Why are there so many wooden box speakers out there?

The freedom of choice has caused box speakers to be prevalent. Did you not see what someone wrote? 

They make 'em, we buy 'em. Ergo they keep makin' em.

Either we stop making em or we stop buying em. Otherwise, we are stuck with wooden junk

@deadhead1000  wheres the round speakers from PS Audio?

Cabasse also makes square/rectangular speakers. They may also have some patents on them so other companies cannot make similar ones.

nonsense. You cant patent a shape. Why hasnt anybody patented the rectangular box?

And of course the way they sound might not be to every one's liking, regardless of research, science or technology.

wrong again. The research shows it is the perfect shape. Speakers are there to reproduce what you play through them. They are not instruments. High end speaker companies know this. 

I may be wrong, but I don't think anyone makes a round Sub Woofer (KEF did made one that looked like a car tire).

B&w had one but we are not talking about subwoofers we are talking about regular speakers

How many times can the same provocative troll question be asked? I would say keep wooden boxes legal, and put kenjit in jail!

How can it be a troll question if Cabasse does it? Should cabasse be illegal? is that what you are implying? At least state some valid arguments for why you disagree rather than just calling people a troll. I'm guessing your speakers are wooden boxes then?

Success breeds repitiion and imitation.

But what does that show? That audiophiles dont care about sound but care more about how a speaker looks?

"Back in the 70s an engineer figured out..." sounds like 1000 other BS stories.

And yes, anything that Kenjit doesn't approve of should be illegal (In Kenjitville).

If I was in charge of the speaker industry half of the speakers we see wouldnt be allowed due to inadequate sound quality. 

Yeah - I suppose with the penalty of death?

That would be too extreme. The penalty would simply be a ban from the marketplace. So you'd end up with square boxes being sold on the blackmarket and nice and round speakers being sold to the rest of us who want perfect sound. 

@holmz 

I think you've misunderstood the purpose of this thread. I am not here to prove to you that spheres are better. That has already been done by other engineers many years ago. The question is, why are there so many boxes out there if they are wrong?  

Tell me,what speakers do you have? 

Are they perfect? if not why not?

Have you built any speakers?

@holmz 

The internal reflection would be absorbed by the stuffing. Cabasse has done sphere speakers. Rectangles are done because they are cheaper and easier. Would you like me to custom tune your speakers for you as you seem to be unhappy with your speakers. Are they square? Are they tuned to your ears? Are they in TIME?

Table saws and panel saws cut do a good job of cutting flat wood panel straight.

Yes but thats what you do for the customers that want cheap speakers. You cant offer the same old boxes to customers that are paying ten times the price can you? Would you expect better service if you stayed at a 5 star hotel rather than a 2 star hotel? Of course you would. Why should speaker design be any different? I dare you to answer that. 

I am disinclined to take your word for it over hundreds of manufacturers without some evidence that you could be correct.
Your word on it is not proof that your assertion/premise is correct… it’s just, “like your opinion dude.”

The evidence is incontrovertible. And I'm not the one that produced the evidence so if you have an issue with the evidence you would need to confront them. 

Have you heard of B&W? It is a state of the art speaker company. Their best model is the NAUTILUS. So if the evidence was wrong, that means so is the nautilus and so is B&W. Do you now realize what a tangle you've got yourself into?

And if the stuffing doesnt absorb much, then what do you suggest we use? 

If a sphere isnt the right shape, do you have any evidence of that since youre so adamant?

Whats the perfect radiation pattern? You do realize all the hundreds of manufacturers which you referred to earlier in support of your argument that they are right and I am wrong, produce speakers that each have different radiation patterns dont you? Which would then debunk your argument. They can't all be right can they? You cant just lump them all together when it suits you in order to try to discredit my theory that spheres are perfect. You do realize how many people believe in religion dont you? And that the number of believers has nothing to do with whether their belief is correct? 

@dill 

Now, you claim to be an expert on speakers right, if so, why so many questions and so few factual answers, just opinions?

Answers about what exactly? 

No, spheres are not "perfect" and neither are boxes.  Open baffle speakers (no box at all) rule for audio quality other than perhaps needing a larger woofer and more power. See previous discussion...

