Loudspeaker Handbook

The prospect of writing a book on loudspeakers is a daunting one, since only a multivolume encyclopedia could truly do justice to the subject. Authors writing about this subject have generally concentrated on their own areas of expertise, often covering their own specific topics in great detail. This book is no exception; the author's background is largely in professional loudspeaker application and specification, and the emphasis in this book is on basic component design, operation, measurement, and system concepts. The book falls largely into two sections; the first (Chapters 1-9) emphasizing the building blocks of the art and the second (Chapters 10-16) emphasizing applications, measurements, and modeling. While a thorough understanding of the book requires a basic knowledge of complex algebra, much of it is understandable through referring to the graphics. Every attempt has been made to keep graphics clear and intuitive. Chapter 1 deals with the basic electro-mechano-acoustical chain between input to the loudspeaker and its useful output, with emphasis on the governing equations and equivalent circuits. Chapter 2 is a survey of cone and dome drivers, the stock-in-trade of the industry. They are discussed in terms of type, design, performance, and perfor- mance limits. Chapter 3 deals with magnetics. Once a source of difficulty in loudspeaker design, magnetics today yields easily to modeling techniques. Chapter 4 discusses low-frequency (LF) system performance, primarily from the viewpoint of Thiele-Small parameters. We also discuss some of the multi- chamber LF systems that became popular during the eighties.