Upside Down, Inside Out Motor Structure (UDIO)

The woofer drivers in the NEAR® IG series were designed and refined by NEAR engineers over decades of R&D effort. They are unique and exclusive – you will never find any other driver so ideally suited for outdoor use as the NEAR woofer. 

Rigid is Good

Cast aluminum is the ideal basket material; it is rigid and strong, doesn’t rust, and is non-magnetic. Compare those qualities to rust-prone steel that is magnetic which draws magnetic energy away from the voice coil gap. We’ve seen some brands use plastic baskets. While rustproof, plastic softens in high heat, turns brittle in cold, fractures and warps easily.

The Speaker Equivalent of a Turbocharged V12

NEAR's Upside Down, Inside Out (UDIO) motor structure is unique and superior. It starts with the use of powerful magnets* positioned inside the voice coil former. This places the magnetic energy closest to the voice coil providing a powerful and symmetrical magnetic field exactly where it does the most good, instead of behind the voice coil as in conventional drivers.  That’s the “upside down” part. 

With UDIO, the magnet (blue) is positioned inside the Voice Coil Former for better energy transfer and linearity

The “inside out” refers to voice coils wound both inside and outside the aluminum former.  Double windings center the coil more precisely in the gap while increasing power handling and acoustic efficiency. The IG series sport an average 89dB 1M/1W sensitivity. It doesn’t take tons of amp power for IGs to pump out the high SPL it takes to fill outdoor spaces. At the same time IGs will handle all the power a commercial amplifier can crank out. With UDIO, frequency linearity actually increases as the volume level level goes up. With the combination of these audiophile grade technologies, the IG Series achieves a new pinnacle of performance. 

*In the IG6 and IG8 all magnets are Neodymium; in the IG5 and IGS12, LF magnets are ceramic

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