MoFi Electronics introduced its new SourcePoint 10 loudspeakers at Capital Audiofest in Rockville, MD, U.S.A., running November 11 through November 13. The speakers are the result of 18 months of research and development led by Chief Speaker Designer Andrew Jones. Designed like a cost-no-object loudspeaker, SourcePoint 10 is completely custom-tooled with proprietary technology to deliver the highest sound quality and value.
“Regardless of what an audio product costs, my passion is to deliver a level of sound quality and an experience that is far beyond the asking price,” says Jones.
One of MoFi Electronics’ primary goals with SourcePoint 10 is to break through the crowded speaker market with a unique model that stands out sonically and visually. Noteworthy is the development of MoFi’s own custom driver — especially a 10-inch concentric type engineered with innovative concepts. Though Jones has a global reputation for his concentric driver expertise, SourcePoint 10 marks a departure from his past designs. Instead of building a traditional three-way implementation with small drivers, Jones and MoFi devised a two-way speaker with a large driver.
A 10-inch diameter was chosen as the ideal size for the two-way concentric to minimize cone movement and produce deep bass. MoFi worked from a paper pulp mix and developed a cone shape that both optimizes resonant behavior and meets the requirements of the tweeter waveguide. Jones opted for paper after evaluating a variety of exotic materials. He adds that paper has the quintessential combination of properties for the size of the cone he needed.
The tweeter is a 1.25-inch soft dome capable of working at the 1.6Khz crossover point due to its wide-roll surround and large-diameter voice coil. The wide surround extends the low- and high-frequency response of the tweeter, while the loading of the waveguide increases the low-end efficiency by a significant margin.
SourcePoint 10 is driven by a magnet system that MoFi calls “Twin-Drive.” This important technical achievement helps the speaker play with exceptional clarity. After months of running magnetic field simulations, Jones selected high-flux neodymium magnets for the woofer and tweeter that are precisely coupled to create a compound effect: each aids the other in driving the flux across the woofer and tweeter gaps. The Twin-Drive magnet structure was also built to create a fully symmetrical magnetic field, which eliminates flux modulation for extremely low intermodulation distortion (IMD) and accurate reproduction.
“It is not enough to simply optimize the frequency response of the woofer and tweeter,” says Jones. “It is also critically important to minimize distortion in the motor structure of the drive unit. If the motor has distortion, it will generate new frequencies outside of the original signal. We have been very deliberate with the design of the motor to reduce these distortions.”
Tremendous thought was also given to the cabinet and shape of the two-inch-thick front baffle. The sculpted, multi-faceted baffle stands in front of the mid-century-inspired cabinet frame to reduce diffraction. Made of one-inch-thick MDF panels for the sides, top, bottom, and back, the cabinet itself has an internal volume of 50 liters, or almost two cubic feet. This size gave MoFi the desired combination of bass extension and efficiency, with a sensitivity of 91dB, low-frequency point of 42Hz, and true eight-ohm impedance with a minimum of 6.4 ohms. In sum, SourcePoint 10 is extremely easy to drive. Two additional braces further strengthen the interior while the exterior is wrapped in a real wood veneer of either satin walnut or black ash.
Would love to see an A/B comparison between these and KEF Meta LS50’s. Personally, I’ve long felt the 50’s a little small and wondered how they would be if the bigger driver was 8 or so inches.