EMILAR

Established in 1980 by Manny Mohageri, Harold Lindsay, and Jonas Renkus, Emilar Corp produced excellent compression drivers and cast aluminium horn flares in Anaheim, California, for 27 years. For a brief period, the company was owned by E3MC Inc, and the Emilar drivers and horns were marketed by BGW Systems (of amplifier fame) and for several years they were built and sold by Plus One Engineering.

Jonas designed a radical silicone suspension for the 44mm aluminium diaphragm, which avoided the pitfalls of typical roll, tangential and diamond pattern surrounds, and provided excellent mechanical damping. Conventional all-aluminium diaphragms have a serious problem with tearing the suspension if they recieve signals below their normal crossover frequency. Jonas's supension eliminated this common failure mode, so Emilar drivers not only sounded good, but kept sounding good for longer than other drivers. A later refinement of this suspension technique substiuted a low-mass PET ring for the original silicone component.

Their first product was the EA-175 compression driver, which offered superior sonic performance to its JBL and Altec comtempraries. It employed a large Alnico-V magnet, but soon after it was introduced, the cost of Cobalt (a major component of Alnico-V) rose to over ten times it's historical value. All driver manufacturers were forced to redesign drivers to use ceramic ferrite magnets, during 1979 and 1980. Jonas reworked the EA-175 into the more affordable EC-175 by using a large ferrite magnet, and took the opportunity to create a higher output version, ECH-175, with twice the size of ferrite magnet. Emilar also produced a 'bullet' tweeter, the ECVH, for several years, which continued the tradition of sounding great, and presenting good value.

Emilar's famous EH-800 'bow-tie' horn was an unusual 'throatless' exponential 800Hz design, with a 25mm (1") entry, which found immediate acceptance for its low distortion and almost perfect 90-degree dispersion. The EH-500 50mm (2") entry, 500Hz horn flare was a small, light, 'throatless' radial flare that sounded far better than the contemporary JBL or Altec offerings, becoming a reference standard.

Later horn flares, like the delightful EH-520, EH-810 and EH-1210, used the 'reciprocating flare' topology pioneered by Abe Cohen at University Sound, for exceptional sound quality and good pattern control. With their more conventional mounting flanges, this later horn family was even more popular with enclosure manufacturers. Thanks to excellent acoustic design, they continued to add to Emilar's enviable reputation.

Emilar crossovers, like virtually all networks of the day, were built with good components, but were textbook designs that had less-than-perfect response with real loudspeakers attached. And, as with all similar networks, they can be, and should be, modified with Zobel networks and horn equalization, to improve their sound quality.

Although the factory closed in 2007, diaphragms for Emilar compression drivers are still available, and we keep a small stock of Emilar drivers and horn flares for special projects. Parts for reconing Emilar 10", 12" and 15" woofers are also available, and we enjoy complete access to all of Emilar's technical files.