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Why are there so many wooden box speakers out there?

I understand that wood is cheap and a box is easier to make than a sphere but when the speaker companies charge tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for their speakers, shouldnt consumers expect more than just a typical box? Are consumers being duped?

Back in the 70’s a speaker engineer found that a sphere was best for a speaker. A square box was the worst and a rectangular box was marginally better.

The speaker engineers have surely known about this research so why has it been ignored?

Cabasse is the only company doing spheres. Should wooden boxes be made illegal

kenjit

Showing 4 responses by bolong

bolong
696 posts
 

Of course, for the ultimate reality we go to "live" concerts where - in the case of much music the sound on stage is emerging from...box shaped thingies called stage amps or stage speakers.

bolong
696 posts
 

Both my room and the speakers residing in it are box shaped, yet I do not somehow feel doubly cursed.

bolong
696 posts
 

You didn't listen to the video?

bolong
696 posts
 

The Youtube channel "Real World Audio" has an interesting bit about real wood "live" speakers and their potential benefits. "Live and Dead Cabinets Both Alter the sound" is the Youtube title.

The standard line is that real wood cabinets generate too much resonance - much more so than plywood or MDF. However, the author argues that real wood speaker cabinets can be very useful for producing the tone of wooden musical instruments if tuned properly.

Some years back I was scouring Ebay for one of those CF series Klipsch speakers designed by a young Ray Delgado, and one of the listings included a photo of the inside where it was clear that the cabinet was made of solid quartersawn white oak - a thing not often seen even in the early 1990"s. The CF series was not generally successful because it "didn't sound like Klipsch." My question is still "what did it sound like?"

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