Avalon Acoustics OPUS Ceramique Loudspeaker manual Designing for Accurate Bass Reproduction

Designing for Accurate Bass Reproduction

How, then, does one arrive at the goal of a loudspeaker that provides tonal accuracy in the listening room? The answer, in large part, comes in the form of the digital computer. It is possible to create a mathematical model of a listening room, and predict the response of a given speaker in that room. With the computer model, it is quite easy to change the position of the speaker in the room, or other parameters of the model. In this way, a composite picture can be created of a wide variety of rooms and speaker locations. This enables one to design the speaker so that it interfaces properly with the listening environment and provides correct bass response in real-world environments.

The accuracy of the computer model must also be tested in the physical world, using pink noise, warble tones, and time-delay spectrometry for verification. The final, and most important check, is the listening test. Theory and measurements become useless if they do not agree with what our ears tell us. Even the best measurement methods provide little more than a simplified, one-dimensional translation of what is, in reality, an extremely complex, multi-dimensional experience. Again, the goal is the recreation of a musical event, and the faithfulness of that recreation can only be determined through listening.

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