14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Loudspeaker Design, September 20, 2000
Full of well written, objective and clear explanations of a huge variety of problems that occur in loudspeakers. Unfortunately, it won't give you the equations you need to design much at all. For interesting, thought provoking reading it can't be beat, but for design equations I would recommend the book by Leach.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not such a great book, September 12, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: High Performance Loudspeakers (Paperback)
This book makes no attempt to introduce anybody (even with a good technical and scientific background) to show the principles of loudspeaker design. The author makes a show of knowing the principles of design and evaluation, but the job of puting them in print is , at best, sloppy. Most of the formulae have bugs, thus making this a poor choice as a refernce book. As a summary, it is not a GOOD book on loudspeaker design. It is even, in absolute terms, and comparing with other disciplines, a very poor book on design. It has some interesting remarks, though.
If you are looking on building a good understanding about the principles and methods guiding today's loudspeaker designs, forget about this book as a guide (not that I know of any better alternatives, though).
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Like being nibbled to death by ducks, April 2, 2002
This review is from: High Performance Loudspeakers (Paperback)
I swear, every wild idea I've ever had concerning speaker design is mentioned in this book. Ever thought of a double walled design filled with water? Someone else has too, and it's mentioned in a sentence. I gave it two stars because as a raw source of wild ideas, as a kick to the head, as a brainstorming session where anything goes and depth doesn't matter, it has some value.
My dislike of the book came from a feeling that the sentences in any given paragraph were lucky if they barely hung together by a common thread. More than likely, one sentence touched on something which led to a new subject for the next sentence and on and on, lightly touching on everything while explaining nothing. I wanted something like Douglas Self's book on amp design, "Audio Power Amplifier Design Handbook." The system is explained with all its parts. Each part is taken alone, the goals and problems clearly shown, then many of the possible ways one might think of achieving the goals while avoiding the problems tested and the results shown. I wanted to see which ideas work out, and which were merely good ideas that don't work. That book was deep, clear, and systematic; "High Performance Loudspeakers" was not.
Martin Colloms, instead, tends to skip merrily across the waters of loudspeaker knowledge without even getting wet. Facts are mixed with fiction, subjectivism and science glanced equally over.
When I leafed through "High Performance Loudspeakers" I thought I was in heaven--he covered everything, it seemed, so I put out the very pricy cover cost. As I read on and on and on, I was given superficial views on everything such that I never knew what would be coming next, nor what this sentence had to do with the one before.
Here is a book that tries to mention everything there is to mention about audiophile loudspeakers-that's exactly how it felt to me. I was never instructed, never shown, only allowed to sit and hear the names and ideas dropped one after another after another so that by the end of the book, every idea in world of audio loudspeakers had been mentioned at least once, but I was no closer to understanding how to build or buy a top quality loudspeaker than when I started.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
