Acoustic Research TSW 210A Loud Home Audio Speaker Set
The acoustic suspension woofer provided an elegant solution to the
age-old problem of bass distortion in loudspeakers caused by non-linear,
mechanical suspensions in conventional loudspeakers. The
state-of-the-art at the time of AR's invention was the bass reflex
speaker, which boosted bass response for a given amount of cone travel
by directing sound energy from the rear of the speaker cone through a
port in the cabinet "tuned" for reinforcement of the direct signal from
the front of the cone by the signal from the rear of the cone. Among
the drawbacks of that system are the stringent design parameters for
successfully achieving accurate bass reinforcement, requiring great
precision and, with the technology of the day, large cabinets. Some loss
of accuracy ("smearing" or "vooming" of low frequencies) was inevitable
and the results of specific designs were not entirely predictable. Long
hours with slide rules and prototypes
drove up the development costs of new designs, keeping them out of
popular price ranges. High fidelity woofers were also vulnerable to
damage from extreme low frequency signals. Those issues were finessed
with the invention of the acoustic suspension woofer.