60,000 higher than air.

 

By comparison, the polyamide film (think the PCB board used on a satellite dish or spacecraft) has to be licensed, stretched out to a 2 micron thickness (for reference, a human hair is about 20-50 micron thick), and then cryogenically treated using a computer controlled dip in a liquid nitrogen bath.  

 

That sounds like a fairly expensive process to me, but the result is a full-range virtually pistonic diaphgram that weighs about 20 milligrams and  is 1:1 impedance matched with the air itself.  

 

So its not just a lil bit better than Beryllium, its about 4 orders of magnitude better...

 

The idea that you would attempt to compare the a 2 micron 20-milligram cryo-tempered diaphgram in a magnetic circuit thats about 3x more powerful than anything else on the market to a traditional woofer is a bit like comparing a mini van to a McLaren F1 because they both have 4 wheels and have aerodynamic styling...

 

Pippen might not be easy, but high school physics is...(or was for some of us)

 

Recall Newton’s 2nd law of motion:

 

F=MA

 

Force = mass x acceleration.

 

So we can re-write acceleration as Force Divided by Mass.

 

What happens when you triple the inductive force potential of the magnetic circuit, while reducing the mass of a FULL RANGE diaphragm of the circuit by about 1000x fold....?

 

Insane acceleration, transient response, spectral decay, detail and imaging...

 

Regarding your comparison to the RAAL ribbon.  Let’s take a closer look at the spec sheets and do some calculations.

 

While the mass per square inch is comparable between the RAAL ribbon diaphragm and the diaphragm in the planar magnetic  DFA510, the Dragonfire driver has 10x the driving surface area, 3x more powerful magnetic induction, and an active voice coil that is 50x times longer...

 

This translates to a to a force factor that is: 3x50/10 = 15x stronger than the RAAL.  

 

That 15x stronger force factor figure means the DFA510 diaphragm’s acceleration is 15x better than the RAAL for significantly faster transient response, detail, spectral decay, dynamics, etc.. 

 

Oh and lets not forget that the DFA is FULL RANGE driver, whereas the RAAL is a tweeter  that has to be integrated via reccomended 4th order crossover @1600 Hz with an 4.5” mid woofer (in the case of the Lunas) of a completely different electromechanical design and so will suffer from all the polar pattern difference, box artifacts, cabinet diffraction, and room reflections of traditional systems.  

 

Secondly, to your suggestion that this more of a lifestyle product when to me, it seems like it was designed and is being marketed first and foremost for professional use...

 

The mini dragons were privately demoed at the recent Audio Engineering Society conference in NYC, a pro show fo sho...  

 

The head Hardware and Software Engineers from Merging Technologies listened to the mini dragons. 

 

If you are unfamiliar with Swiss-based Merging, the vast majority (over 70%) of all DSD and DXD (352.8 KHz/24-bit) music is recorded, mixed, and mastered with their DAW technology (Pyramix).  They actually invented DXD (digital eXtreme definition).  

 

It is the industry platinum standard for professional broadcast facilities and live venues like Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln center, etc....

 

During the demo, Claude Cellier, the Founder and Owner of Merging (with a respectable set of ears himself) said about the mini dragons that “DXD music should only be listened to on these speakers”.

 

So yeah, i have a hunch that in time dragonfire will replace Genelec, Focal, Barefoot, etc as the top end solution adopted by mastering engineers around the world.  

 

Whether lifestyle/audiophile/executives who spend any reasonable amount of time in front of a computer will adopt them likely depends on if they have the 1.) money and 2,) ears to appreciate the sound.

 

Thirdly, in your earlier post you complained about the bass integration at RMAF.  

 

I found that remark to be a bit peculiar, because i spent a lot of time at both the DFA and TTVJ rooms during the show were the mini dragons were demoed, both listening to tunes in the hot seat and watching other people do the same.  

 

Since the DFA people were using MINI DSP/DIRAC to calibrate impulse response correction for the room, and that software makes it easy to take screenshots of the measured response.....i emailed dragonfire who kindly supplied me with the corrected frequency and impulse response graphs (as well as the DFA510 spec sheet to calculate the RAAL comparison.

 

As you can see, alongside the nearly perfect impulse response, there is about a 0.5 dB dip in the upper midbass of the frequency response where the sub and satellites meet.  

