Paper, Plastic, or Metal? RBH’s WM-24 takes a more metallic
approach to audio reproduction.
It all comes down to physics. In a perfect world any speaker driver would
combine infinite stiffness, with zero mass. Unfortunately, in the real world
things that are really stiff also tend to be pretty heavy, so the trick for
creating a speaker is to find materials that are somehow both light and stiff at
the same time.
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The WM-24s come in an extruded-aluminum,
wall-mountable enclosure. The bass
response from the speakers is
tuneful and more extended than you might expect,
but you’ll want to add
a subwoofer for better impact and low-end response. We
used the MS
10.1. |
Aluminum is a great choice for dome tweeters, where the small
size and tiny movements required allow you to use a dome that is incredibly thin
and light. Once you move up to a woofer however, the size and mechanical
strength required results in a cone that’s much heavier than a paper or plastic
equivalent, and the added inertia will generally make the speaker slow to
respond and difficult to drive. With the WM-24, RBH gets around this by going
with a pair of 4-inch aluminum cone woofers, and then adding a pair of passive
radiators to extend the bass deeper still. When the speaker is mounted up on a
wall, this array delivers enough bass to let you get by without an additional
subwoofer, but we paired it up with RBH’s MS-10.1 sub to add some real
heft.
Housed in a beautifully made extruded aluminum enclosure, the
WM-24 is solid enough to bruise your knuckles should you attempt a rap test, and
it comes complete with a wall mounting bracket and interchangeable silver or
black grille covers. My only gripe is with the speaker connectors, which
are recessed into the back of the speaker in a way that makes them particularly
difficult to tighten.
