SA-v2 tweeters

SA Series Speakers

When we set out to design our "SA" series component we knew it had to be something special; something to uphold the reputation of the SA series subwoofer line. But at the same time the price had to remain reasonable; something that almost anyone can afford. We are very proud of what we came up with for this line.

 

The SA component set starts out with its custom designed midrange driver. The mid features a high quality cast aluminum basket as its starting point; where many speakers in this category go with cheaper stamped steel frames.

 

The cone is a carefully selected blend of paper and wool fibers designed to damp any unwanted resonances. The dust cap is a soft poly whose size, shape, and material were all chosen to create the least amount of breakup and distortion as possible. The surround is a very compliant rubber that helps to tame any remaining edge resonances within the cone. With any midrange the cone, surround, and dust cap are CRITICAL to the sound. When designing the SA set we had no concern for fancy cosmetics or other "audio jewelry" -- we only wanted the smoothest sound possible.

 

The motor was FEA optimized in-house to increase linear excursion and features a full 6mm one-way linear excursion thanks to a carefully designed motor and extended pole piece. We also thoroughly considered thermal performance in the design with the SA mid featuring a vented magnetic gap and a vented voice coil collar. The 60-watt per side power rating on the SA mid is derived from a full 8-hour test on pink noise (full bandwidth down to 20 Hz) -- so when crossed over on the bottom-end this figure ends up being VERY conservative. Most customers use 100+ watt RMS amplifiers on the SA sets.

 

The SA series tweeter had to match the smooth sound of the midrange so we went with a silk dome. We tested numerous versions, tweaked the gap, dome material, tested various lenses, various chamber damping materials, so on and so forth until arriving at the final design. As the response graph is proof of the result is an incredibly smooth sounding tweeter. Don't be fooled by the simple housing -- as we are all taught not to judge a book by its cover and you will find this tweeter performs as good or better than many fancier looking counterparts. We stuck with the Sundown mentality of not spending money where it doesn't increase performance.

 

The crossover is also relatively simple looking at first glance but it does the job perfectly. It is a 12 dB network centered at 3800 Hz with high quality air core inductors and Mylar capacitors. It also features the ability to change the LPF on the mid from a 12dB, to 6dB, to a bypassed slope as well as to adjust the tweeter from 0, to -3, to -6 dB levels.

 

We are confident that anyone who is after a smooth sounding set will be incredibly pleased with the SA component line. Reviews have been overwhelmingly positive on them from all over the globe. If you are a metal or hard dome tweeter fan it may not be your set but we will develop a "sharper" sounding set down the line!

 

RMS Power = 60-watts Per Side @ 8-hours pink noise