On the first page we touched on a few questions that I hope to answer here.        The first question was "what makes a good loudspeaker"? Most importantly, you must start with excellent drivers (component speakers) or there is no way you'll ever get anywhere. No matter how inventive, creative and informed an engineer is, he can't make up for poor quality drivers. It's   simply not possible. We use only drivers specifically designed for their intended application, no substitutions, no cutting corners. Are quality drivers expensive? They generally are, but as a rule you cannot say that a $400 tweeter will sound any better than a decent $100 one. That said, drivers do constitute by far the majority of the cost of our speakers. The next part of the equation is a properly sized and properly tuned (if ported) enclosure. The enclosure acts as an "air spring," giving resistance to damp the driver's movement. There is no way for a speaker to sound good without a properly tuned, resonance free enclosure. Most of our speakers, including the entire HR line, have a separate tuned enclosure for the midrange (some of our models have more than one) and one for the woofer. This not only shapes the response of the midrange drivers, but also prevents distortion resulting from the woofer's back wave pushing on the midrange and flailing it back and forth as in many other speakers. Additionally, this keeps the sounds radiating from the back of the midrange from escaping through the woofer cone and through the port. Third, and by far the most important, intricate and difficult-to-get-right part of our excellent sound equation is the crossover network. The crossover sends the proper frequencies in the right proportion, phase angle, and frequency range to each respective driver. Nearly all loudspeaker designers use the four different generic types of crossovers spit out by a computer program. You may have heard of a first or third order Butterworth or a Linkwitz-Riley alignment, to mention a few. The problem is you can't take a generic crossover slope and make it work with all the different combinations of drivers out there like the majority of speaker engineers attempt to do. Also, there's no such thing as "custom computer designed". No computer has ever spit out the perfect crossover design. The computer has no definitions for soundstage, depth or musical truism. Using a generic crossover would be like having only one kind of V- 8 engine to fit all cars, from a work van to a Porsche. Not likely to do well in very many of those possibilities, is it? At BRSE, we know very well why most  speakers from other manufacturers have frequency response graphs that look like rollercoasters or mountain ranges: the wrong choice of drivers combined with  poor crossover design. As you can see in examining other speakers' frequency response graphs, it's not often that a generic computer generated crossover network is effective. It's basically a matter of luck. However, put a sea of crossover components in the right hands and you'll find magic. The magic of accurate, clean, live sounding speakers. Part of our design philosophy is to use the fewest number of parts to get the job done, because every single component in a crossover takes just a little of the "liveness" away. Even the ones we have to have can take away something from the music, so quality components are key as well. In addition, we're not afraid to venture into the realm of the unknown and design something new instead of following the pack with a generic set of components. The use of computer generated crossovers is very widespread, and so are the peaks and dips in most frequency response graphs. We don't feel the need to stick to tried and true designs. We started off by modifying common designs, now we have our own innovative crossover slopes and circuitry design that bear little resemblance to the standards of the industry. We keep that circuitry as simple as is possible. There are crossovers in some very expensive loudspeakers that have upwards of 40-50 components (capacitors, coils, resistors, etc) choking down the input signal. Our HR-1 uses precisely seven. We are able to use so few components through innovative use of those components, rather than by following the herd. Additionally, while there are three main aspects of quality speaker design- the proper drivers, cabinet, and crossover, there are many other little details that fall into the artistic category. I say artistic because as we have discussed there are many aspects that computer design misses. Much as a computer can't design a violin because it can't define things like warmth and timbre, a computer likewise can't handle most aspects of loudspeaker design. These aspects are usually ignored because the designer is unaware of them, doesn't care,  or doesn't have the ability or knowledge to deal with them and finesse his design into a fine music reproduction instrument. While the computer does play a part at BRSE, we are audiophiles to the core, not just some guys with CAD programs who could care less about what they're designing as long as they get paid. Think about it, most companies will hire some guy with an engineering degree who may not even have an interest in sound to design their speakers, it's just a job to him. At BRSE, the engineer is the guy who started BRSE out of love for music and it's reproduction. So, we go the extra mile, because we take pride in our field, and our loudspeakers. Further, not a single person will lay a hand on your new speakers that is not at least a part owner of BRSE, a sure guarantee of care and quality. Now, how do you know when a speaker is properly designed? There is one tool that takes all of the unknowns and turns them into undeniable fact: The measurement microphone. A loudspeaker manufacturer can tell you all kinds of nice things that may sound convincing about why his speakers are supposed to sound great, but the proof is in the graph. I'm going to put those two graphs from the first page back up so we can examine and learn a little more about them and what they can tell us.                                                                                                                                                                                                                        