Patent ID: 7454030
Filing Date: 2008-11-18
Classification: H04R

Abstract:
1. A loudspeaker comprising: an enclosure including a folded horn having a base end and a mouth; a summing throat forming a portion of the folded horn including the base end, the summing throat increasing in cross sectional area in a direction of acoustic energy propagation; a plurality of acoustic transducers housed in the enclosure; a plurality of radiating ports, each radiating port providing for coupling sound energy from each respective acoustic transducer into the summing throat, each radiating port being disposed at a discrete, acoustically spaced location along the summing throat with successive locations of the radiating ports occurring at points along the summing throat exhibiting increasing cross sectional area to initiate and synchronously reinforce an acoustic pressure wave building from the base end toward the mouth; a source of an acoustic range signal; transducer drive signal processing circuitry having an individual channel for each of the audio transducers, the individual channels each being coupled to receive the acoustic range signal and each channel including means for setting a relative phase angle for the acoustic range signal in a channel as a function of the acoustic spacing of the radiating outlets to build an acoustic pressure wave in a cascade in the summing throat toward the mouth; a plurality of high pressure chambers, at least one acoustic transducer being positioned to direct sound energy into each high pressure chamber, and each high pressure chamber being connected by one of the plurality of radiating ports to the summing throat; and each radiating port terminating along a side of the summing throat at successive locations progressing from the base end of the summing throat toward the mouth of the folded horn with a direction of sound propagation transverse to the direction of sound propagation in the summing throat.