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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
sounds_real_audio
1,018 posts
 

What did you think they were going to use, a high quality cabinet that moves the back waves away from the drivers ( we don't want to hear the back waves do we ) then with the waves moving toward the rear to a material that will covert the energy of the sound waves to a vibrational energy.  So what would be a good material to do that. you might ask. Well it turns out carbon fiber resonates at a very high frequency. Those high rates of vibration do create heat. Yes lets turn that rear wave energy into heat. Those little molecules in that fiber are just jumping all around. 

What does this all mean. Take a nice wine glass and ping. Makes a ringing sound. The just touch it your finger and it is easy to stop the vibration. Works well in a composition setting with carbon fiber and even light foam, almost like an air space. 

Well my head is going to explode so enough for now. 

 

kenjit OP
1,771 posts
 

@sounds_real_audio 

 I completely concur with your conclusions. Spheres are the correct shapes to be used. Boxes are only for convenience not for sound quality. Andrew Jones has used something that is faceted so he has clearly applied my theories. But unfortunately he couldnt do a sphere as it is not easy to do a wooden sphere. 

If Magico could lower their prices down by about 90% then I think that would even the score. That would enable manufacturers to produce spheres at reasonable prices.

frazeur1
345 posts
 

How about the Gradient 1.4 speakers? Yeah, they might look like little robots, but they do have a lot going for them. FWIW…

nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,896 posts
 

Andrew Jones has used something that is faceted so he has clearly applied my theories.

Talk about delusions of grandeur. 

 

sounds_real_audio
1,018 posts
 

I would have no way of knowing the " correct shape ". Again it is very dependent on the material used. The idea that giving the rear waves off the back of the drivers random walls to bounce off of is fine only if you expect those waves to bounce around. 

If the materials of the cabinet are designed to take the energy (back waves) and convert that energy to heat, well then that is a different animal.

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