I have been shopping for a surround system for my home for both music and movies. I was looking at a satellite system but then one day was remembering my introduction to audio in high school and I Googled Burhoe Acoustics. It was at Northfield Mount Hermon School in western Massachusetts as a freshman in 1976. One of the guys in my dorm across the hall had a pair of Burhoe Acoustic speakers and they were by far the best speakers I had ever heard. I remember standing there just amazed listening to them. I went down to the audio store in Greenfield, MA. The manager had the Burhoe models lined up and let me listen to them one by one. That was the beginning of my love affair with audio. So needless to say, when I ran a Google search just to reminisce, I was thrilled to find your website and see that you are still making great speakers. I am planning to buy a pair of the Silent Speakers but am wondering how I will build my new surround system for movies with sound as good as my music listening in stereo. So my vote is for a center and surround speaker option.

Thanks for the memory.

Soft dome tweeters can have relatively flat frequency response to surprisingly high frequencies because the soft parts of the dome flutter independently of the voice coil. Listeners with good high frequency hearing often prefer the greater linearity of the stiff inverted dome, although with some materials and configurations, metallic domes can have ringing.

I used to sell for you when you owned Burhoe Acoustics. Great to hear you’re back in the audio game again. You look just like I remember you. And that’s – what – 30 years ago. Gulp.

Two things:
1) You were the forerunner of home theater with the system you debuted in NYC in 1980(?). It featured two Crimsons and a subwoofer up front. And two rear speakers on a variable time delay in back. Nobody had anything like it.
2) What happened to the inverted dome? How does it compare to the fabric domes of today?

Best of luck,
Scott Mc

I provide that context to ask these questions:

1) As you know, the audiophile marketplace is replete with transducers claiming complete transparency, breathtaking soundstage, etc. Yet every speaker I’ve heard so far has wonderful strengths and some admitted weaknesses. Knowing my historical preferences, can you comment on what my experience with your speakers might be?

2) How efficient are your speakers? Do they require a recommended minimum “floor” of power rating to “speak”?

3) Some bass-downfiring speakers I’ve heard in the past seemed to present a “disconnect” between, for example, the speaking length of the low string on an upright double bass and female vocals (for instance, in a jazz vocalist with trio recording). Can you comment on how your speakers avoid this phenomena…or perhaps I just imagined all that in my head?

Thanks so much, Winslow. I’ll check in eagerly for your reply.

Regards,

Tim