There’s also the fact that some designers just get tired of fighting the fight, trying to educate folks that will cling to their traditions because that’s all they have to cling to, and don’t want to learn.
The first speakers I ever heard with very small drivers were the Bose 901 speakers meant for home stereo use. Bose later took the basic design and turned it into a PA cab, the Bose 800. Along with the speakers themselves there was an EQ box, tuned to smooth out the frequency response I suppose.
The 901 used nine 4.5” drivers with 8 in the rear of the cabinet, meant to reflect off the wall, and one in front. The 800 reversed that, eight speakers in the front but no ninth speaker and built into a road case.
The first time I heard an 800 was when I was in the army and a Bose rep visited the local PX. He set up outdoors with two 800s on pole, a Bose 800 watt power amp and a Bose mixer,playing music while talking about the various Bose cabinets (at the time the 901 and 501 for home use, and the 800). I heard the music from a quarter mile away as I was out walking. I had no idea where it was coming from, but as I got closer, it got louder and louder until finally I could see the parking lot and two tiny boxes up on the poles. When I got back to the USA I started seeing the 800s in use all over the place, both as mains and as monitors. Some other old timers here may have used them.
Bose sold a
ton of 901s and 800s, but they were often derided as “no highs, no lows, must be Bose”. In fact
they are still controversial almost six decades later. Bose just went in a totally different direction and has continued to do so. Their L series PA speakers have been copied by everybody else…EV, JBL, Fishman, Yamaha, Samson, RCF and Turbosound and they’ve become commonplace…a vertical array of small drivers on top of a subwoofer. Yet almost nobody uses these as the Bose designers intended…that each performer in an ensemble would have one and no need for a large PA system or floor monitors. Just make each performer louder and the sound emanating form their location instead of all the performers run through a mixer and the same speakers. That idea wasn’t well received (too expensive?), instead people started using them to replace larger, bulkier systems.
Bose finally got out of the home stereo speaker business altogether and today only sells home theater products (they were one of the first in that market), noise cancelling headphones (originally designed for helicopter pilots!), Bluetooth speakers and the L series PA systems.
