Because wood boxes that are well done are beautiful...Tannoy comes to mind....
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
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Wooden speaker Boxes ?🤔 🤔 |
the question should be why are so many manufacturers using wood like guitars, furniture, etc. I guess the old violins are not worthless right!
It seems easier to make changes to a design for example tweeter placement, just out a new piece of wood and drill a new how instead of re-tooling to make a change to hear the differences. |
Kenjitt and Urbie both. @perkri +1 |
All the Kenidjit manages to do, is to cheapen Audiogon. Audiogon wants to be the premier place for high end audio discussion, and for the sale of used high end audio gear. Can you imagine if one of his threads, any one of the really, as they are all the same, was the first thread a new visitor to the forum arrived at? they would be “This is the dumbest crap I’ve ever read” |
Seriously for a moment, now.... Wood and its’ variants as a enclosure is all well and good. With the advent of CNC/CAD-CAM/3D printing (no longer in infancy, noooo), ’boxes’ can be ’put up on the shelf’ ( to pun badly ) and other designs can be explored... Wood, plastics, CF, glass....even the concrete’ mystique’ if one opts for that....’shotcrete’ a shape that compensates for resonance and vibration modalities... Infinity beconds....sound from sculpture? Why not? Make SAF go ’foom’....;) |
@csmgolf , not likely...but it's like watching a tennis match played with golf balls instead of the fuzzy ones.... ;) Fast. Loose. Not totally predictable, but draws a crowd.... 😏 |
...late again to the party...*sigh* My diys' are sans wood.....foamed PVC surrounds, no box to speak of....cylinders, yes....with a foamed core. Two pairs hardly have a 'base shaft' cylinder at all....'acoustic suspension', a la the early ARs', rolled off to a sub. Not heavy, either... @dekay, liked the owls....*S* There's about 3 or 4 of them in the area at night 'round here, 'who?ing' about whatever they do it about.... Nice... |
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?
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. |
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! |
Kenjit urped: "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?" Again, only questions and no substance. Roxy is correct, master of nothing. Actually, just a master-baiter! Rubbing everyone the wrong way ... |
There are more speakers built with plastic and wood products than actual wood. BUT, there are so many wood box speakers out there because wood is cheaper than more superior materials like granite. Remember that speaker manufacturers have a business plan based on staying in business. so they have to have tight cost management on the materials supply side. |
I've mentioned upthread that the two pyramid parallelepiped shapes tested per the Olson paper @kenjit cites performed approximately as well as the ideal sphere. Guess which shape Jones actually used? Hint: it wasn't a rectangular prism. |
Thanks to Kenjit, above, for an OK answer to my intervention. I take a leaf from your book ok but maybe not the whole book. You raise a good question. It is easy to dismiss and make fun of. But unless we point out the critical problems in audio, we won't make progress. And this box-wood-easy-piece tendency seems like a real problem, yes. Even if the higher level marketplace is (all the more?) dominated by a huge variety of speaker forms, shapes and types. This is part of what makes the hobby interesting, for me. Should a speaker be spherical or square? Rigid and dead, or should it "sing" a bit, along with the drivers? There is now new evidence that the shape of the violin helps produce a third note beyond the two being played. This has been known by players and violin makers for centuries but now there are hard data too. The better the third tone, the more costly the violin.
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K some think outside “the box,” but with a keen eye on making a living. Bose 901 with its novel driver array and extruded final form comes to mind, as does Ohm with essentially no box at all. A marketplace doesn’t always reward the crazy ones, but we’re lucky to have those willing to take the risk. I recall a round speaker from the ‘70’s that were affectionately referred to among my crowd as “the orbs.” They were fun to listen to, but I suppose not enough demand led to their demise. The B&W line is reminiscent of these old speakers with their spherical upper driver enclosures. Perhaps an evolution? |
Baffle shape, size, rounded edges, etc. are all things done by many manufacturers. Forget the sphere as the front of it is doing most of the work here.
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@kenjit I would love to hear if you have left the sidelines and purchased your first system. Tell us what you own please. |
This is an easy question. Today the equipment to evaluate speakers can be purchased relatively quickly and with a modicum of knowledge anybody can create a set of speakers using this software/hardware.
Box speaker work well enough; I have my preference for some of the panel speakers that create a great sound stage (although I can't afford the electrostatics I really want). But I can get by with box speakers, particularly when I just want to listen to background music. |
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! |
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? |
