Ok, lets get something out of the way, I'm on a Funk Audio kick right now, and thats cool and awesome. You should also note that I am not being paid by Funk either, I'm just a customer and fan. However, I adore other brands as well, such as: Focal, Wavelength, Michell, KEF, Acapella, Emotiva, NAD, Aerial Acoustics, Prima Luna, Manely, old school Klipsch (Heresy, Cornwall, oh the glory days
), and the list goes on. The reason for such a diverse taste is the qualities each of these brands manifests in varying elements.
Sound is like a 7 or 8 course meal; should every course be Salmon, or Tiramisu, or Fillet Mignon, or Salad and roasted seasonal vegetables? For some, the answer is yes, for others, variety is called for. It boils down to personal taste, and I enjoy the different sounds of quality products. But then I met this guy named Nathan Funk, and he is a cool cat/mad scientist/audio nerd (his site even says that he's a nerd
). My approach to describing sound is not about numbers or technical data, it's about feel and sensation, and oh what a feeling! When you hear two powered 18.3's, and two powered 18.0's, with two F8.2P's light up..... it gives a totally new meaning to words like: dynamic headroom, sincerity, faithful sound, low distortion, and frequency response. When things around you start shaking and you feel like your being smacked by air, but you can not hear anything, and after 2 hours of 90 db and louder you ears don't hurt... you know you are in the presence of world class sound.
Now, what does this have to do with aluminum enclosures? On his old website (funkywaves) he had some pictures of an aluminum subwoofer enclosure. This enclosure is made of solid 3/4" alum. plate. To say it's heavy is like saying Chernobyl had a mishap, or WWII was an altercation. Well, this mad scientist is playing around with this product again. While he has experienced some interest in this style of enclosure, the weight of the finished product has always been an issue. Now, there has been some newly developed aluminum products that will retain the principal properties of stiffness and internal dampening while shedding pounds of weight.
POUNDS of weight!!!! I'm not talking about one or two lbs, more like it is possible to match the weight of his Baltic Birch enclosures. That is something that is noteworthy. While other manufacturers use metals in the enclosure, they are usually a component of, not the summation (with the exception of a few). Hold the phone Ethel, Johnny's dog isn't dead, he was just sleeping! Can this aluminum beast make a come back? Leaner and meaner than before? I think so. Granted that the design can not follow his curved laminated construction, which is sexy as hell, I'm sure his design will be killer. Why isn't aluminum used more often? One word, price. Simply put, it is not cost effective to build, manufacture, thus use aluminum as
the enclosure material. When will this aluminum constructed monster burst through the preverbal placenta? I don't know, but I'm sure it will be worth the wait.