MOYA M1

The Moya M1 was born of circumstance. Quarantined in a hotel room for 10 days by the global pandemic, Laurence Dickie began to sketch out an idea for a speaker that could do it all.

Physically, that concept would evolve many times through the R&D phase but the vision remained unchanged: the non plus ultra of loudspeakers, able to handle anything with aplomb. A loudspeaker so imbued with power and authority, particularly from the lower frequencies, that it could deliver any and all types of music with effortless grace.

As the Vivid Audio team went into test phase, the design of the Moya began to take shape. An imposing stack of bass drivers became the dominant feature of the curvaceous design. Early results reaffirmed the observation that an extended low frequency range actually helps with the overall perspective of the entire frequency range.

Of course, a loudspeaker is much more than just the bass, but the low frequency section does play an outsized role. Most importantly, it sets the system efficiency and, since it is relatively straightforward to create high efficiency mid-band drivers, these have to be attenuated back to the level set by the bass.

PUSHING THE ENVELOPE

“In most loudspeakers, the bass section determines performance, as far as the laws of physics will allow.

A cone moving this far at this frequency will supply so many dBs and no more. The length of the linear electromagnetic ‘push’ is set by the length of the voice coil and magnetic gap. Not far behind is the suspension design which eventually pulls tight and stops further movement.

Therefore, to increase the volume of air being moved, you must increase the cone area. Every doubling in cone area creates three more dBs, or, for the same level, a halving of the cone excursion.
The more cone area you can have, the smaller the cone displacement and the easier the loudspeaker has it – hence ‘effortless’.

With its 45mm magnetic gap, the C225 driver is no slouch but reducing the excursion by a factor of eight through the use of eight drivers means that they’re just ticking over while you enjoy a massive auditory slam.”