What matters most in speaker design?


So...What matters most in speaker design?

A. The Drivers
B. The Cabinet / Enclosure
C. Crossover / Internal Wiring
D. Cost / Quality of Raw Materials (Drivers, Cabinet, Crossovers, etc.)

Yes, I realize the "right" answer is "all of the above" or better yet "the design that optimizes the trade-offs of the given variables / parameters that achieves the goals set forth by the creator." However, indulge me...

Can a great sounding speaker get away with focus on only 2 of the 4 above choices? Can a high cost of raw materials trump a sound design that focuses on inexpensive (but great sounding) drivers, a well engineered cabinet, and a decent crossover?

I was thinking about speakers that use relativly cheap drivers, but are executed in a genius enclosure with a good (but not exotic) crossover - and they sound absolutely amazing. This made me wonder...

What matters most in speaker design?
128x128nrenter
C - crossovers.

Cabinetry, ala veneers and finish rule the day, with exotic drivers following closely behind. Cetainly a smart strategy, as this hobby is one where people listen with their eyes and their wallets.

However, in my own experimentation, by varying the cap/coil ratio, I could make my own loudspeakers become as forward and white sounding as a pair of Lumenwhites or as lush and full-bodied as Vandersteens, and of course, anything in between those two points.

Along those lines, the unfortunate thing is in this day and age, we are as far away from having competent people designing crossovers as we have ever been. Why? So many of the people designing loudspeakers today are deficient in mathematics; to the point where they run away from it.

For example, one loudspeaker manufacturer who I know, and has won awards at shows got his crossover design from a "friend" in the business. When I looked at it, the numbers were so far off, I jumped up to ask him how he came up with such off the wall(being kind) values, which is when he told me. Knowing the friend's talents lie in many areas of loudspeaker optimization, but not in designing (although he surely can upgrade/mod them to improve sonics) crossovers or mathematics, I approached the friend about the design, and he admitted he knows almost nothing about how to design a crossover. Where did he get these values? He kind of mimicked another speaker on the market he liked, but wasn't 100% sure if he was using exactly the same values. My money says that given the difference between commas and periods on either side of the Atlantic, a decimal point got lost in translation. What's worse is that even after a fundamental and major redesign of the speaker, the crossover has not changed one iota, "I have a crossover that works, and am afraid to mess with it." Really? I've told him the more appropriate values several times, but hey, the parts have already been bought and paid for.
I was thinking about speakers that use relativly cheap
drivers, but are executed in a genius enclosure with a good (but not exotic)
crossover - and they sound absolutely amazing.

Unless the manufacturer starts with high quality drivers then they won't ever be
accurate even though distortion and coloration can sound pleasant for some
provided the design is cool looking and has a nice finish. Distortion is
cumulative. Of course the drivers also need to be matched appropriately and the
woofer to the cabinet - so there are still many ways to mess things up even
when starting with good drivers.
I have a friend who designs speakers. I'd describe him as brillant - his dad is a department head at UVA. My friend has advanced degrees and has written at least one very thick book on signal processing.

I watched him build some speakers a few years ago. Very thick cabinet, the finest drivers, a lot of labor. I watched him work for months and months on the cabinet and later the crossover. He approached the cabinet design and x-over design from several angles eventually using some commercially available software for the x-over. He ended up with a perfectly flat frequency response and speakers that didn't sound too good.

Next he found someone with a lot of experience designing crossovers and worked with him for a few more months. They sounded better and eventually they got it to sound very good. He told me at one time he was thinking about adding some foam or rubber around the tweeter to take the edginess off the highs.

He took his speakers to a DIY show. I went as well. Basically he didn't win with the basic gist of it being the speakers weren't lively or forward enough. I didn't get it then but now I figure he'd built the kind of speakers you could actually sit down and listen to for a good, long while. They just didn't pass the "sip" test. The "sip" test is the first few minutes with the "boom and sparkle" jumping out at you.

Two important points I got out of this experience. First, all the parts he used were among the finest available and used in some very expensive speakers. But the drivers and crossover parts didn't cost much relatively speaking. Lesson 1: you pay as much or more for the design of the speakers as for the materials.
Lesson 2: A flat frequency response is no indicator of how good a speaker sounds.
None of the above.

While all those factors are important, they are secondary. The first consideration is the design concept. That must be thoroughly worked out and clearly defined before starting on the driver selection, crossover, or mounting/cabinet. How can a great result come out of a flawed approach? (Wireless200's story is a case in point.)
Hi Wireless,

Horn harshness really doesn't have anything to do with what's happening in the top 1/2 octave; it happens much lower down. It isn't necessarily caused by something that shows up in the frequency response curve either, but that's another topic.

I can't speak for Klipsch, but the tweeter I use has a mylar diaphragm and those tend to not go as high as titanium or other metallic diaphragms, but they often sound smoother. So indirectly the 17.5 kHz top end I claim is related to smoothness, but not because I think higher extension is undesirable; I just think that other factors matter more.

Duke