Recent Speaker Design Articles

This article contains an in depth discussion of the trade-offs of different center channel designs (MTM vs WTMW, etc) and their real world applications and limitations.

This article explores the differences between capacitor and inductor types utilized in the crossover designs and how they may affect measurable and sonic performance of your loudspeakers.

This article sheds some light on the least seen and perhaps most undervalued part of the speaker system, the crossover network. The crossover separates the sound going to each speaker driver and more.

More often than not consumers are swayed by a single parameter in a products specifications to judge its true performance. Lately it’s quite a popular trend on the forums of people critiquing a …

We discuss the mechanics of loudspeaker clipping and work several examples of product failure to better understand power ratings.

This article explains loudspeaker power handling and how manufacturers often rate how much power a speaker is rated to handle.

High-quality audio is a critical part of creating a compelling home theater product line. With the availability of six- and eight-channel surround sound systems, consumers expect movie theater …

The WT3 Woofer Tester by Dayton Audio is a fast, accurate and affordable measurement tool that’s about as easy to use as it gets. Just load the included software, plug the probe into the nearest USB …

When it comes time to size up a subwoofer's performance, the proof is in the measurement! Audioholics takes a hard look at the science of subwoofer measurements in a two-part series covering a broad …

You often see us measuring subwoofers using various methods such as: groundplane, in-room nearfield, outdoor on a pole, anechoic, quasi anechoic, etc in our product reviews and technical articles. …

In recent years it has become common for items of audio equipment to be mounted using “spikes” or “cones”. These come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and materials, at all kinds of prices. The Hi-Fi …

This article discusses performance tradeoffs of vertically vs horizontally mounted drivers in center channel speakers. We show how off-axis lobing can negatively affect performance of horizontal MTMs.

This article discusses Loudspeaker Impedance and the load an amplifier sees if you wire speakers in series or parallel. We discuss the math and expected SPL differences as well as pros/cons of each.

As a fledgling electronics buff I gathered together the usual hodgepodge of spare parts, old TV's and all the other electrical odds and ends that youngsters bitten by that particular bug seems to …

Driver "break in", "burn in" or "run in" is a topic that's been debated in various forums for years. This topic continues to ignite occasional flame wars, fueled by the contributions of both …

The mechanical & acoustical performance of a loudspeaker cabinet's panel will be assessed at various stages of construction, with an eye to noting any improvements along the way. This report will …

When I design a loudspeaker system for home or studio use, with the goal of maximizing sonic accuracy, there are a handful of key areas I focus on when it comes time to judge how successful the …

When I look at Infinity, then Axiom, then Paradigm, and then Rocket, I can't see any consistency with the frequency range and the price. How can a speaker with a frequency range of 60-20,000 Hz cost …

Are wireless surround sound speakers the next big thing? Hong Kong leads the market in the release of wireless 5.1 speaker systems. Wireless and active surround sound speakers with built-in decoders …

In this, Part 3 in the series, I'd like my 30+ year journey through speaker design to illustrate how much of the knowledge was gained over long periods, by testing combinations and by following what …

The filter type can be described in several different ways. Low-pass and high-pass filters in two-way crossover networks are often identified by their "Q". The Q is the resonance magnification of the …

In truth, it is very difficult to know for sure how a speaker by itself really sounds unless you can listen to it in an almost perfectly neutral room. Any listening situation short of that perfectly …

Despite many of the myths that surround series networks and their acclaimed superiority over conventional parallel networks for loudspeaker design, both networks can be designed with identical …

Initially, the Audioholics topic that impressed most was their multi-part series on cables . After reading that series just about anyone who…