From ???@0x00000AB2 Wed Nov 17 12:28:12 1999 Path: pitt.edu!newsflash.concordia.ca!nntp.cs.ubc.ca!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.mindspring.net.MISMATCH!news.mindspring.net!news.airnews.net!cabal10.airnews.net!cabal1.airnews.net!news-f.iadfw.net!usenet From: "John M. Dlugosz" Newsgroups: rec.audio.tech Subject: Re: Sweet 16s/or what's a guy to do? Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 21:02:48 -0600 Organization: Airnews.net! at Internet America Lines: 32 Message-ID: X-Orig-Message-ID: <80t788$2hm@library1.airnews.net> References: <80hpjd$68c$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Abuse-Reports-To: abuse at airmail.net to report improper postings NNTP-Proxy-Relay: library1.airnews.net NNTP-Posting-Time: Tue Nov 16 21:26:00 1999 NNTP-Posting-Host: !X^h21k-XZb"^gZ (Encoded at Airnews!) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Xref: pitt.edu rec.audio.tech:112931 Status: N I told Jim that his old puppy was still getting some attention. He said he didn't have time to follow another newsgroup, but passed along some comments: ====== quote ======= Yep, those things were my design back in the fall of 1959, and the construction article appeared in the January 1960 issue of Popular Electronics. I didn't know any of them were still around. You might tell the writer that the speakers cost less than $3 each back then; the total cost for the original, including the lumber (but not the tweeter, which got added later for a follow-up article), was about $50. The speakers were of the same quality found in the 4-tube AC-DC clock radios, with a frequency range of around 500 Hz to 4,000 Hz -- distinctly NOT wide-range. The 4x4 matrix with all cones in phase pushed air like a 36-inch diameter cone would, though, and the definite peak at about 5 kHz gave the impression of high frequency response. Adding the tweeter (an additional $15.95 if I recall correctly, still nothing great) did improve the highs. I was still getting mail about that project well into the 70s, though. It simply grabbed reader opinions and hung in there. Theoretically it was all wrong, but it still sounded good to most folk, and some years later (when I went to work at University Loudspeakers division of LTV-Altec) I learned that MOST of acoustic theory was equally wrong! There's no theoretical reason why a Stradivarius violin should sound any better than Roy Clark's fiddle, for instance, but most all violinists agree that it does. Loudspeaker performance is equally subjective!