Editor’s Note: This article appeared in the premier issue of Live Sound and Touring Technology, a supplement to Recording Engineer/Producer magazine, published in January 1992. It provides an interesting time capsule on the state of the sound reinforcement and loudspeaker market of the time in addition to offering salient information that’s relevant today.
By the way, that fledgling publication now goes by the name of Live Sound International and will celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2016.
Few areas in modern sound reinforcement system design are as subjective and perhaps misinterpreted as the loudspeaker enclosure.
Are they simply structures that contain and physically support the drivers? Does solid joinery insure good quality sound? How about the overall design characteristics? What advantages, if any, are there to trapezoidal, rectangular or other shapes and aspect ratios?
Because of the various design characteristics and construction technologies used in the speaker industry, you should know the difference between buying a table saw or purchasing/leasing products from an established loudspeaker manufacturer. And because wood is the dominant material used by rental companies that produce their own loudspeaker designs, we’ll confine ourselves to wood-based enclosures only.
In planning the acquisition of a sound system, there is likely to be a driving economic need and a tight deadline, such as the first gig for the new system and the goal of starting to recoup the investment. Let’s examine some of the critical design parameters of a system. A number of major considerations need to be addressed.
When a sound reinforcement company is starting up or growing, the owners are faced with three strong forces at work:
1. The need for an initial or increased inventory of loudspeakers and associated equipment, such as amps.
2. Typically limited financial resources, what the legal profession calls “thinly capitalized.”
3. A strong entrepreneurial drive to achieve the best results for the least money, while bringing the owner’s experience and interest in the design and construction of sound systems, and, in particular, loudspeakers, which make up the largest physical portion of the sound system.
The prospective start-up SR company performs a cost analysis, considering the following options:
• Buy a table saw, screw guns, staple guns, clamps, glue, bits and blades. Then, carefully estimate the value of plywood and glue blocks. Allowing something for their own time and their employees’ time, they create a strong fiscal argument for setting up a shop to design and construct their own enclosures.
• Purchase an off-the-shelf speaker system from a name brand manufacturer.
In justifying the first choice, I believe that some strong emotions are brought into play. Many owners of SR companies have experience in speaker design — there are magazines and computer programs devoted entirely to the subject — and they are anxious to try their hand at constructing a large-scale system. The satisfaction of seeing one’s own designs become reality is a strong experience, not easily matched by purchasing a system from another designer/manufacturer.
Add to this a solid justification of the process by pointing to the largest SR companies in the world, and you have an arguably winning formula. This seems hard to beat by simply purchasing off-the-shelf speaker systems that are high-priced, and might not align with the owner’s personal vision of a perfect design, and are (more or less) available to anybody.
Let’s explore this further by first looking at the overall design approach to high-quality loudspeaker systems. This topic easily could fill a book by itself. What follows should be taken as an overview only.