This is not a discussion about open baffles but I am willing to entertain your response just on this occasion. Why do you believe open baffles are superior?

Why are guitars wood?   Why are pianos wood?  Why are drums wood?....

They're instruments. They're allowed to be wooden. They are required to resonate. 

Kenjit

I have to ask. What do you own for speakers? I’m guessing nothing made of wood or with any flat surfaces. Just curious. Thanks 

I own custom modified hand tuned speakers. Some are wood some are not. What I own does not represent what i would consider perfection. There is no harm in using wood for testing purposes.

@dill 

yes heres a link

Cost of machinery and material.

That is an excuse. If a speaker costs 100k how can you claim that cost of material or machinery is an issue? How dare you suggest that spending $100k is not enough to enable speakers to be spherical. How much would it cost then?  

WAF is probably another one as the market also dictates what will sell regardless of price or performance.

Well thats another outrageous thing. If audiophiles do not care about sound quality then who is meeting the needs of genuine audiophiles like myself? 

Likely most people do not have a great room where the difference can be heard or know how to or can properly set a system up correctly again because of the WAF.

Nonsense. If you can spend 50k on magicos and another 100k on amps and dacs then you better make sure you have a good room otherwise it makes no sense. 

Simple answer, speaker manufacturers know most people want a speaker that looks like a nice piece of furniture and not a sculpture.

Thats perfect. So you have finally admitted that we are being DUPED. Thankyou.

To be less flippant, your assertion that a sphere is somehow "perfect" is fundamentally in error. ALL designs, including spheres, are engineering tradeoffs.

Its not my assertion olson did the damn research back in the 1950. All shapes were compared and the sphere had the smoothest response. Nothing has changed since then so the result is still true.

Look at it this way, even if the U.S. military wanted to spend a BILLION dollars developing a "good" speaker, they could most certainly do that. But in no way would it be "perfect". Such an animal will never exist.

We are not talking about perfection. We are simply saying why are all speakers wooden boxes when the research has shown that they should be spherical?

I thought you previously said that speakers made of concrete must be the best?

MDF is the most common material. Some use concrete some use thin plywood. The goal is to make sure the speaker does not sing. You use whatever is most neutral. Do you not find it the least bit suspicious that the materials and methods used to make high end speakers also happen to be the cheapest? Are we being duped?

You are just trying to be provocative as usual saying sphere enclosures are superior yet you provide no specific references whatsoever on how you came to this conclusion.

I provided the link to the work by Olson which someobody tried to dismiss by saying it was limited range of measurement and single point microphone which is hogwash. He then contradicted himself by citing examples of speakers that have a shape thats nearly spherical. So he cant make up his mind whether spheres are right or wrong.

I have yet to see you post what you actual own and why.

Hogwash. What would it prove to post pretty pictures of your listening room with a bunch of shiny gear and speakers? Unless you listen to it yourself, you'd never know how it sounds. 

Instead you just blow up this forum whenever you log on. PS Audio btw only has one model of speakers so far - the FR30. Plenty of illustrations for your expert eyes to scrutinize.

Theyre nothing close to round or spherical.

That aside, what matters is how a pair of speakers sound in your system in your space to your ears. For this reason, there are no perfect speakers. This is why there is a myriad of choices to satisfy peoples budgets and personal preferences.

Thats a misundertanding of what hifi is all about. Speakers should reproduce what you feed them. Nothing more or less. If you are listening to bookshelf speakers you are missing a few octaves of bass. So you are not getting out what you put in are you? it doesnt matter if you think it sounds ok, its WRONG. 

We dont need a myriad of choices we need less.  We need to get rid of half of the speakers out there on the marketplace that arent good enough. Then it becomes easier for audiophiles to choose.

@axo1989

I can see there are speaker companies out there that dont use wood. But the issue here is not just about the material its the shape. Magicos are RECTANGULAR BOXES. Even worse they deceptively try to make their speakers look round by adding curves but its not even close to a sphere. Its as if they know their speakers should be spheres but because they cant be bothered they just stick to boxes and hope audiophiles can be persuaded theyre just as good.

