Restrained Beauty: The Unseen Layers of Scandinavian Design

The Type 1 and Type 2 loudspeaker systems from Western Acoustics are the first in a series of work that seek to join acoustic and visual aesthetics together to form a unique audio-visual experience. The squared boxes and rounded waveguides provide a unique combination of simple forms, providing a visual parallel to the combination of acoustic and electronic components that make up an end-to-end speaker system.

The Type 1 is a large, high efficiency speaker with two 12” Japanese woofers from Fostex, and a 1.4” compression driver from SB Acoustics loading a custom bi-radial horn designed by Joseph Crowe.

The Type 2 is a bookshelf speaker containing a 6.5” Danish woofer from Purifi’s now-famous USHINDI series of ultra low distortion woofers, and a 1” Italian compression driver from FatalPro, loaded into a custom spherical-wave horn derived from the work of WW2-era German cinema speaker company Klangfilm. Both speakers are powered by an active DSP amplifier from Dutch company Hypex Electronics.

Liam Porr is an engineer and designer based in San Francisco, California. His company, Western Acoustics, develops a range of custom loudspeaker products. With a particular focus on active loudspeaker systems, Western Acoustics is attempting to define a new category of accessible high end audio with a level of craftsmanship and character typically reserved only for the esoteric audio underground.