THE SOUND OF MUSIC

I’m probably showing my age but I still believe that much of what passes for audio hi-fi today is vastly inferior to some of that which went before. I may be quite wrong but I can remember truly awesome sound that made you feel that the band was in the same room and the sound was coming from their own monitors. Sound with clarity and definition. While I appreciate that for enormous sums of money you can still get that quality I still believe that it was more common in the ’70s from off-the-shelf equipment. To prove the point I wanted to build a set of speakers in a style that was popular at the time.

There are three basic kinds of speaker enclosure. Sealed units, ported units — which have a port somewhere in the cabinet, and transmission line (TL). TL speakers are similar in some respects to ported enclosures; they also have an opening into the cabinet. Reputedly, TL cabinets provide better bass replication across the range without overemphasizing various frequencies.

“This type of speaker was more popular in the ’70s but fell out of favour with manufacturers because it was too expensive to build”

Choosing my kitset

One of the most accessible TL designs is the Tritrix, designed by Curt Campbell (), which is is supplied in kit form via Parts Express () in the US. You can buy either the full kit, including precut panels for the speakers, or simply the drivers, crossovers, and stuffing. I didn’t see the need to transport so much MDF through the post so I elected to buy the parts only. The good thing is that the