The Olson paper measures and describes the effects of speaker and baffle shape with respect to diffraction, that research doesn’t deal with resonances or internal wave/reflection behaviour per se (although those effects may influence the measured results)..

Nobody said it was dealing with internal resonances. Resonances will always be there regardless of shape and will need to be dealt with in some other way. The olson paper is correct and the speakers companies are wrong.

That poster described those aspects of the paper accurately, agreed with you that the research was informative and she suggested more research in that area would be interesting. That isn’t in any way contradicted by citing examples of near- or semi-sphrerical speakers.

Well in which case just admit that 99% of speakers out there are wrong because they arent spheres. You cant make a rectangular box behave like a sphere. Its one or the other. Make up your mind which is better and stop being ambivalent.

Wood boxes are easy to make. Complex shapes are way more costly and the question is if the complex shape is worth the cost compared to the cost of better drivers and crossovers. 

Those reasons are all WRONG and do not justify non spherical cabinets. There are different prices for speakers yes? So if you go up in price you rightly expect an improvement in terms of the materials and shapes used no? A box may have been acceptable for a cheap speaker but it is no longer acceptable when the speaker costs tens of thousands of bucks. Why is that so hard to admit? Just face it, we are being duped. How dare you claim that complex shapes are more costly to make as if consumers arent already being charged extortionate prices for those monkey coffins?

@o_holter 

You cannot use Gallo speakers to represent ALL spherical speakers. There are degrees of success with spherical speakers just as with boxes no? Some boxes are better than others and its the same with spheres. Just because we havent seen any good spheres yet doesnt mean theyre all bad. 

What about the cabasse spheres? They are one of the worlds best arent they? Is it a coincidence they are spheres? Why does Magico use curved cabinets if perfect square edges would suffice? Is it not to recognize the great wisdom of Master Kenjit and take a leaf out of his book?

While we are on the topic, how about all those wooden violins, cellos, bongos , etc out there?   Someone needs to do something about that!   

They have to be wooden in order to produce sound. A concrete violin would make very little noise. A speaker box has to be silent. Only the cone needs to vibrate. However that has nothing to do with what we are discussing. The real problem is BOXES, wooden or not. I'd say get rid of all those boxes! 

Why does Andrew jones use multi faceted cabinets if perfect square edges would suffice? Is it not to recognize the great wisdom of Master Kenjit and take a leaf out of his book? Has the great Master Kenjit been vindicated?

@dill 

I think the conclusion is clear now. I am right. Andrew Jones has used multi faceted cabinets and this proves my theory. However a multi faceted cabinet isnt the same as a sphere so it won't be as good. But the point is he did attempt to apply my technology and that vindicates me since whatever Andrew Jones says or does must be correct since he is a such a distinguished speaker tuner. Long live the Kenjit!

Prove it, Kenjit. I say your a fraud .. 

You can't expect any more proof from me than from any other speaker engineer. Can Andrew Jones PROVE that his Sourcepoint ten speakers are any better than the rest? Or is it really just another wooden box with drivers? Didn't Tannoy do a box just like that decades ago or have the audiophiles forgotten?

Again, only questions and no substance.

I have given plenty of pearls to the forum but they have all fallen on deaf ears. If you want better sound, you will need to get rid of those boxes Dill. That is the truth. If you dont like my nuggets I suggest you stop reading them. 

@sounds_real_audio 

 I completely concur with your conclusions. Spheres are the correct shapes to be used. Boxes are only for convenience not for sound quality. Andrew Jones has used something that is faceted so he has clearly applied my theories. But unfortunately he couldnt do a sphere as it is not easy to do a wooden sphere. 

If Magico could lower their prices down by about 90% then I think that would even the score. That would enable manufacturers to produce spheres at reasonable prices.

If the materials of the cabinet are designed to take the energy (back waves) and convert that energy to heat, well then that is a different animal.

There is no material that miraculously converts sound energy into heat. That would be the perfect speaker material but it doesn't exist

If you want research on speakers from the seventies take it, I want research (on anything) that is recent.

It doesn’t matter if it was from the seventies or not. It was correct and that is the key point that speaker companies have to understand.

On the other hand, there is no modern research on speakers. If so, how come we are not seeing that reserach being applied to the products we see on the market?

