Monitor Audio Speaker Technologies

Monitor Audio: The Power of C-CAM®

C-CAM stands for Ceramic-Coated Aluminium/Magnesium, which is a material originally developed by the aerospace industry for jet engine components. Its properties are ideal for loudspeaker cones being extremely rigid, yet light enough to yield high overall efficiency.

In manufacture, aluminium/magnesium alloy undergoes a three-stage stress-relieving process to remove surface deformation and molecular weakness. Once formed, the alloy cone is subjected to a high temperature anodic coating process in which a layer of pure ceramic alumina is depleted onto its surfaces to a depth of 50 microns, producing a completely rigid sandwich of alloy and heat-dissipating ceramic material.
Conventional cone materials are more likely to flex in operation, producing a significant level of audible distortion. C-CAM cones have a much higher resistance to bending stress and therefore exhibit much greater fidelity over their entire operating range. C-CAM bass drivers are able to resist the bending distortion imposed by sudden and extreme bass excursions to reproduce very clean, deep and dynamic bass frequencies. C-CAM tweeters and woofers share an audible consistency producing a smooth transition of frequencies and a sense of realism and cohesion in the soundstage.

Monitor Audio's Gold Dome Tweeter is also formed from a C-CAM alloy, gold anodised to a specific thickness for ideal stiffness and damping characteristics. Its new profile and surround geometry have been developed using advanced modelling tools, to provide the optimum qualities for accurate sound reproduction. The new design moves the first order of breakup to beyond 35kHz, producing a linear response way beyond audibility, which matches the wide frequency bandwidth available from HD music and cinema sound formats. The gold dome is thinner, lighter, more rigid and therefore more efficient than domes made from other materials which are prone to distortion in the audio band.

Monitor Audio's Winning Ribbon

Monitor Audio's higher end speaker systems have a certain quality and magic that makes them deliver such an astonishing sound. The source of this magic is Monitor Audio's proprietary ribbon tweeter.

The ribbon tweeter design uses an ultra-thin sandwich of C-CAM® alloy suspended in a powerful transverse magnetic field of high energy NeFeB rare earth magnets. The ribbon serves as both voice coil and radiating diaphragm, with every part of the ribbon driven directly and simultaneously without energy storage. Having a mass of just 18mg, its diaphragm is able to start and stop in an instant, producing a transient response capable of defining the leading edge and natural harmonic resonance of complex musical sounds.

Specified to reach ultra-high frequencies up to an elusive 100 kHz, Monitor Audio’s magical ribbon tweeter will reproduce with ease every last nuance and detail from vinyl, CD, DVD-A and SACD, together with the wider bandwidth of Blu-ray. This ribbon tweeter is currently featured on Monitor Audio's highest quality speakers: the Platinum Series and Gold GX Series.