Hi All,
In my opinion, the more ambitious the performance of a particular speaker system is intended to be by the designer, the more ambitious the construction of the cabinet must be.
Great drivers will be limited by the cabinet into which they are loaded. If the cabinet is not up to snuff the result will probably be good but not great. Conversely, moderately priced drivers can achieve very high performance if the cabinet is quite well executed.
When Bright Star was producing speaker systems (we actually started as a speaker manufacturer) the cabinet I designed was by far the major cost of the product. The drivers, crossover and hookup wire were also a significant portion of the cost but not equal to the cabinet.
Of course, the crossover must also be commensurate with the goals of the designer. A "series" style crossover is significantly more difficult and time consuming to design than a "parallel" style crossover but does have a number of potential advantages. The biggest drawback as far as designing is concerned is that altering any one aspect of the crossover slopes or driver level requires a change in most (if not all) of the values for the other constituent parts (capacitors, coils, resistors). Designing this type of crossover for a two-way system is also much less daunting than doing so for a three-way system.
The above is not a comment one way or the other on the Caravelle speaker or its performance but a general comment on the art of speaker design.
Best Regards,
Barry Kohan