 

The idea that you (or anyone for that matter) would be able to hear a 0.5 dB in a blind A/B test is dare i say.....a pipe dream.

 

But if you could hear that (when you put your ears where your mouth is) than i would happily hire you to mix and master my music with your exceptional mutant golden ears.  

 

If you did though, I’d need you to to do it on my new set of mini dragons (big ups to early adoption!) as i for one am NOT going to be left in the dust of the past when this new wave of streamable DSD/DXD Audio over IP music revolution pops off in in the next few years.  

 

Happy Listening,

Casual

 

Crown Heights, Brooklyn

Kings County, NY, USA

 

raal_140-15d.pdfraal_140-15d.pdf

 

DFA510 Spec Sheet.pdf

 

 

 

IMG_4138.PNG

IMG_4139.PNG

raal_140-15d.pdf

DFA510 Spec Sheet.pdf

Link to comment
4 minutes ago, CasualDJ said:

The head Hardware and Software Engineers from Merging Technologies listened to the mini dragons. 

Very cool. I'll reach out to my friends Dom and Claude to get their opinions. 

 

Thanks for the details, they actually help push the conversation forward. I'd love to get a pair of these for review but so far no response from DFA. Bummer. 

 

 

P.S. I highly recommend a little friendlier tone. It's often not what you say, but how you say it :~)

Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems AudiophileStyleStickerWhite2.0.png AudiophileStyleStickerWhite7.1.4.png

Link to comment
On 11/7/2018 at 12:48 AM, CasualDJ said:

Firstly, do you manufacture dynamic drivers, let alone state-of-the-art full-range planar magnetic drivers?

 

Do you actually understand how they are different from conventional dynamic drivers? Both in performance and in the manufacturing process?

imageproxy.php?img=&key=d2060de9cb713f96

If you did, you’d know that the manufacturing  process does in fact scale linearly as the ratio of the magnetic circuit material to the surface area of the driver. 

 

More driver, more magnets, more diaphragm, etc...

 

Remember the old B&G Radia Corp RD line of professional planar magnetic drivers available on Parts express?

 

They were available in 40”,  48”, 50”, and 75” sections and the price and power handling linearly reflected the size of the driver because it was product of how much material went into the transducer... about $10/inch, e.g. the RD75, a 75” driver cost $750 and could handle 750W.  

 

Now check this out.  Those B&G Radias were a design from the late 1980s early 1990s, using ceramic magnets, much heavier thicker Kaladex diaphragms with about 88 dB/1W/1 Meter sensitivity.  I know this because I’m friends with the industrial engineer who designed them with Dave and Tommy.    

 

By comparison....the unique magnetic circuit in these DFA mini dragons is N50-grade Neodymium.  

 

For reference, ceramics and ferrous magnets are about 1-4 Newton/1 Watt compared to Neodymium which is closer to +10 Netwons/1 watt capable.  

 

But theres more...  This particular use of N50 neo involves a patented process of dissecting and reassembling the magnetic structure so that all the magnetic flux is focused to one side.  

 

When built up on both sides as a push-pull driver, it generates an insane 1.8 Tesla worth of inductive force, about 3x more powerful than anything else out there.

 

For reference, these mini dragon transducers are on average 100dB/1W/1m and above 114db/1W/1m at 10KHz.  

 

How you could possibly compare that to a traditional electrodynamic woofer when: 

 

1.) often a manufacturer’s 8”, 10”, 12” woofer will use the same magnetic circuit assembly with different sized baskets and cones.  

 

2.) the cones used in traditional woofers are usually made of urethane foams of varying mass densities depending on the bandwidth covered, and weigh in the 100s of grams.

 

3.) a cone/dome is out of control outside the magnetic circuit when it slips its gap and must return via the surround suspension (vs a planar is always within its electromagnetic control circuit)

 

4.) cones/domes radiate incoherently, diffract off boxes, and reflect off walls...  

 

Now for the diaphragm, since we should really be comparing tweeters to tweeters (though the dragons are of course FULL RANGE) 

 

I’m not really interested in comparing a 2 micron 1.8 T to conventional dynamic drivers, diamond, Beryllium or otherwise.  But just for fun, lets look deeper....

 

Beyond the mining of both diamond and beryllium being 1.) toxic 2.) environmentally destructive and 2.) potentially involved in less than ethical supply chains...

