Placing the driver in the center of a circular baffle will produce increased non-linearities in response. This is due to the consistent spacing in all directions of the baffle and the baffle related diffraction / reflections that take place. If using a circular baffle, the driver should be slightly offset. This causes a staggering of center frequencies that the diffraction related lobing takes place at. Radiusing the baffle and / or treating it with acoustic damping material can help, but there are tricks to this too.
When radiusing a baffle, the radius has to taper at a very gradual rate in order to achieve maximum effectiveness. Rounding the corners of a flat baffle does little to nothing. It might look prettier and produce "flowing lines", but it does next to nothing acoustically.
According to the studies i've seen, the most linear response from a driver is achieved when placed in an "egg shaped" cabinet with a slightly flattened baffle. This staggers both the quantity and frequency of baffle related diffraction taking place due to the driver having varying distances to the edge on each part of the baffle. The contoured shape minimizes the diffraction that does take place because the reflected sound waves are seamlessly directed away from their source due to the radius of the cabinet.
This is the reason that Waveform used this design on their monitors. The fact that they "textured" the cabinet also helped to break up standing waves on the baffle even further. While i did not personally like specific design aspects on some of their products, they truly were doing some innovative things that nobody else had attempted to conquer. Sean
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When radiusing a baffle, the radius has to taper at a very gradual rate in order to achieve maximum effectiveness. Rounding the corners of a flat baffle does little to nothing. It might look prettier and produce "flowing lines", but it does next to nothing acoustically.
According to the studies i've seen, the most linear response from a driver is achieved when placed in an "egg shaped" cabinet with a slightly flattened baffle. This staggers both the quantity and frequency of baffle related diffraction taking place due to the driver having varying distances to the edge on each part of the baffle. The contoured shape minimizes the diffraction that does take place because the reflected sound waves are seamlessly directed away from their source due to the radius of the cabinet.
This is the reason that Waveform used this design on their monitors. The fact that they "textured" the cabinet also helped to break up standing waves on the baffle even further. While i did not personally like specific design aspects on some of their products, they truly were doing some innovative things that nobody else had attempted to conquer. Sean
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