Speaker Design

Understanding Cabinet Diffraction

by jbagby Audio Essays
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One of the most misunderstood topics in audio is the subject of diffraction. Diffraction, acoustic phase, and how listening rooms impact our reproduction of sound, based on what I see posted in many discussions on the internet, are subjects of much confusion. In this article I will attempt to clear some of the fog on [...]

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Passive Perfection

by jbagby General
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Why Passive Radiators? The new Salk SoundScape 10 and 12 speakers use dual passive radiators. These are obviously more expensive than port tubes, more complex to tune and require more cabinet work to implement. So why use them? As the designer of the bass section of these two new speakers, I thought I would explain [...]

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Crossovers 101

by Dennis Murphy Speaker Design
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The audio world is overflowing with broad and deeply felt generalizations (religions?) about tubes, designer capacitors, inductors, and resistors, bi-wiring, cables, metal drivers vs. paper drivers–not to mention the whole digital vs. analog thing. Few of these beliefs are rigorously substantiated, and many can max out your credit card very quickly. But there is one [...]

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Sensitivity and Hoffman’s Iron Law, or “why you can’t have your cake and eat it too”

by Jim Salk Speaker Design
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If given a choice, most people would opt for a high sensitivity speaker in a small cabinet that plays extremely deep. While that may be possible (we’ll get to that shortly), this basic desire runs smack up against the laws of physics. I’m sure you’ve probably run across that old adage, “quality, speed, low price…pick [...]

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BSC made simple (and why it may be important to you)

Thumbnail image for BSC made simple (and why it may be important to you) by Jim Salk Speaker Design

While baffle step compensation (BSC) sounds complicated, it is really quite simple once you understand what happens when sound waves emanate from a speaker. Here is a slightly over-simplified explanation: the nature of sound Sound, by its very nature, wants to travel in all directions. When sound is generated by the woofer in a speaker, [...]

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