Low-Resonance Cabinet

LOW-RESONANCE CABINET

A loudspeaker cabinet surface can be up to forty times larger than the surface area of the drivers. If not properly controlled, a cabinet can generate unwanted vibrations that colour and mask the sound you hear. To ensure this doesn't happen, every DALI speaker cabinet supplies the optimum volume for each driver to work in, while providing the ideal acoustic/mechanical platform for the drivers.

by Simon W.

October 2nd 2024

The motion of a driver affects both the outside structure of the cabinet and the airflow within it, causing resonance and standing waves. Designing the cabinet to reduce the effects of the driver, outside as well as inside the cabinet, is a fine balancing act.

With insufficient damping and stiffening, resonance and standing waves will make the cabinet 'sing' with the audio signal, colouring the overall presentation. With too much damping and internal bracing, the airflow inside the cabinet will be hampered. The audio signal will be flat and slow, while the sound reproduction will fail to deliver the much-wanted live dynamics.

Adding too much bracing and stiffening also risks raising the resonance into the midrange frequencies, where it becomes significantly more audible to the human ear. Acknowledging that even the perfect balance will still lead to some residual resonance, the structure of the cabinet must ensure the resonance frequency stays in the low 'Q'-value frequency range, so the audio reproduction remains less coloured, more musical and as responsive as possible.

The eight DALI sound philosophies