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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
kenjit OP
1,771 posts
 

@dill 

yes heres a link

axo1989
105 posts
 

@kenjit

yes here’s a link

Interesting how close the two 'truncated pyramid and parallelepiped’ examples were to the sphere. And better than the hemisphere. Andrew Jones should be stoked.

But note the somewhat limited scope of measurement: 100-4000 Hz and single point microphone. A good start but you’d probably take the investigation further. Interesting also that the discussion focusses on diffraction rather than internal dynamics.

We also have to consider the compromises involved in full-range or co-axial driver implementations. The former especially with respect to suitable SPL and dynamics, the latter with complex diffraction from the drivers.

Look at KEF Blade for example: co-axial treble/mid but separate bass drivers to achieve sufficient dynamics in the lower octaves (Devialet adhere more closely to the sphere but take a similar approach).

laoman's avatar
laoman
438 posts
 

@Kenjit:
Who was this speaker designer? Can you show us how and why he/she reached these conclusions?

erik_squires
16,056 posts
 

Wood is used cause it's an insulator, by insulating the current you increase efficiency.  If you have no wood you have no joy.

facten
2,878 posts
 

Spheres? Thought monolith concrete speakers were the way to go professor?

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