Technics SB-30 (c. 1972)
Little is documented about the Technics SB-30 beyond its original Japanese catalog listings. What the record shows is a small, carefully thought-out speaker. It was a 1-way, 1-speaker airtight bookshelf system built around a single 9cm cone full-range driver. It was priced at ¥6,500 per unit around 1972, and listings from around 1974 show ¥7,500.
The engineering is the interesting part. Technics lowered the driver's free-air resonance by refining the cone paper and edge, and fitted a soft urethane foam roll edge to improve low-frequency reproduction. The center of the cone has a dome-shaped dust cap made of Mylar with evaporated aluminum. It doubles as a tweeter and keeps cone mass down. A 70 φ magnet handled the magnetic circuit, and the small enclosure was hermetically sealed.
Known specifications:
- 1-way, 1-speaker, airtight bookshelf system; 9cm cone full-range driver
- Frequency range: 50 Hz – 20 kHz
- Impedance: 8 Ω; output sound pressure: 86 dB/W/m
- Max input: 10W
- Dimensions: 103 × 181 × 127 mm; weight: 1.5 kg
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