Speaker Asylum

RE: No arguments here...

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This Post Has Been Edited by the Author

In Reply to: RE: No arguments here... posted by David S. on July 05, 2012 at 10:58:44

Hi,

Looks like we're in agreement here, but I'll add a few things.

It's part "art," but it's not shooting-in-the-dark art like some people think. What's important to understand is that speaker design is a balanced of compromises -- there's no perfect speaker and there are always tradeoffs. It's how a design balances these tradeoffs that matters.

I won't get into the details of those things here, but I will say that because of this thread it's important to know that diffraction isn't a tradeoff. In other words, one doesn't live with diffraction or not. If there's a reason to live with diffraction, then it's usually due to visual design being put ahead of performance (acoustical design), and then the designer has to deal with that. I've seen that quite a bit, and even talked candidly with designers who admit that happens from time to time. But no designer would put in elements that introduce diffraction because they're trying to achieve something else performance-wise. And when it comes to a cost-no-object, high-performance speaker, there is no excuse for diffraction-producing elements to be there.

Doug Schneider
The SoundStage! Network

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