Our team members like to listen to music, like to tinker, like to develop. Quality instead of quantity. Expertise rather than standard:

Dr. Johann Pfennich

Partner, coordinator, developer of cables and loudspeakers.

My passion started with developing loudspeakers. Before the foundation of Crayon Audio, I already offered different speaker models under the company LSP (Lautsprecher Systeme Pfennich), which could be adapted by the surface to the set-up place (veneer), considered the existing amplifier in the crossover tuning and furthermore the preferred music direction (an essential point, which is unfortunately often paid too little attention to

Studying the work of Thiele and Small, two Australian developers who raised loudspeaker design to a scientific level, showed that the amplifier with its broadband and the cable as well as the speakers form a single unit. Therefore, it was obvious that amplifier and cable had to be developed - the logical consequence was Crayon Audio.

I have been working on cable development for over 30 years now, with a special focus on the skin effect and the proximity effect. Both effects are based on eddy currents, which increase the resistance with increasing frequency and affect the broadband. To overcome these effects, we use eddy current-free Nextgen products by WBT. Another important consideration is the microphony itself. As cables are exposed to both airborne and structure-borne noise, they can generate errors, which must be avoided at all costs. This can be easily tested: If you step on an RCA cable, a loud squeak is generated, because movement turns the passive part cable into a signal generator.

Roland Krammer

Developer of all analog and digital electronics of Crayon Audio devices.

His gift to think in circuits, his constant questioning of traditional structures, his constant search for new components, manufacturing techniques and other scientific findings are what make him unique as a developer. The premise that there exists an optimum at every point within the circuit leads him to develop from the input socket selection step by step.

To give an example: Each active component has its own power supply and Roland is sometimes tinkering within the pico-ampere range, since all components have a certain range of fluctuation in their parameters. Even under the worst conditions, an ideal amount of power must still be supplied and therefore a transistor of appropriate (often larger) size must be used. If larger transistors are used, it is still necessary to ensure the shortest possible paths and to work with the limited space of the print.

The positioning of the components is essential: Due to the 6 to 10-fold multilayer boards, there are separate, continuous plains (layers) in the print for different voltages. Each component fetches its current from its layer by way of a through-hole plating. It is important that these currents flow in an orderly way within the plains, since currents cause heat, thereby changing the parameters of the components. The placement of all the components on the print has to be well ordered, not only to look nice, but also to distribute power and heat in an optimized way.

This concept is not only applied to the inner life of all Crayon amplifiers, but also to the housing, which is supposed to have optimized heat distribution and be beautiful and valuable at the same time. Another interesting detail in this context is the power amplifier section, which has been simulated up to 1 MegaHz for the CIA-1T and minimizes the feedback of the speakers to the amplifier with its Current Feedback System.

WEBSITE

www.crayon-audio.com