I have seen nothing new. The wooden box is ubiquitous and it needs to be made illegal. Andrew Jones has just released a speaker called the Mofi point source. In case you have not noticed he has applied the theory from the 70’s and although its not quite perfect, it does at least disprove your insinuation that the reserach done in the past is outdated and wrong.

Come along now, repeat ten times after me: Long live the kenjit Standards!

if you like round speakers buy Gallo or Cabasse.

Oh come on as if they are the only possible way to do a round speaker? Thats like saying if you like box speakers just buy a B&W? Are there not different ways to build box speakers so that audiophiles may prefer one box over another? Obviously there are. So why should round speakers be any different!

@thespeakerdude

I work in the professional speaker industry. I think the above is the best contribution I can bring to this discussion. Anything else would be a waste of effort.

What do you do in the professional speaker industry? If I guessed that you make square boxes, would I be right?

@nonoise 

It's the speaker you like listening to. 

A speaker is not an instrument. It is not supposed to sound like anything. So if you have a preference for one speaker over another then one or both of them must be WRONG. 

The goal of this hobby is to find the RIGHT speakers and dismiss the WRONG ones. Anybody that thinks otherwise is WRONG.

@dill 

I'll have you know I am the inventor of the KSS speaker system (Patent pending). Perfect best of both worlds system comprising diffraction less sound field and boxless sound technology. Wood is best for the fireplace not making speakers. If you want to hear your drivers and not your boxes you will need to do something about it Dill, you have been warned. 

I listen to the ones that know what they are talking about.

There is no right or wrong though thats the problem you have Dill. You even said so yourself just now. So how the hell would you know who to believe? Is it the proponents of open baffle? Or the ESL? Or the closed box? or the ones that champion reflex, sealed or transmission lines? Is it going to be Harbeth with their resonant cabinets? Or the Magicos with their horrifically dense and solid boxes? Spheres or boxes? constant directivity? or not?

You have opened up a real can of worms havent you Dill, just in time for christmas.

@Dill

I remember your speakers Dill. They were small boxes mounted on a pair of stands in what looked like a fairly small room. This is not what you call a high end speaker system. If you want perfect sound you must have 20hz to 20khz reproduction. Yours will only go down to about 100hz and even then its already rolling off. The wood used in those boxes would be better off in the fireplace than for trying to get high end sound out of it. Speakers are not instruments Dill. The boxes are supposed to be silent. You only want the drivers to move. You have a lot to learn.

Dont you think its time to improve your speakers?

BTW: I have found the right speakers and you sir, are WRONG.

Have you heard of something called a mistake? Audiophiles are WRONG all the time. They think they hear something which either doesnt exist or is NOT what they think they're hearing. I've made the same mistake multiple times. This hobby is not easy Dill its not for amateurs. If you think you can get perfect sound out of a wooden box, then you are completely WRONG Dill. Serious audiophiles spend millions of dollars and their entire lifetime searching for perfection. Many of them never find it. So dont you dare claim that you have found the right speakers and expect me to believe you. What you mean to say is that you have found something you are able to tolerate but they are riddled with flaws and you are willing to tolerate those flaws because you have no other options. 

The first step towards PERFECTION is to listen to your speakers and then write down a list of all the things which are imperfect about them. Do it Dill and then come back. 

However the grill or box colour, the material and the shape of the speaker are more things that I would suspect an interior decorator, or Feng Shui master, would care about. They do not, by definition, affect the sound.

Of course perception plays a role too. So youre wrong. All those things can affect the sound you hear indirectly. 

@Dill

I found nothing imperfect about my speakers, I also found they where not perfect either. 

That just means you need to improve your hearing before you start improving your speakers. How do you expect to enjoy the benefits of better quality speakers if your hearing isnt good enough? Or perhaps your room is so bad that any differences are just being obscured? Find yourself a good speaker tuner locally and get them to come round and listen. 

However, the author argues that real wood speaker cabinets can be very useful for producing the tone of wooden musical instruments if tuned properly.

The problem with that is every song you play through them will have a wooden tone. The speaker should reproduce a wooden tone if the recording contains that. Otherwise it should not. Its WRONG