As I recall, Druid 6 is heavier than Druid 5, so Sean isn't attaining stiffness at less mass, but he is attaining greater stiffness at a lower-rate of mass / materials accumulation than his competitors, which I consider a good thing.
Ideally, Sean would like to get to inert cabinets without super-dense, impractically-heavy boxes. He went that route with Dominance and ended up with 400 lbs. per side. He'd like to dial that back to ~225 lbs on next Dominance. If he had more capital, Druid 5 would be an injection molded structure, but he can't do that yet. Druid 6 could be less manual in its cabinet construction.
Sean is not voicing his cabinet talk like some designers intentionally factor in. He accepts some residual in each refinement, but ever-more suppressed, on the principle that other problems are not worth mitigating sooner. The Druid 6 using energy transfer in addition to resonance control/suppression in the cabinet, to make the cabinet less contributory to the speaker's sound. Druid 6 clearly shows how effective this is. You hear the sense that you are hearing the drivers and not the frame containing them. It's kind of like hearing the difference between a direct-coupled amp vs. a capacitor coupled circuit.
No one is really at "zero" cabinet talk if they have a cabinet.
Phil
Ideally, Sean would like to get to inert cabinets without super-dense, impractically-heavy boxes. He went that route with Dominance and ended up with 400 lbs. per side. He'd like to dial that back to ~225 lbs on next Dominance. If he had more capital, Druid 5 would be an injection molded structure, but he can't do that yet. Druid 6 could be less manual in its cabinet construction.
Sean is not voicing his cabinet talk like some designers intentionally factor in. He accepts some residual in each refinement, but ever-more suppressed, on the principle that other problems are not worth mitigating sooner. The Druid 6 using energy transfer in addition to resonance control/suppression in the cabinet, to make the cabinet less contributory to the speaker's sound. Druid 6 clearly shows how effective this is. You hear the sense that you are hearing the drivers and not the frame containing them. It's kind of like hearing the difference between a direct-coupled amp vs. a capacitor coupled circuit.
No one is really at "zero" cabinet talk if they have a cabinet.
Phil