Speaker manufacturers or box manufacturers with off the shelf drivers?

@rixthetrick Unfortunately, it isnt as easy as using a bit of steel in the cabinets. If it was, EVERY company would be doing it even in their cheap speakers. The ML1s are horribly overpriced. And get bad reviews. You should read the stereomojo review. Absolutely horrible. There is nothing special about what Mike has done. it is an mdf box with some parts in there and all glued or screwed together. The steel plates dont require a genius to do. I could get some steel plates cut for me and then glue them in to ANY speaker. Do not be duped. 

OTS drivers can be excellent, but you are limited to their parameters so it can be difficult if building a product family, as large volume companies do, that is "consistent".

There are many OTS drivers on the market so there is no limitation of parameters. 

Enclosures are the real problem.

@mijostyn why dont you tell us what the solution is to this problem?

There are some brilliant speaker designers that can build excellent speakers using off-the-shelf parts at many price points.

Anybody can do that. Its a matter of opinion if something is excellent. 

 

high end boxes are layers of dense materials from wood to carbon fiber to metal

no. its mostly mdf. 

Are you sure about that???

it may need to be even thicker. Without trying it, hard to know. 

Why are most high end speakers manufacturers using mdf for their boxes?

because its a cheap nasty material. Its good enough though for most folks. But some manufacturers think its not good enough and they use other materials. 

if mdf is used, do you think one box that has substantial bracing performs like another box without any bracing? And what are the merits of mdf. It’s hard to understand why so many speaker manufacturers competing for sales through good sounding products would use such a material if it was a horrible choice. Does it all simply come down to cost or are there other benefits to using mdf?

mdf is a good versatile material. Its easily available, cheap and
easy to cut. A box without bracing will vibrate more. 

In your years of high end speaker building, what materials have you found that work best?

You will need a concrete box 100 inches thick all the way round. 

 I understand that you manufacture all of your own drive units.
How much of that comes into play with regards to the exceptional sound you achieve in your designs?

Zero. Off shelf drivers work fine. 

Would you say crossover design is important or you just use whichever resistors and capacitors you have on hand at the moment?

Its not that important. It can always be adjusted if you
get it wrong. 

And lastly, are you still currently developing any products that we should keep our eyes open for?

No. Not for the public. My designs will remain for personal use only. They are being developed to meet my unique requirements that the worlds finest speakers could not satisfy. There are plenty of speakers out there already for the rest of you.

@millercarbon

Now don’t get me wrong. I am all for mass loading. But 307 TONS!?!?!

Whats wrong with that? Airplanes weigh a lot. So do rockets. We can not only build them but we can make them fly.Its not rocket science.

Lastly, I’m surprised that you aren’t more willing to share your extremely high quality speakers with the rest of the world

It seems that most of you are happy with what is already available on the market. Theres no point in having something even better if you cant appreciate it.

you just throw random value caps, coils and resistors at the crossover and then cross your fingers and hope it works? Do you then take measurements and adjust accordingly? If so, what instruments do you use to test and measure your speakers? Are they calibrated and used correctly and if so, do you have documentation stating that; we deserve to see this if so!

I have been known to tune speakers BY EAR and BY HAND. Many of the speakers i hear arent even tuned right. The instrument I use are the ears on my head. Yes you basically throw a bunch of parts together and see what happens. That is how its done by everybody. There is no cookbook that tells you exactly what parts to use. Active tuning is easier for me. I dont like having to build and take apart components repeatedly.

how does a completely open baffle design where you cut out the siding in your house and mount your off the shelf driver in your wall compare to your 8 feet thick concrete sidewall enclosure design?

Its basically the same thing. An enclosure of the size and weight i suggested would be a house or bigger.

If you are looking for state of the art sound there are no shortcuts.

I was asking you which materials worked best in YOUR designs, you know, like the ones you built in reality

I will not disclose details about my own designs as they are proprietary.

Kenjit~

Master Tuner and Perfectionist Audiophile bar none.

Hi whatjd,

I'm the expert here when it comes to questions like this. 

Speaker design is basically a game of trial and error. The speaker designers will deny this because A) some of them really believe they know what theyre doing and B) others will be too embarassed to admit they dont. 

A typical speaker is an mdf box. Some use harder materials like rock. The box is glued together just like a table or chair might be. Drivers are then screwed in. The last part is the crossover. This is automated with the use of 'puter programs. Then comes the finish. This is done by the design department. 

Now speaker designers have been using this method to churn out hundreds of designs over the last few decades and it looks like it will just keep continuing for the foreseeable future. 

Unfortunately if you want the best sound, you will need to use a different method than the one just described. 

Part of the problem is the issue of TRAPPED REAR WAVES. Even Magico has not been able to solve that. 

In conclusion, all speakers on the market are flawed. They are all mass produced using the same method and are not custom tuned to your needs. 

Do not spend any money on these expensive items. That is my recommendation.