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
@dynamiclinearity You can build the most complex shapes out of plywood and a CNC machine. Glue many layers of precision-cut plywood together and build a wavy 1/4 wave transmission line. Build a box around that transmission line. That’s how my speakers are made.
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Hello Kenjit. Wooden box speakers are traditional, easy to pack and ship, easy to place in a home (flat bottoms), easy to put things on (flat tops), easy to mount speakers (the actual drivers + crossover parts) in (flat fronts and backs), easy to "tune," easy to build. If you build it with stone slabs (counter tops broken during fabrication are available cheap. The shop can cut the pieces and holes for you.) you will have and acoustically inert box that will not sound "boxy," and can look quite impressive. Glue it together with silicone rubber. Open baffel speakers are lighter and cheaper (especially DIY) to build, but harder to place in a room. Happy Listening! |
I'm the first person to agree that savvy marketing and the canny wooing of the right review journals can have an enormous and sometimes deleterious effect on consumer choice; that people more often than not want what they're told to want whether it's good for them or not. But in this case I think you have to be a bit realistic. We--by which I mean people on this forum--are a minority who will sometimes go to absurd lengths, both financial and aesthetic, in pursuit of audio perfection. Most people want something that sounds nice and looks good, and the simple fact is that wood looks nice and rectangular shapes tend to fit better into people's living rooms. Here, I think, is a case of manufacturer's giving people what they want, not, as the OP suggests, duping them. I should, however, declare an interest. My Sonus Faber speakers look fabulous and have just reached the point after about eight months of hitting a perfect and exquisite synergy with the rest of my system; plus my wife thinks they're really pretty--a not inconsequential consideration for those of us who do not possess dedicated listening rooms to which we can retreat!
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I’m going off topic here, but rounded shapes are preferable for living room decor. You’ll get very subtle anxiety in a room with only square shapes. It’s soothing to the mind and spirit to have more rounded shapes that you’ll likely encounter in nature. It’s fine to have a few hard edges here and there, but you can break up the pattern with decor: pillows, candles, vessels, mirrors, plants, tables, plates, lamps, chairs etc... I doubt that the square shape of a speaker is inherently desirable, it’s just practical. |
