For the February 2020 edition of Voice Coil magazine, Vance Dickason characterizes the Radian 835PB ferrite compression driver.
Voice Coil has featured several of Radian’s neodymium series of compression drivers, including the 960PB and the 950PB 2” exit aluminum diaphragm compression drivers in the November 2014 issue, the 745NEO with both the aluminum and beryllium diaphragms in the October 2017 issue, the 951PB Neo compression driver in the July 2018 issue, and the 745PB ferrite 1.4” aluminum diaphragm compression driver in the December 2018 edition.
Radian 835BP SoundCheck CSD waterfall plot.
If you are familiar with Radian’s compression drivers, or have read some of the past explications about Radian’s neodymium compression drivers, the 835PB has the expected rich feature set of other Radian compression drivers. This includes a 1.4” throat diameter, a 190 mm × 190 mm ferrite magnet motor, high temperature 76.2 mm (3”) diameter polyimide voice coil former with a copper clad aluminum edge wound ribbon wire voice coil, a self-aligning field replaceable diaphragm assembly, and the most important feature, a proprietary processed and hardened aerospace grade aluminum alloy diaphragm over a three-slit phase plug. The driver has color-coded gold-plated push terminals and a net weight of 14.6 lbs.
Renowned for its mastery of diaphragms, compression drivers and coaxial loudspeakers, with the 835PB, Radian Audio shows how the company continues to offer excellent performance in a fairly high power handling package (200 W continuous power handling - 100 W AES2 Rev. 2003). The 835BP is also available with a beryllium diaphragm.
From the test measurements, the 835PB 1.4” ferrite compression driver displays excellent performance in a fairly high power handling package (200 W continuous [3 dB higher than the AES power rating]), and a ferrite motor compression driver build quality that is on par with the best players in this industry.
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