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Why are Technomad loudspeakers so Weatherproof?

Why are Technomad loudspeakers so Weatherproof?

Why are Technomad Loudspeakers So Weatherproof?

Many people (including our competitors) wonder why Technomad loudspeakers are so weatherproof (IP56) – and what differentiates the weatherproofing of “The Toughest Loudspeakers in the World” from ordinary outdoor loudspeakers.

Here are some of the key elements:

We start with a thick, military-specification, rotationally-molded shell that has outstanding acoustic properties and is virtually indestructible – heat, UV radiation, cold and other sources of damage are inconsequential to our loudspeaker cabinets. Technomad cabinet walls are as thick as the best Baltic-birch touring sound cabinets, and are 3 to 4 TIMES thicker than ordinary injection molded loudspeaker cabinet walls. Read more about our molding process in the
How It’s Made Article
.
The Technomad WeatherTech™ three-layer grill system is unmatched by anything in the industry. This grill consists of:

 

A small-diameter perforated stainless steel layer

A nylon mesh layer to further break down precipitation

A acoustically-transparent foam layer – which is treated with a proprietary hydrophobic coating. This special coating causes rain and moisture to “run screaming” away from the loudspeaker’s drivers.

Technomad high-frequency and low frequency drivers are weatherized at the component level – for example, our smaller bass drivers use polypropylene cones with pure rubber surrounds. Our larger bass drivers use a fiber cone that is plasticized via a proprietary three-step process, resulting in a driver with outstanding acoustic properties and incredible resistance to moisture and humidity. The spiders and surrounds of all Technomad cone drivers are specially treated to resist water damage, and our high-frequency drivers are mechanically and chemically protected also.
Unlike our competitors, we don’t pretend that water will never enter our loudspeaker cabinets – we know it will! For example, no matter how excellent a grill system one uses, moisture WILL build up inside a loudspeaker through condensation (especially in humid environments with a significant temperature change during the day/night cycle). True, one could build a non-ported, sealed cabinet, but this throws away all of the advantages of a bass-reflex tuning – compact size, outstanding bass output, better cabinet efficiency, etc. We solve the problem of in-cabinet condensation by drilling tiny bleed holes through the corners of our cabinets – this allows condensation and water forced through the WeatherTech™ grill to drain harmlessly away. One never opens a Technomad cabinet to find half an inch of disgusting, algae-infested water trapped inside!
Technomad crossovers and internal electronics are sealed, and are totally unaffected by moisture
Proprietary anti-fungal treatments protect the inside of the cabinet, killing mold, fungus, and other biological sources of damage.

Of course, the most important element of the unique Technomad weatherproofing approach… is the sound! Other manufacturers kludge a crude stainless steel grill onto a standard non-weatherproof loudspeaker, give it a special “epoxy” or “catalyzed” paint job and call the result “weatherproof” – we call it “unreliable” and “hideous sounding”. In contrast, every Technomad loudspeaker is designed to be a weatherproof product from the get-go. This means that we engineer the drivers, grill system, crossover, and cabinet as a complete, complementary whole. The result – No-compromises audio quality, IP56 compliant environmental toughness, and military-grade reliability. The best of both worlds, available exclusively from Technomad.