How are Tectonic loudspeakers different from existing speaker designs?

Distributed Mode Loudspeakers generate sound in a fundamentally different way than traditional loudspeakers.

Conventional loudspeakers use uniform pistonic behavior, whether it’s a cone or dome, or some form of planar magnetic or electrostatic device; usually a ribbon or an electrostatic driver. In other words, traditional loudspeakers are air pumps that create sound waves by moving large volumes of air.

The primary goal of the transducer engineer using a conventional design is to make sure the diaphragm does not have any anomalies, i.e. that it does not “break up” in its pass band. However, diaphragm break up is inevitable. The secondary goal is then to move the frequency of this break up as high as possible so that when it does occur, the crossover filter has significantly reduced its level.

We use bending wave modes in our Distributed Mode Loudspeakers (DMLs), which are designed to break up and not just move as a uniform piston. This break up, i.e. “modal behavior” is very intentional and highly engineered to produce a “diffuse sound source,” which correlates at the human ear.

The acoustic differences, both the traits and benefits, are also fundamental. Conventional drivers are either a point-source or a line-source with fixed-size radiators, and as such they “beam” (exhibit a narrowing pattern at higher frequencies) and have strong (destructive and constructive) interactions with room boundaries. DMLs are a diffuse sound source and are highly resistant to disruptive room interactions, especially within the human vocal range, i.e. they are highly intelligible —even in bad acoustic spaces.

The bending waves in a DML panel are dispersive, meaning that the bending wave speed varies with frequency. This ensures that the primary radiation center automatically adjusts its size to provide wide angle output well beyond that of an equivalently sized piston driver.

There are many other benefits from DML applications including high-resistance to microphone feedback, very low distortion, higher relative acoustic efficiencies, low drop-off front to back, a flat form-factor and more.