Audiophilepure

https://www.stereophile.com/content/rockport-technologies-lynx-loudspeaker

For the Lynx, Rockport wanted a full-range speaker capable of handling wide dynamic swings without requiring an enormous cabinet. “Hands-down, the chief arbiter of a clean wave launch from a loudspeaker is enclosure shape,” Payor said. On a conventional flat baffle, sound traveling across the cabinet front reaches a sharp edge and diffracts. That edge behaves like a second source, interfering with the drivers’ direct output and producing comb filtering and phase irregularities that can make the speaker easier to identify as the source of the sound. Rockport counters this with broad chamfers and by varying the distances from each driver to the cabinet edges. Payor considers that control essential to convincing imaging: A speaker that fails to manage diffraction, he said, “never gets entirely out of the way sonically.”The Lynx’s 10″ woofer is derived from, though not identical to, the 10” drivers used in the Lyra. Its 4-ohm motor, suspension, cone, surround, and spider are optimized for low mass, low friction, and high sensitivity. The company says the woofer remains pistonic to about 1.8kHz, far above its 150Hz crossover point; by then, the crossover has reduced its output by more than 72dB. The Lynx uses a rear-firing port, which, when I listened, called no attention to itself. The single woofer reaches a claimed 23Hz, and in my room the bass had the scale and pressure of a much larger speaker without the chuffing or one-note bloom that sometimes betrays a ported design.