Are Field Coil drivers back in fashion? Andrew Jones' new speaker!

Just noticed on YT Andrew Jones’ new speaker Troubadour for his new company Jones & Cerreta. It will be unveiled in Axpona.

I believe they wanted to use field coil to stand out from the crowd. No need for field coils with the magnets we have today.

With field coils the can reach certain customers that want special stuff and are able to pay for it.

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What is a field coil Driver? How does it differ!

It is an electromagnet powered by a DC supply.

They were more common many years ago when we did not had the tech to manufacture powerful magnets.

The old school Japanese hifi company GIP Labratory makes field coil drivers today. Very expensive stuff.

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So basically this kind of tech is tube amp friendly. Do I understand it correctly?
Is there any other advantage to this tech? I mean in how they present the musical content, I haven’t listened to any such speaker in my 30+ years.

I guess so. The sensitivity var 97db, he said.

Was googling to see what this is all about.

There’s no way SWMBO would approve of any of their speaker systems in the lounge :laughing:

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It is not my type of preferred design either.

The drivers are in the $25000 + range. Each.

There’s no way SWMBO or you could reasonably fit into your listening room with those speakers in there.

Mind you, it was nostalgic to see a website that was last updated in 2001. Took me right back.

Ha yes I noticed the date, perhaps they have miniaturised somewhat today :laughing:

Their systems were not only enormous, but fugly too.

The sort of pictures which get posted on FaceBook groups taking the mick of “audiophools”

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Audio Note UK has field coil speakers, and even a field coil phono cartridge. The electrified field coil is said to be more stable than conventional magnets. Songer Audio and Treehouse Audiolab also use this technology; generally very well reviewed, albeit expensive.

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But again. I believe they want to hit certain customers. Field coil is appealing(for some), unusual and very expensive.

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In a certain way field coil speakers are not unlike Naim, both have external power supplies :grinning_face:

To the best of my memory fiekd coil magnets were surpassed by permanent magnets when ceramic magnets came in, especially AlNiCo, though that is very expensive, and of course the rare earth magnets that have appeared in recent years, e.g. neodymium, can achieve extremely high field strengths (and few loudspeaker drivers need or use the highest strengths possible). permanent magnets. Electromagnets (field coil) need a DC supply, often a power supply from the mains.

At any given magnetic field strength and size (flux density and field dimensions), there would be no difference in sound quality between an electromagnet and a permanent magnet it is just a matter of which technology can achieve whatever the manufacturer wants (or can achieve it at lower cost, or even higher cost or greater impressiveness if either is deemed beneficial to sales.)

Voxativ is one manufacturer who has been making modern field coil speakers for some years now, mainly focussed on high efficiency (high flux density) full range drivers akin to those of Lowther, but some with electromagnets.

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Very interesting speaker idea

I owned a pair of Lowther full range speakers years ago and they were absolutely incredible with a 1.5w SET amp. Probably one of the best speakers I’ve ever owned and heard but only for certain types of music plus they are fragile and need very special care

They seem decor and space friendly enough to me.

As electricity gets cheaper with fusion and renewable and rare Earth’s used in magnets become ever rarer, the shift back to field coils for all sorts of things might be a realistic outcome in our lifetime.

I think he is clear in the video they are not making a comeback. He just personally like the retro sound of them.

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Close to home, some Focal speakers have field coil drivers for the woofers…

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Rated Sensitivity & f3 are not possible if my napkin math is correct for enclosure volume. Hoffman’s Iron Law and all that jazz.

Speaker looks nice. Though, the field coil stuff is far better employed on bass drivers in a design like this as it can permit some minor tuning-ability of the damping of the bass system. Unnecessary on a coaxial mid/tweeter with AlNiCo or Neo available. Mms of the mid is inherently compromised due to the oversized VC (which exists solely to accommodate the tweeter system inside of it), but he’s obviously tapped into the OEM of MoFi for the coaxial driver set. They can’t be happy about that.

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In a fully underhung motor (The “short coil, long gap” Jones cites), there’s virtually no benefit to field stability.

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Heard these at Axpona 2026 and sounded quite good, in spite of the room being too small for these behemoths. I think they could be excellent in a larger room with appropriate breathing space.

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