Reprinted with permission from Audio Adventure Magazine, February 1996, Volume 3, Issue 2.
A Speaker For All Seasons
Audio Artistry And The Vivaldi Loudspeaker
By Adam Walinsky
(Introduction by Tom Miller)Intro - The Players Long before Siegfried Linkwitz ever designed a loudspeaker, he was a famous loudspeaker designer. Linkwitz is a senior engineer and one of the most respected minds at Hewlett-Packard. In his spare time, he has been a relentless audio hobbyist, making his own recordings and building his own speakers. But he has done more than that. He was half of the Linkwitz-Riley team that introduced the fourth-order crossover to the speaker world. That's how he got to be a famous speaker designer without "designing" a loudspeaker or, at least, a speaker anyone had heard.
Over three decades ago, Linkwitz, who had a degree from Darmstadt Technical University in Germany, came to California to work for a few years at Hewlett Packard and experience the American culture. The work and the people he met were so interesting that he never went back to Germany. Also, as a fanatic windsurfer, he would have dearly missed the wind. At HP, Linkwitz, in the Seventies, led the team that designed HP's state-of-the-art spectrum analyzer - a design that is unsurpassed to this day. Understanding and using technology are a way of life for him, and when he designs a speaker, it's by the book. But a special book: his book, the product of his research and intellect, so you won't find it on a library shelf - although scores of speaker designers would surely pay handsomely if they could.
Even after years of "fiddlin' " with speakers, Linkwitz had little desire to design a commercial product. That's where Marshall Kay, another HP engineer comes in. Kay, president of Audio Artistry and a test and measurement applications engineer, grew up in Texas listening to music on his dad's old military headphones. By high school he had designed his first speaker. When he graduated from Texas A&M in 1980, he started to pursue his speaker hobby with ardor and naturally ended up reading a paper on crossover design by Linkwitz-Riley. As his career progressed at HP, he knew that Linkwitz worked with the company and eventually summoned the courage to call him. Kay was more than a little nervous, but when the time finally came, he and Linkwitz fell into one of those hour-long calls between brand-new audio buddies, and a friendship developed.
By now, Kay was living in North Carolina and managing HP's account with IBM in Raleigh.. In 1988, a New Yorker named Tom Hoffman, looking for a better environment in which to raise his kids and run an audio store, also moved to North Carolina. He opened Advanced Audio in Raleigh and started attracting the local audiophiles, including Kay. Another patron, Kurt Pasquale, heard a pair of (large) Philips speakers in Hoffman's store and was dazzled. Turning to Hoffman, Pasquale announced that he was a cabinet-maker and asked how he could get into speaker building. Hoffman, recognizing a natural match, gave him Kay's name and number.
Pasquale, however, is more than a simple "cabinet-maker." Possessing a degree in mechanical engineering, he is an expert in computer-aided design (CAD), and is responsible for both the look and finish of the Audio Artistry speakers. It is impossible, Kay insists, to give Pasquale too much credit. Aside from designing the look, he figures out how to fit large drivers into spaces that should be way too small, allowing the design to remain compact. First Kay and Pasquale designed a conventional box loudspeaker called the Mozart, and called their new company Audio Artistry, even though they hadn't yet incorporated. Meanwhile, Kay was trying to bring Linkwitz aboard. Linkwitz, however, had moved beyond box design and was working on a compact dynamic dipole, as outlined in his 1992 AES paper. Finally, however, he decided to become involved and, working with Kay and Pasquale, completed the design of the world's first full-range dynamic dipole speaker - the Dvorák. After the Dvorák was introduced at the 1994 WCES, Linkwitz decided to join the company, and shortly thereafter Audio Artistry incorporated.
The final player in Audio Artistry's quartet is the man who brought Kay and Pasquale together. Hoffman, known as "Tommy Tweak," is not only responsible for marketing Audio Artistry speakers, he is deeply involved in the final parts selection. He gets the prototype speakers and spends long hours auditioning different capacitors, resistors and other passive components. Searching, as always, for the perfect match.
Linkwitz's first dynamic dipole design was a tri-amped system. Although he protested that a bi-amped system was not possible, Kay pushed him until he found a way to bi-amp the Dvorák. Then Kay started pushing again - this time toward a full-range dynamic dipole speaker, with a purely passive crossover that could be driven by one amplifier. "Impossible!" cried Linkwitz.
Now, for your reading and listening pleasure, the impossible speaker - Audio Artistry's $4,495 Vivaldi.