“I identified a gap in the market for a high-end transmission line speaker featuring premium materials and components, incorporating a planar tweeter. His company was launched in June 2017, following 18 months of R&D. I studied in great depth Martin J King and John Risch, which gave me a solid grounding in understanding transmission line technology and its implementation.” “I was fuelled by a love of music from the age of eight, but it wasn’t until my degree dissertation that I attempted a transmission line – a large three-way featuring a 12in woofer. Jes says that he “learned by doing”, listening and experimenting with different enclosures. Transmission line designs have a complex, damped and usually folded duct inside, coming from the rear of the bass unit, that vents to the outside world. The reason that TLs aren’t as popular as reflex designs is they’re harder to get right, costlier to build and tend to be less efficient. “Take double bass and tympani playing together for example with a reflex enclosure, these sounds are more likely to merge together, with the cabinet and port’s natural resonance being excited and colouring/smearing the presentation.” If properly done, transmission line designs give a faster, deeper bass for a given cabinet size and lower distortion, too. “With transmission lines it is easier to distinguish the detail and nuances in individual instruments in the lower octaves”, he says. That’s why Jes Kerr – former professional drummer, music producer and now founder and designer of Kerr Acoustic – likes transmission line loading so much. Trouble is, reflex loading often results in a non-linear bass response less well-designed examples impart a ‘one-note’ bass sound as the port kicks in, smearing transients and giving a rather cushioned sound. These generally offer the best bang for your buck, being straightforward to design, inexpensive to make and a relatively easy going drive for the partnering amplifier. There is no single correct way to design a box loudspeaker and yet so many people end up with reflex-ported cabinets.
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