I've built mansions around speakers, with amps and peripheral gear for them that ran into the hundreds of thousands, and the houses won architectural awards, and featured in nat'l trade periodicals and as cover homes in the periodicals.
Its safe to say that I've built a cabinet or two in my day, and I worked directly with the sound designers and architects in the design and installation - and then finishing them so that they disappeared into the home. This included elaborate early surround rigs of original design and construction (we built the enclosures into the homes)
These were half million dollar original design audio installations in mid 80's dollars, utilizing Sonus drivers mostly, and giant 15" subwoofers built into floors, under couches, below the beds, in the disco/cabana, you name it. Built into old growth teak, marble, sandstone, plaster,... wherever they needed a custom installation.
I've built a speaker or two in my day.
It sounds like you know a thing or two about speakers.. But what does that have to do with the fact I dont like the design? You are making this personal when all I did was say something about a speaker design strange..... Anyway hope you make them and prove me wrong
The fact is that you're touting your own prowess in electronics, and trying to make me appear the fool for looking towards efficient design speakers that are very well received, on a globally growing scale. I did not say anything about having purchased, or even having heard them. What I have heard is glowing reviews about them based on my own recordings that I've supplied to audio enthusiasts around the world, any number of which have built these speakers.
Back to my building,...
The funny thing about some of our installations, is the way we buried them behind stuff, and in awkward places, like either side of gigantic living reef fish tanks. They were placed behind giant perforated copper screens, faux finished to match stone columns, wood columns, walls, etc. and still sounded fantastic. It was a trip to be looking into a huge aquarium not seeing any speakers, yet getting blasted by a huge realistic sound image through a sheet of patina'd copper screening. The realism was frightening, and it was coming through allot more than a 3/8" baffle, or a gleaming sound distorting screw head.
This is at a time when I was pulling lots and lots of live recordings of massive PA systems, and we would then crank the system to 11 on the suck knob and rock the house out. The owners son was a deadhead, and would come in and turn it up to 12, and blast the beach with live level playback essentially turning a 15k sq.ft. house into a giant ghetto blaster.
I listened to these systems for about 2 years while we finished the house, and knew them intimately: nakamichi dragon cassette decks, x2 for dubbing tapes, and dubbing to R2R as well.
These systems were racks of dozens of David Hafler amps that were directed throughout 15k sq.ft. of the highest custom homes. I didn't wire it, or that, we were the general contractor/builder, but we were ultimately responsible for the proper construction, and finishing, and were tightly supervised in it by the sound designer.
The few free standing speakers were ADS of various sizes.
I managed to get into the massive purchase of all the gear, and got a single 120 D.Hafler amp, Hafler pre, and pair of ADS speakers, as my second qualified rig. My first was a Saras speaker pair, garage made by a JBL designer that had just quit, and branched out into biz, around '75.
Don't be smug about the speakers, Chris. They might not be for reproduction of gigantic PA speaker music, electronica, but they make a very nice jazz, classical, chamber, late night sultry speaker, for playback at a listening level appropriate to how the music was/should be naturally presented. A PA system recording would probably crack the cabinets. They're for a mature level of listening.
I've sent a bunch of recordings (dozens) over to my friend from Hong Kong, and for the audio clubs, and David was blown away by the live presentation of acoustic music. I've done the same for people in sweden, denmark, germany, and Finland. They've all been really enthused by what they heard, and the reports back were glowing for what I record.
If my recordings were very well received by such a vast quorum, then I feel that it would be a quality try for a DIY build, or even a kit purchase that I could hotrod. But this is just of the options that I've been exploring.