I’ve never heard that one before.
Earl’s speaker design couldn’t be more different from the great scientist Sanders.
I think your understanding of Geddes' design philosophy might be a bit too shallow. I've been reading lots of his stuff over at Diyaudio, where he's been contributing for many many years. Essentially, there are two things which are really important to him:
- First thing is dispersion, polars, etc. He doesn't want too much reflections, and therefore designed speakers with a relatively narrow dispersion. He thinks that lateral reflections should be avoided, in disagreement with Toole (otherwise he mostly agrees with Toole). But he thinks that room "treatment" doesn't work (again in agreement with Toole), and thinks that it's the job of the speakers to avoid creating too much early reflections. He also thinks that the ambient field should be as similar as possible to the direct sound, hence the importance of power response. The only place he advocates absorbtion is on the wall behind the speakers.
- The other thing which is important to him is volume and dynamics. He thinks that people should be able to play loud.
Hence horns/waveguides, which can have limited directivity, dynamic capabilities and the ability to play loud.
Is this different or similar to the Sanders philosophy? What they share is the view that room reflections on the whole are more bad than good. Both electrostats and the Geddes waveguides have relatively narrow dispersion, and both of them have narrower dispersion in high than in low frequencies.
The main theoretical difference is their view on distortion: Geddes thinks that distortion from loudspeakers isn't that important, people tend not to notice it when it's "mechanic", according to him. For Sanders, low distortion is one of the main design goals, it seems. Also, Sanders says that absorbing the back wave is optional, while Geddes thinks the wall behind the speakers ideally should have thick absorbtion.
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Also, I really don't understand the need for the sarcasm etc. This is audio! This is not that important. And audio is full of designers and gurus who think that all the others are complete idiots, and that they're the only ones who know how to do things. It's part of the fun.