What to expect from a good speaker? In reality, the question should be, what to expect from a good music playback system, as there are other elements besides the speaker. Traditionally, of course, the weakest link in the chain is the speaker. In any case, a good speaker is necessary for quality music playback.

While developing the very special loudspeaker systems, TiFi Elf, and the even more extraordinary omnidirectional speaker, TiFi Poseidon, a mischievous idea began to germinate. Why undertake all this extensive development work when you could take all the known traditions and formulas of speaker design and create a truly traditional speaker, or at least something along those lines?

When tuning the TiFi Elf speakers, I had to constantly move between my work desk and the listening spot. The speakers were positioned along the side walls of the room, approximately in the middle, with the listening spot on one side and the work desk on the other. While testing sample tracks, it was surprising to find that the Elf sounded remarkably good even when listened at right angle. As I continued to shuttle back and forth, the idea of crea

Speakers are meant for enjoying music, and it's worth testing them with music. Of course, you can beep, sweep, and listen to square wave signals, but all that effort should translate into the speaker's ability to deliver music well. When searching for test tracks, you'll definitely come across audio enthusiasts' forums.

The goal of developing the TiFi Elf speaker was to create a compact floor-standing speaker for bedrooms and offices. The need arose from real-life situation. The shelf speaker in the bedroom was placed in the wrong location for optimal sound, and the correct position couldn't accommodate a shelf, speaker stand, or any standard-sized floor-standing speaker.

At home, you have another much larger speaker enclosure for your music. It's the listening room. The resonant frequency of a closed room is a quarter of the wavelength and its multiples. Depending on the positions of the speaker and the listener, additional sound reflections and their interference occur. Imagine a jagged line oscillating up and down – this is the graph of how your room's sound changes.

Sound Quality in Audio Reproduction. There are numerous stages involved in audio reproduction, and achieving good end results requires quality at every stage. As listeners, we cannot influence the work done in studios and during recording. However, even here there are significant differences, and in real life, a common normal distribution applies – a lot of mediocrity and a touch of quality, along with some junk. Fortunately, we have the choice o

Sound Pressure and System Power. Sound loudness, specifically sound pressure, is measured in decibels (dB). The decibel scale is relative and always referenced to a certain value (human hearing threshold, device maximum capability, etc.). The decibel scale can have both positive and negative values.

Sound Wave Length and Propagation. The length of a sound wave is determined by its frequency and the speed of sound propagation. While the speed of sound propagation varies with different air temperatures, for calculations, room temperature and a sound speed of 343 m/s can be used.

Sound Frequencies and Music Quality. A sound wave in the air can be visualized as a pressure wave consisting of densely packed and sparse regions. Lower sounds are modulated with finer lines that carry higher frequencies. The precise shape of these lines carries information about the frequency and amplitude of the sound.