[Archit3ch]

> As the design was fully parametric, I could change a single variable to move to a floorstanding design.

How far are we in 2025 from defining a Differentiable design, setting a target (e.g. maximally flat frequency response for a certain speaker placement in a certain room) and solving this automatically?

[heisenzombie]

If you’ve got some money,

https://www.comsol.com/blogs/6-examples-of-simulation-driven...

Those examples wouldn’t be differentiable in the sense of automatic differentiation. “Just” parametric CAD + FEM/BEM + optimizer.

Though differentiable FEM has kind of been done for a while under the name “adjoint method” for topology/shape optimization. It’s not super common outside of academia though.

Personally, I’m keeping an eye out for projects like https://github.com/deepmodeling/jax-fem to make some waves in that space.

[neRok]

A basic speaker can't do a lot to improve "room acoustics" [1], particularly below the Schroeder frequency where room modes greatly affect the bass response. From my experience, it's the bass that needs fixing in room, because even a "perfect speaker" will get boomy/muddy at some frequencies (ie. reflections overlapping constructively), and thin/null at others (ie. reflections overlapping destructively). And if you aren't going to worry about "fixing the room", then there are already companies/products like Kali Audio IN-5 speakers [2] that have squeezed in some good performance and tech (eg. active DSP with coaxial driver) in to an affordable package.

There are ways to improve the bass situation, and one is by implementing "directional bass", aka a Cardioid array. This could be achieved with multiple individual speakers (add-on/upgrade existing system), or could be integrated in to 1 "speaker". Examples of the latter have been around for a few years - see Dutch & Dutch 8c or Kii Three. They are relatively expensive (which you could consider an early adopter tax), but affordable competition is starting to mature with speakers such as Mesanovic CDM65 [3].

There is another way to improve things too, and that is via "Active Room Treatment" [4] as Dirac calls it. Basically it uses excess capability in various speakers to "clean up" the audio of other speakers in the system by outputting "cancellation waves" (to cancel the problems). The results appear amazing, but they are taking their sweet time getting it released on to affordable equipment.

There's also "spatial audio" like Dolby Atmos that should/could work around room problems in a similar way to Dirac ART. So good speakers (like already exist) + ART + Atmos + AI "upscaled" 2 channel source music could be the final frontier? But that's just for "mechanical" sound reproduction. Maybe in the future I can just transmit the song straight in to my brain, bypassing my ears and the need for speakers entirely?!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_acoustics [2] https://www.kaliaudio.com/independence [3] https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/m... [4] https://www.dirac.com/live/dirac-live-active-room-treatment/

[pbronez]

If you want to DIY something similar, check out the LXmin and other Linkwitz designs

https://www.linkwitzlab.com/Store/LXmini.htm

[westurner]

In this video, they explain that the bandpass port for letting air out of typically the back of speakers is essential for acoustic transmission including bass; and they made an anechoic chamber.

"World's Second Best Speakers!" https://youtube.com/watch?v=EEh01PX-q9I&

TechIngedients also has a video about attaching $6 bass kickers to XPS foam to make flat panel speakers about as good as expensive bookshelf speakers.

"World’s Best Speakers!" https://youtube.com/watch?v=CKIye4RZ-5k&