AX November: Inside Audio: Loudspeakers for PCs, ESL Design, & the Tubes vs. Solid State

The first issue of Circuit Cellar magazine—a sister publication of audioXpress that’s focused on embedded computer engineering—was printed in 1988 with a now-famous quote on the cover: inside the box still counts. Since then, engineers and innovators have used the …

Each year’s “speaker special” issue is a favorite among audioXpress readers. This 2012 edition features in-depth articles about speaker technologies and design projects, without completely ignoring other interesting topics such as tube amps. This year’s special speaker section features informative articles about a detailed loudspeaker design project and an intriguing electrostatic speaker experiment. We also included a third must-read speaker-related article, but it isn’t in the special section because it focuses on enclosures rather than speaker design.

Choosing the correct speaker enclosure can be the difference between decent sound and excellent sound. As Mike Klasco and Steve Tatarunis explain in the September 2012 issue of audioXpress, “No matter how much effort was spent on the drivers’ design, …