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About Gary Gesellchen

Gary Gesellchen is a Mechanical Engineer with a background in design and manufacturing. He is a co-founder and chief engineer of speaker manufacturer Vanatoo. He built his first pair of speakers in high school and has been hooked ever since. Gary has been building custom speakers and obsessing over the perfect speaker since the mid-80’s. When others were focused on “big hair”, he was writing his Master’s thesis on "Acoustic Radiation Characteristics of Short Horns". Gary has over 25 years in the high tech industry, in both engineering and management. Other interests include being in the mountains with nature, travel, and time with family and friends.

All items written by Gary Gesellchen

Bass Reflex Performance Envelope - Part 3: A Practical Example

March 20, 2024 by Gary Gesellchen

Bass Reflex Performance Envelope - Part 3: A Practical Example

In this article, Gary Gesellchen (Vanatoo) completes his Bass Reflex Performance Envelope exploration. After concluding the main analysis portion of the article determining his novel approach to estimating the performance envelope available from bass reflex loudspeakers, Part 3 shows an example to see how his calculations all work together, and addresses some practical considerations. This article was originally published in audioXpress, September 2023.

Bass Reflex Performance Envelope - Part 2: System Analysis

March 13, 2024 by Gary Gesellchen

Bass Reflex Performance Envelope - Part 2: System Analysis

This Bass Reflex Performance Envelope article series describes a novel approach to estimating the performance envelope available from ported loudspeakers. Part 2 expands on the system analysis, showing how driver and port sizes determine how loud and how low a system will play, and how that relates to generally available drivers. This article was originally published in audioXpress, August 2023.

Bass Reflex Performance Envelope - Part 1: The Foundation

March 6, 2024 by Gary Gesellchen

Bass Reflex Performance Envelope - Part 1: The Foundation

Targeting speaker designers/builders, Gary Gesellchen (Vanatoo) wrote a sequence of three articles discussing Bass Reflex Performance. Essentially, this series takes a novel approach to estimating the performance envelope available from ported loudspeakers, considering port and driver sizes and multiple applicable parameters, and comparison with the performance from a passive radiator. This article was originally published in audioXpress, July 2023.