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In Reply to: RE: hi-rez acoustic suspension minimonitors? posted by budget minded on August 05, 2014 at 15:41:54
I am being a nit picker here but a speaker without a port is called closed box or infinite baffle and it probably is NOT acoustic suspension. The term acoustic suspension is probably associated with non-ported speakers because if companies like Acoustic Research and KLH and Advent that ruled the market in the 60s and part of the 70s. They were closed boxes AND they were also acoustic suspension. Not all closed boxes are acoustic suspension. For example the old Bozaks were not. Today the few non-ported speakers are probably not acoustic suspension. I doubt the ATCs, a superb speaker by the way, is acoustic suspension.
Still the best closed box has superior transient response compared to the best ported box simply because of slower roll off(and the laws of physics). But a good ported one can be better than a not so good closed one.
Poor Edgar Vilchur, a good man and brilliant designer, along with Henry Kloss, etc. must be rolling in their graves when they hear how abused the term acoustic suspension has become.
Follow Ups:
that's one of the things that's annoying about sealed speakers, there's no standard term that all manufacturers use.
infinite baffle is a misnomer too as a "true infinite baffle" speaker is soffit mounted with an entire room for it's internal volume.
i've always liked the term acoustic suspension because it's descriptive of the "air spring" tight sound that i like so much about them, especially with smaller faster drivers.
If it's ported, it's distorted.
You are correct about infinite baffle but it is accepted as the same thing as closed box and has been for decades. But acoustic suspension is a special subset of closed box that has a technical definition and it should not be used as a synonym for closed box(or infinite baffle).
the only proper term then would be sealed as both acoustic suspension and infinite baffle are specific subsets of sealed/closed box.
i doubt i'll stop using the term though. i've been using it since i started reading audio magazines in the 80s until i learned the physics behind why i liked those $120 infinitys more than $1,000+ floorstanders
If it's ported, it's distorted.
It's the reverse. Acoustic suspension is sealed with very floppy suspension.The problem is reviewers don't know what acoustic suspension is. And that's not the only things they seem not to understand. Part of that is because while acoustic suspension ruled the 60s and was still important in the early 70s it died after that. You can blame Thiell/Small who described how to make ported boxes that didn't boom like the old ones. It's hard to resist a deeper 3 Db down point and/or a couple of Db more efficiency just by adding a hole in a box especially when a little boom sells better than tight bass.
In audio infinite baffle is the same as closed box. But, you're, correct that it is a poor term since it implies something it certainly is not.
Edits: 08/08/14
that's why i always use the term. it's just what i learned.
the port thing is defintely good for any company's bottom line. MOST listeners will buy whatever speaker sounds louder in a showroom.
me? i've always been drawn by whatever has the absolute least distortion. to my ear, those little infinity RS speakers i posted an image of were the first time i heard any speaker with low distortion bass. it was the quality that blew me away along with the really precise image they threw.
that's when i decided big expensive speakers, especially ported, were bogus.
If it's ported, it's distorted.
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