D'Appolito on What Matters

^Can't comment on the D'Appolito's, but Dunlavy used a similar       W M T M W  driver configuration (with different cross-overs of course). 
It has been claimed that he had all parts tested, logged and matched accordingly, and then the cross-overs for each speaker was individually tweaked to match a reference.
http://www.stereophile.com/content/dunlavy-audio-labs-signature-sc-vi-loudspeaker-specifications#Gkx...

unsound,

If you are making high end, that makes sense! :)  It was probably a crap load of work then too! :)

Not just drivers, but caps and coils are notorious for varying. Depends of course on the type and maker. It's totally worth buying 1% resistors for this reason alone!

With automated testing and characterization software I imagine it's much easier now. Not to mention, if you are buying in bulk, you can request certain specs be tested before delivery.

Best,


Erik

Rumor had it that many suppliers were irked that he sent so many things back.

The last time I spoke with him, he was very excited about going to an all digital self powered multi-amped model. He was holding out for better chips. He said the amount of labor time would drop dramatically,  and though the initial project would be expensive, he thought that the cost of succeeding models would drop at a considerably fast rate. Regretfully, he didn't live long enough to see it to completion.

Sorry to hear that. I was actually just thinking that. It's super convenient to match two speakers via DSP. I wonder how much of the benefit of things like DiracLive or Audessey comes just from matching speaker frequency response hyper-accurately.