This first graph is of that same                                                                                                    speaker that is sold for about $30,000.                                                                                                    We can see that not only is this a very                                                                                                    jagged graph, but the dips and bumps                                                                                                    are quite large. The measurements                                                                                                    range from a low of -4db at around                                                                                                    2200Hz to a number of way-too-high                                                                                                    peaks, the highest of which (+5db) is                                                                                                    found at around 10,000Hz. Now, what                                                                                                    does this mean other than making the                                                                                                    graph look horrible? A change                                                                                                    in amplitude of more than 2db or so                                                                                                    is quite noticeable and degrading to                                                                                                    the sound quality. In this case, we can                                                                                                    see a total variance of 9db from the                                                                                                    lowest point to the highest. 10db                                                                                                    represents a doubling in volume, so this speaker is nearly twice as loud at 10,000Hz as it is at 2200Hz, when it should ideally have equal volume at all frequencies. This speaker should be rated +/- 4.5db, while ours is easily +/- 1db and I'd lay odds that there may well be a speaker down there at our fictional Bargain Barn that would sound better than this $30,000 wonder. What all this means in practical terms is that if you were to listen to someone playing an instrument through this speaker and they were going up and down the musical scale (up and down in frequency) with equal amplitude you'd hear some notes come through very quietly and some nearly twice as loud as they should be! Imagine for a moment someone going up and down the musical scale on your favorite instrument, whatever it may be. Now imagine every second or third note being twice as loud as adjacent notes, that's similar to how the speaker in the graph above and most others will distort your music. I once knew a guy who took all ten sliders per channel on his graphic equalizer and alternately set each one either all the way up or down all the way down the line and thought it sounded great! I think he must be the target demographic for a $30,000 loudspeaker that sounds like a cheap boombox you'd use on a picnic. So, in essence, this speaker manufacturer (and yes, this is a real graph of a real $30,000 speaker) is asking you to fork over $30,000 for a pair of speakers that in some cases you'd not even be able to tell what instrument you were supposed to be hearing! Now, we really don't mean to bash this one speaker, this is why we didn't reveal the manufacturers' name. Also, it's not fair to make only one comparison, please click here for more.                                                                                                                            Enter Blue Ridge Sound Engineering. The graph to the right is of our HR-1. The measurements were taken under standard conditions for a direct apples-to-apples Com- parison. It's plain to see that this speaker sounds worlds better than the one above, and for nearly $29,000 less! Lets interpret the graph in plain English, although the visual difference is clear. While the speaker above should be rated at+/- 4.5db, meaning many sounds are more than twice as loud as neighboring sounds,  ours is about +/-1db.That's about as good as it gets, at any price. Differences of less than two decibels are thought to be undetectable and irrelevant.  It is unlikely that your ears or mine could tell the difference between the hypothetical "perfect" loudspeaker and our HR-1. There are other things that these graphs will tell us, such as where the bass response rolls off. The expensive speaker is a full-size floor standing one, while ours is a much easier to position, move about, fit in, and get the-wife-to-like mini-monitor (large bookshelf) size. So then, there should be no contest as far as bass response, right? Everybody "knows" that larger speakers go deeper and more powerfully into the low bass. Its just a matter of physics, right? Not always. Our speaker goes deeper, lower, and more powerfully into the bass region than not only everything anywhere close to it's size class but also many full size loudspeakers including the pricey speaker in this comparison that's four times as large. Not all graphs provide "apples to apples" comparisons, as some use a different scale on the left for amplitude, and/or a different end point for the frequency scale. With possible differences in scale in mind, you can compare our speakers to any other out there.  For the sake of our craft, I hope that there is another speaker out there with a response graph that looks as good or better than ours does in our size and price category, or any other! If you find it, please let us know, and then by all means, buy it. .

Make an informed choice about your sound investment...