Acoustic suspension speakers....

[tom67]

I am getting bored with the endless configurations of ported speakers.It almost seem like a constant reinvention of the wheel, where computer models guarantee that most products must have about the same paremeters, given their size. I almost miss my 1974 Advent acoustic suspension models with the tight bass sound. Supposedly, that technology was limited by lack of efficiency, but there have been few closed box models out there the past few years by Yamaha etc. Just curious if anyone knows why we are locked into ports for the past 30 years.....might not a good suspension speaker excel for classical or jazz music at lower listening levels?

 

[Exit]

All of my speakers except my subwoofer are air suspension, but some are 18 years old. I haven't really looked for speakers lately so I wasn't aware ported designs dominate. Air suspension speakers were always known for smooth frequency response while ported speakers tended to be boomy but more efficient. Apparently better technology must have allowed the ported speakers to overcome their previous deficiencies and become dominate. I think Henry Kloss was the inventor of the air suspension speaker. He was the designer behind Advent and also Cambridge Soundworks in its early days.

 

[Sheep]

A good speaker is a good speaker. It doesn't care what the source is. For a sealed speaker to have the same bass output as a ported speaker you need to over engineer the driver. It needs to have a larger Xmax, as well as higher power handling as it will need to throw farther to move the same amount of air. Also, they will be power hogs, so larger amps or even dedicated amps might be needed.

Add to that the fact that everyone runs separate subwoofers these days and you get the reason why no one builds large, sealed, full range speakers.

SheepStar

 

[Sheep]

All of my speakers except my subwoofer are air suspension, but some are 18 years old. I haven't really looked for speakers lately so I wasn't aware ported designs dominate. Air suspension speakers were always known for smooth frequency response while ported speakers tended to be boomy but more efficient. Apparently better technology must have allowed the ported speakers to overcome their previous deficiencies and become dominate. I think Henry Kloss was the inventor of the air suspension speaker. He was the designer behind Advent and also Cambridge Soundworks in its early days.

That Boominess is not a flaw of the ported design, but a miss-use of it's concept and poor choice of driver, cabinet, and tuning. Please stop supporting stereotypes.

SheepStar