Compression Guide Technology
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History
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Continued
For example, with a bass guitar, you can hear the pick of the string along with the bass note.
With a kick drum, you could hear the rap of the mallet against the skin of the drum and your
body could feel the impact. However, with conventional speakers, all you
’
d hear was an ill
-
defined boom. Back then, the only speakers that seemed to get it right were the big, bulky and
expensive transmission
-
line systems.
We needed to know why there was a disparity between live bass and that reproduced by
speakers. After some research, it became apparent that the problem was due to the way the
woofer was tuned in the enclosure. As was the case then just as it is now, two tuning methods
were used by most speaker companies. In one case the cabinet was completely sealed. This
method is called acoustic suspension or air suspension. In the other method, the cabinet had
a calculated opening called a vent or port. The length, width and height of the port was de-
signed to reinforce bass at the lowest frequencies.
The problem with both of these methods is that they rely on system resonance to properly
load the woofer. System resonance acts like a spring in that once a note stops, the woofer
cone wants to continue vibrating. This results in what we call woofer overhang and results in
muddy bass. After realizing the problem, we spent years attempting to lessen the effects of
system resonance. Eventually, we found the solution and the results were spectacular. We call
it Compression Guide and it was a method of dividing the insides of the speaker enclosure into
areas of compression and expansion. As the sound wave passed through these areas, the
effects of resonance were greatly reduced.
We discovered that Compression Guide also paid huge dividends in the midrange as well.
Bookshelf speakers tuned by Compression Guide exhibited much cleaner and transparent
sound with both vocals and music. In comparison, other bookshelf speakers sounded
“
boxy
”.
It also helped the speakers to image more accurately.
Standard Enclosure
Compression Guide Enclosure
6
