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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
 

However the grill or box colour, the material and the shape of the speaker are more things that I would suspect an interior decorator, or Feng Shui master, would care about. They do not, by definition, affect the sound.

Of course perception plays a role too. So youre wrong. All those things can affect the sound you hear indirectly. 

holmz's avatar
holmz
2,328 posts
 

Of course perception plays a role too. So youre wrong. All those things can affect the sound you hear indirectly. 

However… I am not a Feng Shui master.

They certainly have affected the sound that you hear.
As you see the shape, and you know it must be bad.

dill
2,525 posts
 

More Kenjit crap: "That just means you need to improve your hearing before you start improving your speakers. How do you expect to enjoy the benefits of better quality speakers if your hearing isnt good enough?"

- I don’t "need" to do anything you could possibly suggest. I enjoy listening to my system. The music is more important to me than the components. I will never listen to your poor advice. BTW: What is your make believe system?

bolong
602 posts
 

The Youtube channel "Real World Audio" has an interesting bit about real wood "live" speakers and their potential benefits. "Live and Dead Cabinets Both Alter the sound" is the Youtube title.

The standard line is that real wood cabinets generate too much resonance - much more so than plywood or MDF. However, the author argues that real wood speaker cabinets can be very useful for producing the tone of wooden musical instruments if tuned properly.

Some years back I was scouring Ebay for one of those CF series Klipsch speakers designed by a young Ray Delgado, and one of the listings included a photo of the inside where it was clear that the cabinet was made of solid quartersawn white oak - a thing not often seen even in the early 1990"s. The CF series was not generally successful because it "didn't sound like Klipsch." My question is still "what did it sound like?"

kenjit OP
1,771 posts
 

However, the author argues that real wood speaker cabinets can be very useful for producing the tone of wooden musical instruments if tuned properly.

The problem with that is every song you play through them will have a wooden tone. The speaker should reproduce a wooden tone if the recording contains that. Otherwise it should not. Its WRONG

 

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