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Everything you always wanted to know about Loudspeakers
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By J.Lang
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This is the introduction to my new book, which will be for salenext year: With this book I have endeavoured to explain themajor factors of the sound reproduction of a loudspeaker. Ithope it will be a helpful summary for the loudspeaker enthusiastas well as the professional who wants an overview of the latesttechnology and knowledge. It also provides the enthusiast with abroad knowledge and basic understanding of loudspeaker design inorder to enable him or her to understand the manufacturers dataand advertising and therefore also supply a guide for thepurchase of loudspeakers, be it finished products or kitsets.Unfortunately a lot of advertising is unclear, confusing andmissleading. I wish this book will shed some light in themystyrious ways of sound reproduction, which are very often notas mysterious as some people would like us to believe. Itherefore also describe a generic loudspeaker with excellentsound reproduction and moderate cost. Due to the ever changingmarket I don't name specific models but rather show with thefollowing example in this book that an excellent soundingspeaker does not need to be overly complicated or extravagant. Acarefull selection of good parts and well engineered crossoveris mostly sufficient. Unfortunatly the latter is a bit difficultto achieve without some basic measuring equipment andexperience. However for the commited DIY the costs for equipmentis relatively affordable nowaddays and experience is mostlygained with time. I ommited elaborate mathematics, since theenthusiast is usally interested in the practical aspects and theprofessional knows the basic mathematics already. Therefore myemphasis lies on cone technology and driver design, which isnormally, providing the cabinet is sensfully designed, the mostcritical part which determines the soundquality. Severaltransducer principles will be explained, but again the emphasislies on the electrodynamik transducer for reasons ofpracticality, sensitivity, size and last not least price. Due tothese advantages it does not surprise that most commercialloudspeakers use standard electrodynamik transducers toreproduce sound instead of exotic technology which is usuallycostly and their advantages in sound reproduction are oftenquestionable to say the least. Of course this does not mean theelectrodynamik transducer is always superior, but in order toachieve a significant advantage over a well designed andconstructed electrodynamik loudspeaker a manufacturer has to goto great length and in the case of an exotic transducer design,spend extensive time in the development which again is costly.All the new introductions of transducer technology that I haveheard of are based on theories and designs invented many decadesago and allthough improved and modified, are not really "newtechnology". It seems all the transducer inventions have beenmade and we can only improve on those. Maybe new scientificresearch and developments will enable us one day to build theperfect loudspeaker, preferably with very small size, but untilthen we will have to compromise and live with an "almost perfectsound". Since sound reproduction is to a great extend also amatter of perception, there is a big element of subjectivity andpersonal taste involved. This element of taste often leads tomassive discussions and arguments about which loudspeaker soundsbest. We have all sorts of sophisticated measuring equipment atour disposal, with which we can measure all sorts of things, butthe relation between measurements and perception is not wellresearched and is not conclusive at the present day. A bigproblem up to date is the measuring signal that is used, whichshould be representative of a musical signal but still be simpleenough to conduct exact measurements. Especially in the area ofdistortion measurements there are no clear methods in place thatallow an assessment which emcompasses all important audibleaspects.
Sponsored by
www.KeaAudio.com
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