Moderator: Good evening, and welcome to our chat with David Lee of Rhino Acoustics.

Scott R: OK, basic question: How did you get started in audio?

Moderator: Yes, Mr. Lee, let's start with some background.

David Lee: I got started working in audio by walking into a stereo store, and it turned out I know their products better than the sales guys did. They offered me a job. I would credit the start of my interest in audio to an album by Peter Gabriel called “Security”. It was, I found out many years later, recorded with very little compression, and I was always trying to reproduce the signal faithfully. That led me to bigger and bigger things

yam4000vca: What was your reason for delving into the sub bass area? Did you feel that the other products available were lacking in some way?

David: Yes, I did. One way or anther I found the available products to be either unable to reproduce dynamic peaks, or deep notes, or high levels without distortion. I wanted it all, and nothing could fulfill all my requirements. Even the products with very high price tags and very large sizes were not making the grade. It became something of a quest.

HB: what about the BT7? Opinion?

David: I only recently heard the BT7, and then only briefly. I heard them at the Seattle Subwoofer Listening Workshop.

HB: Well, what did you think? Honest comparisons in the real world?

David: I'd love for people to do honest comparisons in the real world. Of course, based on what I have heard so far, I'm confident in the performance of the B-One over the BT7.
The B-One is a remarkably musical loudspeaker.

HB: I'm not sure what that means? Do you mean it has even-order harmonic distortion, making it musically relevant?

David: I mean it has the ability to track the fine details of complex waveforms and does not color the sound

yam4000vca: Horns, to me, have never been the most musical type. What, with regard to this design, is the reason that it’s different.

David: All the developments that we call Bassmaxx Technology contribute to superior performance. The combination of all of them together makes it outstanding.

yam4000vca: Can you share some specifics on this?

David: Bassmaxx Technology was developed from an extremely high-fidelity viewpoint. Some of the elements in its design are unconventional. They address the complaints many people have about horns. With horns, people have seemed to either love them or hate them. There are reasons for this. Bassmaxx Technology essentially eliminates many of the "I hate horns" complaints, but keeps the benefits of high-efficiency and high-impact characteristics. Sort of the best of both worlds.

yam4000vca: So were you alone responsible for this design and what led you to it?

David: Actually, Bassmaxx Technology was developed by Johan van Zyl. He and I designed the B-One using his technology. I had little to no input on the inner workings, other than to specify the goals of the design and the limitations we would need to work within. As an end-user, I told him what I had always wanted from a subwoofer, and he designed it. Viola!

yam4000vca: I will preface this question with the fact that I have not heard this box. What is your strategy to spread the news, so to speak, and make it a bit more common?

David: Well, we certainly believe and hope that the word will continue to be spread by those people who have heard them. We wish we could blanket the world with them, but we are certainly willing to send them to anyone who wants to order. We do have a money-back guarantee. ;-) The really big companies can give their stuff away, so we have to build something truly outstanding to actually be able to charge for it. We have. And we make it available at a competitive price.

yam4000vca: Are you mainly the "idea guy" in this project ,and is that the reason that tech info may not be at your fingertips? Or are you reluctant to give out any? No problem either way, just curious.

David: We are reluctant to give it away. It took many years to develop it, and it's worth keeping! That said, I am certainly more the "idea guy" than the "engineer guy".

yam4000vca: Was it modern drivers that have made this design what it is, or mostly box design, or other factors?