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Stereophile: Those that forget the past....

Posted by Sean (A) on May 23, 2003 at 15:58:09

are doomed to repeat it ( or something like that ) : )

Other than the typical Tellig "review" of one of his "beloved" companies ( Triangle ) in the latest Stereophile, there is a two page article ( pages 23 & 24 ) as written by Paul Messenger about a B&O speaker. This article goes on to say that B&O has done extensive subjective research that highlights the importance of minimizing floor and ceiling reflections. The design of their "new" Beolab 5 speakers take this research into consideration.

Well, when i first looked at the speaker, two different designs that are both well over 20 years old came to mind instantly. The first one was the BIC Soundspan series of speakers. If you don't remember these, they made use of dynamic drivers that laid horizontally and were stacked vertically. The woofer was on the top of the cabinet with a mid stacked above it and then a tweeter. There were three different versions of this design with varying size woofers. The idea was that the radiation pattern of each driver was forced out horizontally by the fact that they were firing into the back of the driver that was mounted on top of it. This obviously produced a horizontal spray, but also reduced the effects of direct radiation. Some transient "snap" is obviously lost, but the effect was a far more spacious presentation made it harder to localize the source of the sound.

If you take this one step further, the BIC design was a budget approach at trying to reproduce the dispersion characteristics of the Ohm F. Obviously, BIC tried to use conventional drivers in a non-conventional array so as to keep costs down. None the less, one can see striking resemblances between the B&O and the twenty year old BIC's and almost thirty year old Ohm's. Granted, there are obvious differences such as the fact that the B&O's are powered and internally bi-amped, but the design principle and concepts used to achieve 360* horizontal radiation are still there almost a quarter century past their point of introduction.

How many other "new old ideas" are being marketed or written about simply because those writing about / marketing such products can't remember the past ? As i've said before, most audio designs are at the point of having to re-invent what we already know or have had. Many products of the past are actually better built and designed than what we have today. The only nod for current production pieces has to do with the fact that we have got better quality passive parts to work with now. Is audio moving forward, treading water or is it all marketing hype / media hoopla ? I'd love to hear others' thoughts on the subject. Sean
>

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