 

Just so everyone understands, Beryllium and to a lesser extent diamond have been used as a material in traditional point source dome tweeters because it has a high stiffness to low mass ratio relative to the cost and toxicity to manufacture.  

 

Nevertheless, air as a highly compressible fluid, is very difficult to transfer energy into.  All Materials have what’s called a bulk modulus, which is a measure of the resistance to compressibility.  

 

So of all the metals and alloys available, the low weight: high rigidity ratio of Beryllium makes it the “best” metal to use in a tweeter.  This is why Focal uses Beryllium.  It’s first break up modes occur above 20 KHz...

 

Nevertheless, the impedance of Beryllium is still about 60,000 higher than air.

 

By comparison, the polyamide film (think the PCB board used on a satellite dish or spacecraft) has to be licensed, stretched out to a 2 micron thickness (for reference, a human hair is about 20-50 micron thick), and then cryogenically treated using a computer controlled dip in a liquid nitrogen bath.  

 

That sounds like a fairly expensive process to me, but the result is a full-range virtually pistonic diaphgram that weighs about 20 milligrams and  is 1:1 impedance matched with the air itself.  

 

So its not just a lil bit better than Beryllium, its about 4 orders of magnitude better...

 

The idea that you would attempt to compare the a 2 micron 20-milligram cryo-tempered diaphgram in a magnetic circuit thats about 3x more powerful than anything else on the market to a traditional woofer is a bit like comparing a mini van to a McLaren F1 because they both have 4 wheels and have aerodynamic styling...

 

Pippen might not be easy, but high school physics is...(or was for some of us)

 

Recall Newton’s 2nd law of motion:

 

F=MA

 

Force = mass x acceleration.

 

So we can re-write acceleration as Force Divided by Mass.

 

What happens when you triple the inductive force potential of the magnetic circuit, while reducing the mass of a FULL RANGE diaphragm of the circuit by about 1000x fold....?

 

Insane acceleration, transient response, spectral decay, detail and imaging...

 

Regarding your comparison to the RAAL ribbon.  Let’s take a closer look at the spec sheets and do some calculations.

 

While the mass per square inch is comparable between the RAAL ribbon diaphragm and the diaphragm in the planar magnetic  DFA510, the Dragonfire driver has 10x the driving surface area, 3x more powerful magnetic induction, and an active voice coil that is 50x times longer...

 

This translates to a to a force factor that is: 3x50/10 = 15x stronger than the RAAL.  

 

That 15x stronger force factor figure means the DFA510 diaphragm’s acceleration is 15x better than the RAAL for significantly faster transient response, detail, spectral decay, dynamics, etc.. 

 

Oh and lets not forget that the DFA is FULL RANGE driver, whereas the RAAL is a tweeter  that has to be integrated via reccomended 4th order crossover @1600 Hz with an 4.5” mid woofer (in the case of the Lunas) of a completely different electromechanical design and so will suffer from all the polar pattern difference, box artifacts, cabinet diffraction, and room reflections of traditional systems.  

 

Secondly, to your suggestion that this more of a lifestyle product when to me, it seems like it was designed and is being marketed first and foremost for professional use...

 

The mini dragons were privately demoed at the recent Audio Engineering Society conference in NYC, a pro show fo sho...  

 

The head Hardware and Software Engineers from Merging Technologies listened to the mini dragons. 

 

If you are unfamiliar with Swiss-based Merging, the vast majority (over 70%) of all DSD and DXD (352.8 KHz/24-bit) music is recorded, mixed, and mastered with their DAW technology (Pyramix).  They actually invented DXD (digital eXtreme definition).  

 

It is the industry platinum standard for professional broadcast facilities and live venues like Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln center, etc....

 

During the demo, Claude Cellier, the Founder and Owner of Merging (with a respectable set of ears himself) said about the mini dragons that “DXD music should only be listened to on these speakers”.

 

So yeah, i have a hunch that in time dragonfire will replace Genelec, Focal, Barefoot, etc as the top end solution adopted by mastering engineers around the world.  

 

Whether lifestyle/audiophile/executives who spend any reasonable amount of time in front of a computer will adopt them likely depends on if they have the 1.) money and 2,) ears to appreciate the sound.

 

Thirdly, in your earlier post you complained about the bass integration at RMAF.  

 

I found that remark to be a bit peculiar, because i spent a lot of time at both the DFA and TTVJ rooms during the show were the mini dragons were demoed, both listening to tunes in the hot seat and watching other people do the same.  

