From The Archive | Pipedreams

Pipedreams are one of those rare products in high-end audio to have achieved legendary status. Pipedreams were the giant disappearing speakers, having the ability to acoustically vanish leaving just the music to emanate into the room. They were also very powerful, able to unleash a sound wave equivalent in magnitude to that of a 50 inch driver! Pipedreams' resolution was astonishing. One could easily discern the different timbres of individual violins in an orchestra, for example. Pipedreams were one of the few speakers, at the time, that could do believable orchestral weight and scale. Harry Pearson of The Absolute Sound called the Pipedreams the finest speaker on Earth. Harry coined the term 'dynamic linearity' on first hearing them. This refers to the speakers' consistency with dynamic events across the frequency spectrum. Many who see pictures of Pipedreams assume it's just a very tall box with a lot of drivers. Actually it was a bit more sophisticated than that. The interior side walls tapered from front to back and the rear interior wall was hemispheric. There is also a tuned and damped central 'bisector' which runs the length of the interior. This was all to reduce the possibility of standing waves and played a big part in allowing the speaker to politely excuse its towering presence from the actual music issuing forth from it. The Note is also curved at the rear, but it is done in a way that is simpler to achieve. Pipedreams were awarded patent 6628793 in the US



Mark Porzilli

The Designer At The Designer's Desk