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MOTION FEED BACK ( MFB) 


MAKE SMALL SUBWOOFERS 

 SOUND BIG!

Contact: Zami Schwartzman, CEO
Thermoguide Ltd 
zamisch1@gmail.com
972.54.7251937


About us

Thermoguide Ltd is a private owned company  providing electronics engineering services to the high tech community.

During the last 15 years Thermoguide provided design and analysis services to the professional sound engineering community.

We realized that bass notes reproduction by small near field monitor speakers is a significant issue and we took the challenge of developing a new listening experience -The Desktop Near Field Subwoofers.

Our  small Near Field Desktop subwoofers is a new listening concept  intended to be used by Home studio users  and professional sound engineers with their existing near field monitor speakers placed on top of them.

Low cost monitors can be used with excellent sound results because they do not have to reproduce bass notes. 

Subwoofers can be made very small compared to traditional subwoofers by using MFB (Motion Feed Back ). 

In 1968 Phillips published a paper describing the benefits of MFB for low frequency reproduction by small speakers.

Since then, many MFB related patents were issued, most of them were abandoned, terminated or expired after 20 years from their issue date and now can be used by the industry.

Thermoguide use a mature MFB technology based on our custom designed acceleration sensor. The sensor monitors the woofer's Voice Coil dynamics and feeds back a signal to the amplifier's input thus rectifying the driver's non linearity and the sharp resonance created when using small sealed enclosure.

 

 

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ZRS-1 20X20X20 cm Desktop Subwoofers for Home Studios and Gamers 

WHAT WE DO?

  • Motion Feedback (MFB) Subwoofers.

  • ​Desktop Near Field Subwoofers 

  • Shallow under the seat Car Subwoofers

  • In Wall shallow subwoofers

  • Small Subwoofers for smart speakers 

  • Motion Feed Back speaker technology consulting, technology licensing  and custom design.

  • Tiny, low mass, low noise acceleration sensors for MFB 

  • We modify drivers by adding acceleration sensors, ready to be used in MFB systems.

  • Fully assembled Plate Amplifiers with Motion Feedback control, cross over and voice coil thermal protection that can be matched with any low frequency MFB driver.

Near Field Desktop Subwoofers

Shallow under the seat MFB Car Subwoofer
Thermoguide Ltd developed a shallow "Under the seat " car subwoofer. We use our Motion Feed Back ( MFB ) enabled 8 Inch driver in a sealed 32x24x7 cm Aluminum enclosure to reproduce powerfull bass with flat frequency response of 30-300 Hz.
With our MFB technoliogy we get accurate low distortion bass notes with fast transient response that blend perfectly with the original car speakers.
Other manufacturers simply use equalizers  andheavy metal wight bonded on the driver's cone. That method yields sharp low frequency resonance and overhanged, sustained and boomy bass.


 

ZRS-1 20X20X20 cm  Subwoofers for Home Studios and Gamers 

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ZRS-1 DESKTOP SUBWOOFERS- FRONT AND  BACK VIEW


DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

The vast majority of small near field monitors do not reproduce the low notes between 30 and 60 Hz because low frequency Inter modulation with mid range frequencies degrade clarity and imaging , therefore the low frequency range is sharply filtered out.

Most near field monitor speakers use ported enclosure to enhance bass response but the result is overhanged sustained bass transient response.

Adding a subwoofer with well designed crossover filter can eliminate these issues thus much louder SPL with low distortion can be attained.

However, most commercial subwoofers have large floor standing enclosures, heavily exciting room modes and therefore poorly blending with near field monitors.

Thermoguide's small size ( 20X20X20 cm ) near field subwoofers are intended to be placed on desktop with Low cost monitor speakers placed on top of them, thus perfect acoustic wave front alignment can be achieved at listener's ear height.

With desktop Near Field Subwoofers, room reflection effects are significantly reduced. 

Our Desktop subwoofers blend well with any near field monitors by using 4th order Linkwitz Riley cross over filters at 100 or 200 Hz where the monitors are relatively flat with smooth phase shift.

By using MFB, tightly controlled bass transients can be reproduced without the overhanged or sustained response so common with ported enclosures.

Our Subwoofers can compliment any commercial Near Field studio monitors with the much needed bottom octave of 30-60 Hz, with superb clarity and stereo image.

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ZRS-1 SUBWOOFERS WITH KH M402 MONITORS ON TOP 

 ( PHOTO BY COURTESY OF YUVAL SILBERSTEIN, WWW.YUVALSOUND.COM)

THE ZRS-1 PLATE AMPLIFIER

MBF control circuit, high power class D amplifier and a powerful switching power supply  are combined on our plate amplifier, ready to be used with any driver with enclosure size from 20x20x20 cm to infinite baffel. Flat frequency response can be achieved by selecting only a few control parameters.

Voice coil temperature is monitored real time preventing voice coil overheating damage.


Features:

- Subwoofer Volume control.

- Selectable 100/200 Hz 4th order linkwitz–Riley crossover.

- Selectable full range 30-400 Hz response for external crossover.

- Bypass mode switch, in bypass mode the input signal is routed to the monitors while the subwoofer is muted.

- Mono (L+R bass signals summed) or full Stereo operation.

- Real time voice coil  thermal protection.

- Red light indicator for near clipping warning.  

- Power saving activated after 5 minutes without input signal.

Driver and enclosure selection

For our desktop subwoofer we use a 6.5" driver with our custom designed sensor bonded on the voice coil former.

This driver is engaged  with the ZRS-1 plate amplifier in a 20X20X20 cm enclosure that is small enough to fit under any near field monitor speaker.


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ZRS-1 SUBWOOFERS WITH NEUMANN KH120 MONITORS

 ( PHOTO BY COURTESY OF YUVAL SILBERSTEIN, WWW.YUVALSOUND.COM)


ZRS-1 DESKTOP SUBWOOFER –TEST RESULTS

Speaker acoustics theory teach us that voice coil acceleration is directly proportional to the acoustic output of a woofer with sealed enclosure when in piston mode  bellow the breakup frequency.
In the following chart Gren plot is  the Voive coil acceleearion without MFB, Red plot is with MFB .
It is also known that very close microphone measurement on the acoustic axis of  the driver is closely proportional to free field measurements.
In the second chart , Red plot is microphone output with 100 Hz crossover filter , Blue plot is with 200 Hz crossover, Green plot is full subwoofer bandwidth .

Frequency response

Green plot - with MFB disabled

Red plot - with MFB enabled 

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Cross Over response

Green plot - cross over bypassed

Red plot- cross over at 100 Hz

Blue plot- cross over at 200 Hz 

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ZRS-1 Block Diagram

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CONTACT

Zami Schwartzman , CEO
Thermoguide Ltd
Ben Yehuda Eliezer 14
Rehovot
Israel 7630101

+972.54.725.1937

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