 

Since the DFA people were using MINI DSP/DIRAC to calibrate impulse response correction for the room, and that software makes it easy to take screenshots of the measured response.....i emailed dragonfire who kindly supplied me with the corrected frequency and impulse response graphs (as well as the DFA510 spec sheet to calculate the RAAL comparison.

 

As you can see, alongside the nearly perfect impulse response, there is about a 0.5 dB dip in the upper midbass of the frequency response where the sub and satellites meet.  

 

The idea that you (or anyone for that matter) would be able to hear a 0.5 dB in a blind A/B test is dare i say.....a pipe dream.

 

But if you could hear that (when you put your ears where your mouth is) than i would happily hire you to mix and master my music with your exceptional mutant golden ears.  

 

If you did though, I’d need you to to do it on my new set of mini dragons (big ups to early adoption!) as i for one am NOT going to be left in the dust of the past when this new wave of streamable DSD/DXD Audio over IP music revolution pops off in in the next few years.  

 

Happy Listening,

Casual

 

Crown Heights, Brooklyn

Kings County, NY, USA

 

raal_140-15d.pdfimageproxy.php?img=&key=d2060de9cb713f96raal_140-15d.pdf

 

DFA510 Spec Sheet.pdfimageproxy.php?img=&key=d2060de9cb713f96imageproxy.php?img=&key=d2060de9cb713f96imageproxy.php?img=&key=d2060de9cb713f96

 

 

 

IMG_4138.PNG

IMG_4139.PNG

raal_140-15d.pdf

DFA510 Spec Sheet.pdf

"So yeah, i have a hunch that in time dragonfire will replace Genelec, Focal, Barefoot, etc as the top end solution adopted by mastering engineers around the world." 

 

Don't hold your breathe. 1) Their exorbitant price will deter many pros. 2) It's a passive system 3).They appear too delicate for a workplace environment 4) Where are the 5.1, 7.1, immersive e.t.c.? 

 

Have you compared that system to the new coaxial Genelec (8331 ¯ 8341)? Thier perfoance is exceptional. 

Stereo

[Genelec 1032C x 2 + 7360 x 2] <== [MC3+USB x 3 <-- REF10 SE120] <== [AERIS G2] <== [EtherRegen x 3]
Chain switchable to [Genelec 8331 x 2 + 7350]


Surround

[Genelec 1032C x 3 + 8431 x 2  + 7360 x 2] <== [MiniDSP U-DIO8] <== [Mac Mini] 

Link to comment
On 11/6/2018 at 12:57 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

I highly recommend a little friendlier tone. It's often not what you say, but how you say it :~)

 

On 11/6/2018 at 11:17 PM, exdmd said:

Yup and lose the large typeface its as annoying as yelling or typing in all caps.

I would like to add my support for this. The tone is rather annoying too. Why so defensive?

Main System: QNAP TS-451+ NAS > Silent Angel Bonn N8 > Sonore opticalModule Deluxe v2 > Corning SMF with Finisar FTLF1318P3BTL SFPs > Uptone EtherREGEN > exaSound PlayPoint and e32 Mk-II DAC > Meitner MTR-101 Plus monoblocks > Bamberg S5-MTM sealed standmount speakers. 

Crown XLi 1500 powering  AV123 Rocket UFW10 stereo subwoofers

Upgraded power on all switches, renderer and DAC. 

 

Link to comment

Omitted: 5) No AES. Spdif doesn't cut it with pros

 

Since you seem affiliates with the company, I'll opine "Dragonfire" is a poor choice for a name. I understand the origin, which all in itself is grandiliquent, but it comes across presumptuous and adulesent. "Dangeons and Dragons" pops in mind...

 

Still, if the sound is as fantastic as you claim, there's a possibility it will ekk out a niche in the hi-end market. Good luck! 

 

Stereo

[Genelec 1032C x 2 + 7360 x 2] <== [MC3+USB x 3 <-- REF10 SE120] <== [AERIS G2] <== [EtherRegen x 3]
Chain switchable to [Genelec 8331 x 2 + 7350]


Surround

[Genelec 1032C x 3 + 8431 x 2  + 7360 x 2] <== [MiniDSP U-DIO8] <== [Mac Mini] 

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



×
×
  • Create New...