I lived in Sebastopol, Sonoma County, California from 2003-2012. I met Don Naples [
LINK] of the LX Speaker Factory (then Wood Artistry and selling Orion Speakers) when I worked at the Santa Rosa, California Woodcraft store, a franchise location that closed in 2011 for economic reasons. Although I don't remember specifically. I probably also spoke to Don and his LX Speaker partner, Alan Bertozzi, at one or more of the monthly Sonoma County Woodworkers Association meetings. (I was an active member of SCWA from 2005 until 2012, the year that I retired for good and moved to Panama.)
All I remember about Don is that he was an excellent woodworker, and very enthusiastic about his Orion open-baffle loudspeakers. Conversations were always focused on him aggressively promoting his speakers, and I don't remember going beyond that. His products were out of my price range, and I never bothered to audition them. At the time, I was happily ensconced in my modest Sebastopol apartment with a Bryston B60 amp, Denon CD player, and a pair of Apogee Ribbon monitors.
Of course, Don's speakers were designed by Siegfried Linkwitz, who like Amir, emphasizes having fun with audio. I never met the man, even though he was only a few years older than me and like me, lived all of his adult life in Northern California. His website contains a wealth of information on his life, career, and involvement in the science of audio.
Unfortunately, it also contains a statement that Linkwitz is curentlyy suffering from Stage 4 prostate cancer and in hospice care.
Here is a
LINK to a July 18, 2018 Analog Planet post by Micharl Fremer about his interview spring, 2017 with Linkwitz. As much as we joke about the unconventional LXMini PVC pipe speakers, I wish I could have had an opportunity to listen to them, because they were designed and refined using real science. And because LInkwitz' work was indeed science based, his website [
LINK] is packed with interesting information. I find it fascinating and worth reading. (I didn't get into the details, but Linkwitz seemed to be in the school of thought that MP3's couldn't possibly sound good, and like ASR, there is a juxtaposition of subjective and objective ideas and beliefs.