Many comments here are well meaning, but unfortunately the author has not designed or tried to sell a speaker.
" Acoustic Suspension" was nothing but AR's trade name for a sealed enclosure. Nothing more.
Would it help the general population if one stated the alignment Q? Who knows what "critical Q alignment" means that is not a speaker builder? If I said a cabinet was a Q of .8, what would that mean to anyone? Would you know want Q has to do with group delay? Does it matter?
Someone does not like ported enclosures. Yes, many sound terrible. Too small a box, tuned to low because marketing gave parameters. Many people think that hump is "more bass". So, if you have ears and know better, don't buy those speakers. Fortunately for us, Mr. Small and Mr. Theil gave us the math to design almost any desired alignment with a port. Did you know a sealed enclosure is just a special case of a ported enclosure with a very small port? We have our choice of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th order high pass slopes and any Q you want. Just do the math. A ported enclosure will allow deeper base extension in the same or smaller box for a given driver. On the other hand, for a bass driver, sealed actually blends with room gain closer, so an F3 of 70 Hz sealed may actually be smoother response before eq than the same driver in QB4 @ 55. For only lots more money, you can do a passive radiator and eliminate port whistling and resonances.
One company had a good idea, so if course it failed. They came with a plug. If you were using your monitors full range, they had a decent 55Hz or so F3. If you were using them with a sub, put the plug in and it was about 80Hz, but eliminated port resonances. No one understood it.
Styrofoam if a fantastic packing material if done correctly. I worked as a packaging engineer briefly, and for many situations, nothing else comes close with a price point that can be tolerated. Remember, specifications for UPS and USPS is repeated 3 foot drop on the floor, but trust me, you had better do 6 feet on any angle. I have seen it fail. But it is a matter of bad packaging design, not the material. High density closed cell poly does netter at repeated impacts but is several times the cost. Corn foam is more environmentally friendly, but no where near the performance and cost. Cardboard gets hard to do it for heavier items.
I like grills. Speakers are ugly unless you need some macho ego trip. The no grill was in the same stupid 80's "purity" craze. Design for a grill. End of problems. Back then, many speakers had terribly designed grills that caused needleless refraction, but that was bad design, not inherent. Grills also keep curious finger's from shattering your ceramic tweeter and I have heard of cats doing a number of woofers.
Spikes are handy for small footprints on deep carpet. Selling them as some magic enhancement is snake oil, but they do serve a purpose as long as they are removeable. Any stand or floor-stander should have adjustable feet so it can be steady and visually level. Floors are not flat.
If your stands are too short, buy taller ones. The only bad trend here is someone not doing their homework. Not all speakers are the same height, not all chairs the same height, not all drivers or acoustic center point are the same height. Two foot fits my speakers just fine, but I designed them that way. On axis, may or may not be the correct position for any given speaker.
What good is a speaker if it won't sell? Boston tried wide baffles and they failed in the market. Narrow towers succeeded. Again, it is a matter if the designer correctly designed for the shape, not if it is wide or narrow according to you. If narrow is ugly, buy wide. You can reduce diffraction to where it is not a problem with nothing but a 3/4 radius. If you price above a few thousand dollars, I guess yo have to invent some reason for your price. Amazing, how many use a symetrical driver layout so they don't have to do a right and left. Even very expensive ones.
Without 2 sets of binding posts, how does the store sell you two sets of $500 cables for that $300 speaker? He has a boat payment you know.
