In the fall of 1995 I did some consulting, along with a colleague of mine, for a well-known speakers manufacturer. We were to develop a traveling training course on passive crossovers for their customers. It was not to be held at the company's headquarter but in various cities or regions throughout the country. The intent of the company was to go to its customers and not wait for the customers to come to them.
Guess what! the initiative was successful and we repeated it many times in various places. We had decided to give the presentation an impromptu feel. We alternated live demonstrations with verbal concepts and theorems in a winning combination that resulted in a comprehensible and entertaining forum. With the aid of sophisticated tools we showed the behavior of many different brands of speakers and price ranges connected to as many different pre-made crossovers (it was amusing when we accidentally got into a copybook coupling between two deadly hostile brands). Moreover we showed beyond doubt that the pre-made crossovers never maintain what they promise on the packaging carton, no matter how well-made or valuable the components.
Today a part of this course, the theoretical portion, is on the Internet here in front of you. When I wrote this tutorial I told myself: "By what right are you doing this? What courage do I have in writing a course about crossovers, with all that has already been written about this topic? What will all the gurus out there say?" The facts and I have the answer, and it is simple: the immediacy of language.
The problem is that gurus don't know how to communicate: they know everything about crossovers and they know how to explain what they know to other gurus, but they don't know how to speak to the lay person. Take any textbook on this topic, or any article in a magazine, and you'll discover two things: it's written in such a technical way that only an university student can understand it. On the other hand it may be so simple that it only superficially addresses the topic. A car audio installer is not a physicist, and there isn't anything disrespectful in saying this. A physicist would never know how to do what an installer does! I've chosen to talk to installers, so if any one of you bumptious wiseacre full of haughtiness has read up to this point conceitedly sneering at me, please click here and leave.
All others are welcome — thanks for joining.
