Music

Flat-panel guitar speaker designed for clean tones and wide dispersion

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The ModelTwenty flat-panel guitar speaker is designed to be driven by a 20-100-W amp head, and includes tone settings for acoustic and electric guitars
Eminent Technology
The ModelTwenty flat-panel guitar speaker is designed to be driven by a 20-100-W amp head, and includes tone settings for acoustic and electric guitars
Eminent Technology
The ModelTwenty is just 2.5 inches thick, and tips the scales at 23 pounds
Eminent Technology
The ModelTwenty is designed to output tones with a much wider dispersion than conventional instrument speakers
Eminent Technology
The front and back panels serve as active diaphragms, with the speaker rocking the same diaphragm cone area as a traditional 4 x 12 speaker cabinet at a fraction of the size and weight
Eminent Technology
The back panel is home to tone switches (top left) and amp connections (top right)
Eminent Technology
The ModelTwenty features a built-in kickstand for a 20-degree lean on stage
Eminent Technology
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Unless you're successful enough to pay roadies, one of the great pains of being a gigging musician is lugging around heavy equipment like amps and cabs. Bruce Thigpen of Eminent Technology has come up with a guitar speaker design that lightens the load.

Florida's Eminent Technology was founded by Thigpen in the early 1980s, and is responsible for the world's first infrasound speaker (the TRW-17 rotary woofer), the first push-pull planar magnetic speaker, and the first flat-panel computer speakers. And now he's designed the transducer at the heart of the ModelTwenty guitar speaker.

Measuring around 2.5 inches thick (635 mm), the flat-panel speaker stands 32 in (812 mm) tall and is 22 in (558 mm) wide. The design is said to give each unit the same diaphragm cone area as a traditional 4 x 12 cabinet, but wrapped up in a lighter package of 23 lb (10 kg).

The front and back of the ModelTwenty are reported to serve as active diaphragms, and the speaker "behaves mostly like a piston up to about 400 Hz and then transitions to Distributed Mode Operation at higher frequencies."

The ModelTwenty is designed to output tones with a much wider dispersion than conventional instrument speakers
Eminent Technology

It's built to be used with an amplifier head rated between 20 and 100 watts, and has its own retractable kickstand for a 20-degree lean on stage. The speaker features an open-back design and rocks an octave lower and an octave higher than a traditional guitar cab while offering a clean sound with "less compression and much wider dispersion than conventional musical instrument speakers."

The ModelTwenty has a rated sensitivity of 99 dB/watt, an impedance of 8 ohms and sports tuning switches that cater for acoustic and lead guitar tones. The speaker can also be used with keyboards, synths, wind instruments like a saxophone and other stringed instruments such as a violin.

It's available now for US$2,600 per unit, and future plans call for the technology to spawn a stage monitor, bass speaker and full PA system. As far as we can tell, there's only one video of the ModelTwenty in action on YouTube as of writing, which you can see here.

Product page: ModelTwenty

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3 comments
Tristan P
Interesting take on a guitar cabinet. There's no pictures behind the front cover, so it's hard to know what drivers it's using. Is it a ribbon. speaker? Or a series of smaller drivers like Bose used in their 802 boxes?
jerryd
I used to service these style speakers decades ago and while excellent at low power levels with a great undistorted sound, they can't put out much volume, especially for lower guitar, base, drum notes.
So they were paired often with subwoofers if they wanted high volume.
Tristan, , it is a single rectangular speaker 'cone' just smaller than the case likely with 1 driver.
MQ
Tech ingredients on YT had a small series on DIY flat panel speakes for one's budget listening room...
Of course little beats the thrill of that latest high tech acquisition, maybe appart from aking something oneself... (tone shifting and modulation, I am sure there will be an app for that??)

Of course this could be a great addition for many giggers.