WinISD will compute basic sealed, vented or bandpass cabinet designs based on driver T/S parameters.
As I see it, the problem with using design software to build MI (Musical Instrument) enclosures is that it's real hard to listen to a drawing to see if it actually
sounds good.
Software is great to help design a "flat" box, and flat boxes aren't a bad place to
start, but the "art" comes into play when you are trying to make that box
sound good for the application it is intended for.
For example;
Any player with "big league" live experience is familiar with "white" noise, or even more commonly now days "pink" noise. Simplified, white noise is even amplitude within a specified bandwidth; pink noise is balanced energy between octaves. The actual parameters are a lot more complex, if you ever want to be bored senseless, or are having trouble falling asleep, look it up.
There is also "red" noise, which is actually called "
Brownian" noise.
Now, before you smoke and robes guys get too excited, No; it has nothing to do with the "brown"
note.
But I digress. As many people know, a speaker enclosure is not simply the box holding the driver(s), rather it’s
everything between the driver and infinity. The room a speaker cab is in can have nearly as much influence over its response as the cab itself, and most of us have battled standing waves, reflected highs, feedback, etc. induced by the rooms we are playing in. When you set up a big league sound system, it’s common practice to white or pink the venue to get a “flat” basis for the FOH person to work from. This involves sending the chosen noise through the system at gig volumes and using a RTA to balance the response; kill “hot” feedback inducing frequencies, boost weak frequencies, and so on.
From this “flat” base, the
art of the sound engineer comes into play. A flat room
sounds flat, sort of like the way distilled water
tastes flat.
Anyway, it’s a similar scenario designing speaker cabs. Using design software is akin to “pinking” a venue. A good place to start, but a truly “flat” cab normally sounds nondescript, no definition, doesn’t “sit in the mix” well.
A normal 412 guitar cab is a joke from a “hi-fi” flat perspective, but they can sure sound great to the human ear. The venerable 810 SVT cab will thump you like you were punched in the chest with a high powered amp and a bass guitar, and are frequently described as having a very strong bottom end; but in
reality its response drops like it fell of a table at around 100hz.
So, speaker design software is a useful tool, and a whole lot of fun to play with, but isn’t even close to the end all, be all when designing MI cabs.
IMO it is indeed an art. To be good at it, you have to have the experience to visualize what’s going on
in that box, and probably have wasted enough plywood to build a house.
Oh, and one more thing; designing commercially viable cabinets also needs to take into consideration the physical dimensions. It should be a size that packs well, and the higher fuel costs get, the more important this is in designing pro gear.
Here’s an interesting question to get everyone thinking; does anyone know
why a standard “rack mounted” component is always 19” wide?
