Link to Lynn Olson's article about speaker design and construction

[Aussie Geoff]

Hi,

An interesting link to some (relatively strongly opinionated but informative) material on Spekaer Design from the Positive Feedback Magazine...

Throws in some opinions on the evolution of speakers, valve vs transistor amps etc... Controversal but interesting stuff

Geoff

[JonMarsh]

Hello Geoff,


This would have been a lot more interesting and useful, on Lynn's part, if when he makes states like "it has been shown" he would include references. This is a really basic thing to do for any kind of journal article or published technical article. There are a number of interesting statements, like those in paragraph 5 and 6, which need substantiation.

Paragraph 7, about distortion products and driver resonances, is largely true for most commercial speakers, but the means to minimize those signatures with the best of current drivers does exist. Paragraph 8 and 9 make some pretty strong unsubstantiated statements, including ones like the lead statement in the paragraph which are NOT substantiated by linear distortion measurements I've seen on good drivers with pistonic cones and wideband response.

His comments on diffraction are interesting but seem a bit overblown, given the degree to which they can be reduced with good conventional design, especially in the case of dipoles, but even with conventional box speakers using unconventional approaches to front panel design (integrating the baffle design, grille, drivers, and diffraction control materials - as done in the M8 speaker design published in AudioXpress).

This "rant" paragraph about "they all have ...., they all have", suggests he's never seen or heard an Orion...

A thought provoking read, anyway. Thanks for the post.

Best regards,

Jon