Speaker cabinet construction..


Albert Von Schweikert has written an interesting paper on low-distortion speaker cabinet construction. It can be seen at the VSA Audio Circle:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=70291.0

Some pretty cool ways to control resonances. Enjoy.
es347

Showing 2 responses by johnnyb53

I think this is a mischaracterization of ported designs. There was a time that I was a sealed enclosure snob, and dismissed all ported designs as "boomy one-note bass." But over time the designers learned how to properly damp a ported enclosure, and today there are many ported designs that have stunningly clear, fast, articulate bass. Everything from Wilson comes to mind.

The Stereophile measurements sections of their speaker reviews display a measured cumulative spectral decay plot, derived by attaching an accelerometer to a speaker enclosure's side panel. As you can see, speakers that have enclosures specifically designed for resonance control are very low in panel resonances, whether sealed or ported. Examples include B&W 802D (matrix enclosure, ported), Magico V3 (baltic birch and aluminum baffle, sealed), WilsonSofia (Wilson proprietary mat'ls, ported), and YG Anat Reference II (aluminum, sealed).

The B&W, Wilson, and YG are incredibly inert, and at least two of them are ported. The Magico is sealed, but a little more resonant. The YG cabinet has no internal stuffing; yet cab vibrations are nearly unmeasurable.
I just had a discussion about "white papers" with my wife. In her case, it was white papers in the nursing profession.

In my experience (and I was a career technical writer for three decades), white papers are propaganda with scholarly affectations. They are not, nor are they intended to be, objective. They are there to sell a point of view. In the case of audio, computer, and most technology-based products, it's to sell the vendor's design theory (especially if it's been patented) as superior to the competition, with an air of academia.

That doesn't mean the presentation is dishonest or untrue, but it is highly selective in the facts and subjective in the point of view.