Orangecavi, I appreciate you lookin out for us, that's kewl man. And to the OP, I like that you are trying to learn. Let me say this.......there are many of many people in the world that love what we do as designers and want to do it the same. A lot of people can. Just have to find them. But most of the audio world does rely on these programs and believe that it is the best way to go. And a lot of them believe themselves to be great designers for that reason. You do not become an engineer by pluggin numbers in and seeing the results, and you understand that, which is good. But what you do need to know, that may be disturbing, is that it will take you quite a bit of not only training, but hands on experience, as a balance of accuracy with repeatable results to become what you are talking about becoming. Understanding how these programs work is one thing. Understanding audio in general is a whole new world. it doesnt take a math genius to figure out the speed of sound and work it into an acoustical equation, but there is much more than quarterwave theory(for example) to be understood, along with knowing not only what the environment will do, but what each factor of the source will do to the sound to get you what you are looking for. Look, I think the programs are great. They, like me, give you a good starting point. But we go much further than that to provide a sense of accuracy that was not available in the mid 20th century....at least that they knew what it meant or how to utilize it yet. So, it has taken some people a lifetime to come up with formulas that work for most designs out there. And for that, we now have hornresp. Another great program, but not the end of designers as we know it (yet, lol). Anyone can use hornresp-and that is no joke. They even have tutorials out there. But that doesn't make you a designer or audio genius. Nor does it give you the right to sell what the program comes up with. Because most who use it, know how to control it and by making a throat size smaller or S2 changes the tuning so much, etc only says that you understand "how" to change it, but doesnt tell you why or when. This program actually kills me because it is fairly accurate. But it does not account for environmental factors, in which those who have been around long enough know how tough that is to get right. Some of us have it figured out though, and they have for many years. But it takes people like me, and other designers (who are real) to present it to you without fear of you stealing the ideas. That is why patents exist.because everyone is afraid. The knowledge is out there. But to be able to use it here, to those that matter most to me (not those who think a $50,000 system is the best thing ever made and actually has the money to spend on it-Im referring to HT as well), is more important than taking it to a patent company and trying to make a mill of it. you guys make up the audio world, not the people in the mansions with glass horns and revamped tube style amps (which have their flaws as well). Those who want to learn more, should be able to. But it will take more than a forum to get the ability to do so. You gotta put yourself in the position. And I hate to say it, but the forum is not the place to learn about real acoustics. This is the place for generalization, which makes it tough more me as well to manage selling myself. I hope that opens your mind up a little about what needs to be done if you want to get serious with it, because to "understand" it as you mention, takes more than you might want to think.
