Veteran Speaker Designer Reveals the Top 3 Reasons Why Designers Can’t Build Great Speakers Anymore

He outlines what really changed in the industry and why most people haven’t noticed them yet.

Many new speakers look impressive on specs alone, yet listeners often notice that they fall short once real music starts playing. Gian Piero Matarazzo, former Audio Review lab engineer, says this problem is not accidental. He believes modern designers rely on habits that hurt how speakers actually sound due to three patterns in today’s design culture.

Here’s how he explains the problem and why he thinks speaker design lost its way.

Reason 1: Over-Reliance on Measurements

The first major problem, according to Matarazzo, is that modern speaker design has become a slave to the graph.

Speaking at the ROMA HI-FIDELITY show, he remembered testing a Technics/Panasonic speaker years ago. Its frequency response was ruler-flat from 28 Hz to 25 kHz, staying within 0.5 dB.

This obsession with perfect measurements ignores how acoustics is an imperfect science filled with countless variables. Room positioning, phase behavior, and cable characteristics all affect the sound. How music changes over time matters more than static plots on a computer screen.

That’s why he believes designers need to look beyond frequency response. Instead, they need to study the time domain.

Because of this, his methods break from standard practice as well. For instance,while building custom reference speakers for Emidio Frattaroli, Matarazzo ignored the usual textbook recipe of fourth-order crossover filters, which are complex networks that sharply divide frequencies and look perfect on paper.

He applied his three-morning rule: any design has to satisfy him for three consecutive mornings of listening. The original fourth-order crossover passed every lab test. But by the third morning, the music felt constrained and over-controlled.

So he tore it out and replaced it with simple first-order acoustic filters using gentle 6 dB/octave slopes. This allowed more overlap between drivers and a response that looks “wrong” on measurement graphs.

With that change, the speakers threw soundstages that reached beyond the room and preserved proper depth layering even when instruments played at different volume levels.

According to him, this choice would horrify most engineers as it allows more overlap between drivers and looks “wrong” on measurement graphs, though.

Reason 2: Lack of Real Listening Experience

The second fatal flaw in modern speaker design is cultural rather than technical. Too many designers approach speakers as engineering problems rather than musical instruments.

He names a few of those ‘exceptions’ as Mario Murace, Enrico Rossi, and the late Renato Giussani. These designers, he says, started from a genuine passion for music and then built serious technical skills on top of it.

On the other hand, today’s designers operate in reverse. They emerge from universities armed with CAD software and signal theory. But they lack a fundamental listening experience.

Matarazzo calls them “keyboard geniuses” who trust simulations more than their ears.

Matarazzo worries that this balance is often missing in modern development. In his view, many designers lean too heavily on CAD models and lab data. So, they risk speakers that seem tuned for beautiful graphs rather than for how they actually sound in real rooms.

Reason 3: Cost-Cutting Over Sound Quality

The third killer of great speaker design is economics. Decisions that once served sound quality now serve spreadsheet logic.

One huge example he gave was the four vs two screws scenario.

Mounting a woofer properly requires four screws for best performance. The extra screws ensure even pressure around the driver’s frame, preventing air leaks and vibrations that muddy the bass. They keep the driver perfectly aligned as it pumps back and forth thousands of times per second.

To accountants, though, two screws cost less than four, maybe saving fifty cents per speaker. Multiply that by thousands of units, and someone’s spreadsheet looks better. They ignore the fact that using only two screws allows the driver to shift slightly, creating distortion. That uneven mounting pressure causes resonances that color the sound.

This penny-pinching infects every part of modern speaker construction. Film capacitors in crossovers get replaced with cheaper electrolytics. Internal wiring shrinks from the right gauge to barely adequate. Cabinet bracing vanishes wherever customers won’t see it missing.

On the flip side, Matarazzo points to Chario as the gold standard of uncompromised design. When designer Mario Murace wanted specific drivers, the company bought them with no questions asked. Sales director Carlo Vicenzetto handled the business side but never interfered with technical choices.

That separation between engineering and accounting lets designers chase excellence without compromise. If one driver cost twice as much but sounded better, they used it. When proper cabinet construction required expensive materials and complex techniques, they went ahead and did it.

Unfortunately, today, many companies flip that logic. Marketing teams set price points before design even starts, while purchasing managers choose components based on bulk discounts rather than acoustic quality. And production engineers trim anything that might slow down the assembly line.

How to Use Matarazzo’s Advice as a Listener

Matarazzo’s warnings are aimed at designers, but they are useful for listeners too. His main point is simple: graphs and specs are helpful, yet your ears and your room decide whether a speaker is worth owning.

When you audition speakers, pay attention to how the music behaves over time, not just to first impressions. Notice whether the soundstage stays stable when the music gets louder or whether instruments keep their place. Also consider if the system still feels “alive” after an hour, not just for a few impressive tracks.

Here are practical ways to apply his thinking:

• Bring your own familiar music and listen for emotional impact, not just detail.
• Ask brands or dealers how the speakers were voiced and tested in real rooms.
• Look closely at build choices that hint at care or corner-cutting.
• Spend serious time on placement and room setup before judging a speaker.

Ultimately, great speakers happen when passionate listeners use engineering knowledge to serve musical goals. They don’t happen when engineers treat music as an academic exercise that needs perfect measurements and accounting department approval.