Eminence Speakers Helps Players Get Better Tone at Lower Volume

Marc Johnson | Apr 27, 2010 | Comments 11

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April 27, 2010

Eminence Speakers Helps Players Get Better Tone at Lower Volume

By Marc Johnson for The Tone King

For those of you who aren’t in the know about Big Tony, he is a guitar player and the Senior Lab Tech at Eminence Speakers. In addition to being with Eminence for over 10 years, he also writes columns for players who want to know how speakers work. While other guys are just trying to sell you something for the sake of profit, Tony and the folks at Eminence prefer to educate people on how gear actually works, and you know The Tone King is all about the education. Well, our buddy Big Tony and Eminence Speakers have come up with something that just may revolutionize speaker technology.

Just like you, at TTK, we are always cranking our amps up. And, like you, when we go on the road, the first thing we hear from the sound guy is “Turn that damn thing down!” We know that our best sound lies at ten, but we are condemned to the hell of keeping our amps at low volumes.

Eminence’s Flux Density Modulation (FDM) Technology is an all-analog mechanism that is actually built into the speaker itself. Without using attenuation circuits, FDM Technology keeps the signal path as unaffected as possible. The dial on the back of the speaker mechanically manipulates the flux path and relative densities within a loudspeaker motor structure. The FDM knob can attenuate the signal up to 9db. To anyone who has used attenuators before, generally that’s about as far as you can go before you really start noticing a significant (i.e. bad) change in your tone. According to their website, www.Eminence.com/fdm, Eminence’s FDM technology will be available in two of their speaker lines, the Patriot and the Red Coat series, and two different models, the Maverick and the ReignMaker.

In addition to attenuating your signal, the FDM will also allow you to accentuate the tones that you already get from your amp. When you add more attenuation, your tone will get warmer as your volume goes down, and when you remove attenuation, your tone will get brighter as you get louder. This feature will give players the ability to actually manipulate the characteristics of the speaker, providing them with more options and dynamics.

Maybe, once we get our hands on them, we’ll do another tutorial on speaker installation and show you how to pop them in your favorite cabinet. Until then, TheToneKing.com is looking forward to taking these out for a test drive as well as seeing what else Big Tony and Eminence has in store for us down the road.

The Tone King with Big Tony @ Winter NAMM 2010