From: pfjw@aol.com   
      
   On Thursday, June 30, 2016 at 1:54:49 AM UTC-4, Big Bad Bob wrote:   
      
   >    
   > never heard that before, 'Boston Sound'.  Or 'California Sound' for that   
   > matter.   
   >    
   > I just want flat response and reasonable sound distribution.   
   >    
      
   It seems that most of the well-made acoustic-suspension speakers came out of   
   Boston/Cambridge starting in the 1960s, and continuing into the 90s or so   
   before  International Jensen came in and pretty much destroyed the industry.   
   These speakers were known    
   for being (relatively) compact, inefficient, and almost boringly accurate   
   within their response curves.    
      
   The west coast, on the other hand, developed speakers that were very bright   
   relative to all things, with curves skewed up at the bass and treble ends of   
   the curve. Cerwin Vega was a prime example of the species with massive woofers   
   and very loud horn    
   tweeters, with the midrange being amongst the missing. Also fairly efficient   
   as measured in noise-per-watt. So, smaller amplifiers were OK - even though a   
   LOT of tweeters were destroyed by clipping if the owners did not show some   
   restraint.    
      
   The problem with horn-loaded speakers is that they simply can't move enough   
   air to provide the full range of sound. Power notwithstanding. My least   
   powerful amp is an optimistic 17 wpc/rms using EL84s in PP. My most powerful   
   is a 200 wpc/rms brute-force    
   device every bit of which I need for the Maggies - very nearly dead-flat from   
   32 Hz - 40 K Hz, down only 6dB at 20 Hz.    
      
   Point being that every person has choices in what they like. And certain   
   speakers generally favor certain types of signal over others. Were this not   
   the case, all ice-cream would be vanilla. At this point, I keep six speaker   
   systems in general service,    
   all AR but for the Maggies - which are in the main system. I really _DO_favor   
   the Boston Sound, but, the Maggies blow all of them away. I guess it is also   
   speakers like the Maggies that have removed any temptation I might have had to   
   roll my own. Or, I    
   could spend an obscene amount of money to make my own planar speakers.....   
      
   http://www.eraudio.com.au/DIY_Speaker_Kits/Acorn_ESL_kit/acorn_esl_kit.html     
      
   Peter Wieck   
   Melrose Park, PA   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)