ARCHITECTURAL RIBBON LOUDSPEAKERS™
ARCHITECTURAL RIBBON LOUDSPEAKERS™
Fibonacci 1.1 Gen 3.1 In-Wall Display at the Capital Audiofest
On March 27, 2008, at the Montreal Festival du Son, Fibonacci Technologies™ debuted the first significant evolutionary step in ribbon loudspeakers since the days of Apogee Acoustics, with the introduction of the Fibonacci Ribbon Transducer™. Combining all of the speed and clarity dynamics of a classical ribbon with a large listening window and unprecedented dynamics, many attendees felt the Fibonacci 1.1 was the best sound at the show.
On April 1, 2010, came the revolutionary step: the Fibonacci 1.1 Gen 3.1: a single ribbon transducer that far surpasses the performance of all previous ribbons, overcomes all of their shortcomings, and exhibits an unprecedented bandwith of 80Hz to beyond 30kHz.
What sets the Fibonacci Ribbon™ apart:
The Fibonacci Transducer™ is a true ribbon loudspeaker. Exactly like a classical ribbon, the aluminum composite diaphragm directly carries the amplifiers' musical information. It is the actual electrons that leave the amplifier - floating on the ribbon's surface and touching the air - that creates the motion in the air we hear as sound. There is no dynamically constricting transformer, no resonance-storing mechanical linkages, no floppy old cone. The sound from a ribbon is true to its source. Pure. No generation losses. Naturally musical.
But the Fibonacci Transducer™ goes several leaps further. Unlike classical ribbons, which were notoriously inefficient, low impedance and a popular gateway to the great amplifier graveyard, a Fibonacci Ribbon™ is high impedance, extremely efficient and a dream for any amplifier to drive.
Fibonacci Vaya! Ribbon Tower Monitor,
American Walnut finish
Classical ribbons, when played loud, would spin and flip and generate clearly audible distortion, just before they or the amplifier burned out. A Fibonacci Ribbon™ can play at extraordinarily loud volume levels yet stays beautifully controlled and show no hints of distortion.
Classical ribbons required the listener to stay in the "sweet spot", defined by a very particular height within a narrow horizontal window (jokingly called "the head in a vice effect"). A Fibonacci Transducer™, because of its unique, patented curved diaphragm, has a vertical listening window the height of the entire ribbon, and is not the least bit particular about the horizontal window. We call this the Sweet Field™.
Classical ribbons would always struggle at the extreme top end, losing a bit sparkle just when one needed it most. Because the Fibonacci Ribbon™ is so much lighter it excels at high frequencies, with measured performance to well beyond 30kHz, and reproduces the top end with detail and delicacy that beforehand had been impossible for any kind of loudspeaker.
And there is more:
The computer-optimized drive system of the Fibonacci Ribbon Transducers'™ is so advanced, at normal listening levels the distortion is so vanishingly low it can not be precisely measured (in most cases, it is lower than that of the accompanying amplifier.) At higher listening levels, what little distortion the ribbon produces is entirely even order harmonic - the type to which the ear is least sensitive but subconsciously registers as a kind of harmonic enrichment, the same intrinsic quality of most good tube amplifiers.
Because the Fibonacci Transducer™ reproduces very little sound above or below its length, there are no floor and ceiling reflections. It is floor and ceiling reflections that cause the "gymnasium effect" from which all conventional dome-and-cone- loudspeakers suffer. Home theaters outfitted with Fibonacci Ribbon Transducers™ do not require extensive floor and ceiling treatment, and generally sound best without any digital room correction.
The Fibonacci Ribbons' energy stays tightly focussed within the "sweet field™" listening window and loses very little volume with distance. This means that one can very close to one ribbon and quite far away from a second, yet hear them both clearly. One would think that this is more important in large listening rooms, but we have found it is actually equally crucial in smaller listening environments, where one often needs to be quite close to one of the loudspeakers.
And then, there is the absence of a crossover. All Fibonacci Ribbons™ can cover a bandwidth of 80Hz to beyond 30kHz, over eight octaves. There is no voicing transition region, where with conventional loudspeakers one can clearly hear the woofer is not as fast as the tweeter. There is no sudden change in the dispersion pattern. There are no off-axis nulls or a finicky sweet spot. The sound of a Fibonacci Ribbon Transducer™ is wonderfully coherent, natural musical, subtle, complex and sophisticated but not in the least mechanical. Our best phrase to describe its unique character is harmonic continuity™.
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ARCHITECTURAL RIBBON LOUDSPEAKERS™
PO Box 1120, Old Forge NY 13420 USA
315-369-2500
This publication is copyright © 2008, 2009, 2010 by North Creek Music Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
Fibonacci Technologies™, Architectural Ribbon Loudspeakers™, Fibonacci Ribbon Transducer™, Fibonacci Ribbon™, Fibonacci Transducer™, Sweet Field™, harmonic continuity™ trademarks are used with permission.