ABSTRACT
The principle was developed by Edgar Villchur in 1953 (patented in 1956) in his effort to reduce the most common problem with speakers of the day: excessive bass distortion. The first commercial product to use this system was the Acoustic Research model AR-1, introduced in October 1954. In simplest terms, the acoustic-suspension speaker uses the elastic body of air in a sealed speaker enclosure as the primary “restoring force” for the speaker cone, rather than the mechanical suspension of the speaker itself. It resembles the principle of a vacuum, where the outward movement of the cone reduces pressure and the inward movement increases pressure against the speaker cone. The entrapped air is linear for this small change in pressure, and the result is greatly improved linearity and reduced harmonic distortion. A secondary dividend is that the enclosure must be relatively small to work properly, and this made the small acoustic-suspension bookshelf speaker commercially acceptable for most households.
