Loudspeaker and Headphone Handbook, 3rd Edition

 

7	Loudspeaker enclosures
	Graham Bank and Julian Wright

7.1 Introduction

The earliest loudspeaker enclosures were cabinets in the true sense – crafted, decorative wooden furniture providing protection and cosmetic effect. Briggs¹ shows such cabinets as the HMV Victor gramophone horn of 1905 (Fig. 7.1 complete with audience!) and the BTH loudspeaker and amplifier of 1926 (Fig. 7.2). Hunt² provides a fascinating insight into the early history of loudspeaker enclosures, chronicling the confusion generated by the patent ‘goldrush’ of the 1920s.

Loudspeaker designers realized at a very early stage that frequency-dependent reinforcement and cancellation effects, due to the interference of radiation from the front and rear surfaces of the ...