Why are there so many wooden box speakers out there?

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?

To bad the world is made of wood… And flat….If only it was spherical.

Shortage of plastic I believe...

Andrew Jones is out with a new concentric two-way….it’s a box.  
 

oh dear.

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.