ABSTRACT
Introduction In the beginning there was silence. Then there were speakers: single speakers, column speakers, ceiling speakers. Then there were clusters of horns and a few woofers. Then speakers got legs and learned to walk. Horns and woofers and subwoofers were each placed in boxes and stacked on stage. Then speakers got wings and learned to fly. They have been up in the air ever since. In the course of speaker evolution there has been an adaptation in favor of two particular traits in the audio gene pool: increased power and decreased variation. The natural selection of the marketplace has seen to it that those speakers which are dominant in one of these traits survive and continue to adapt. The others have become extinct. If some single speaker species were to attain dominance in both categories it would undoubtedly assume its position at the top. These two dominant traits have often been rivals and for the most part, the brawn of the power has been selected in favor of the brains of minimum variance. But this begs the question: can we find a way to select for power without sacrificing uniformity, and vice versa. Is there a middle ground?
