yam4000vca: It seems to me that a lot of people that design speaker systems are not sound people and what the result is at times is less than musical. Do you see much of this?

Dave Rat: Absolutely, many systems are designed by theory, in the lab, and real world there are things that can be measured, tested, and proven, yet they are often overlooked. It applies on every level of design from enclosure, component, amplification truck pack, everything.

I look at system design as a balancing of five key factors: sound quality, size, weight, cost and maximum volume. How these factors are balanced is everything.

Mike S: When designing a box, how do you approach it?

Dave Rat: Most designs are application motivated. "I want to achieve this.... so I will build that to cover it." I start with component selection that have the capabilities to do the job. Then I work on size and tunings. Fly ing and stacking come into play, then the cost.

I really try and take the design all the way through the truck pack before it ever even reaches the computer. For me, that is the real enjoyment.

Harry: Don't you find a lot of midrange overlap which causes the swishy combing sound as you move from side to side in front of the array? How do you avoid that problem?

Dave Rat: Actually, side to side in the Rat 5 system is really smooth. The vertical dispersion was more challenging. The 15" couples really well in both axes. The 2" and 1" transition well, box to box. The 10"s were another story!

We found that when we go 4 deep on the array, we get a vertical beaminess from the 10". The fact that the Rat 5 offers vertical tilt helps, but it was not enough. That was part of the motivation behind the hornpack. By eliminating the 10" and having long throw 2" and 1", we solved two problems.

1. We were able to eliminate the delay clusters that we used to use in arenas and …

2. The 10" were only 3 boxes deep and therefore increased the vertical dispersion in their range.

Harry: Do you find with so many front loaded cabinets, you're able to avoid driving them too hard, thereby avoiding a lot of the problems related to driving cabinets hard?

Dave Rat: Hmmmm, getting front loaded (reflex) cabinets to compete with horn loaded systems in volume is a challenge indeed. "Too hard" is the key term. We have very low failure rates on our systems and we do drive our speakers to the limits of their capabilities.