I respectfully disagree on the design quality of the Kenwood KL-888X or any of the earlier “kabuki” speakers of the 60's and 70’s. I stand by my assertion that their primary design criteria were visual marketing issues and not acoustic engineering.
To understand the rise of these speakers, you have to understand the influence of American speakers, and JBL in particular, in the Japanese market. Starting in the 1960’s, JBL started officially importing their speakers into Japan using Sansui as their distributor. Even before this, Japanese individuals had been buying JBL products and importing them in significant numbers. JBL, and to a lesser extent, Altec and EV found great demand and almost a cult like following for their products. An example of this high regard is found in a 2001 survey conducted by Stereo Sound Japan – that country’s most influential audio magazine. The survey asked 25 of Japan’s most preeminent reviewers and audiophiles to name the most influential audio product of the last 100 years. This could be anything in the audio chain from source, electronics to speakers. 17 of these survey participants named a JBL product.
With this high a profile in the Japanese market, it was no surprise, that starting in the 1960’s, the Japanese domestic companies decided to copy the visual aspects of the highly revered JBL’s, Altec’s and EV’s. Of all the JBL components, the D130 had perhaps the highest regard since it was one of the few JBL products personally designed by Jim Lansing (fits in with a Japanese cult of personality). It also embodied the sound character that their market prized - ultra quick, with exemplary dynamics. The D130 is not known for deep bass, and the speakers that copied it were, not surprisingly restricted in deep bass. What was copied was the 15” diameter and the aluminum center dome like that found on the 888X.
The copies were abominations from an engineering perspective. These companies (Pioneer, Sansui, Kenwood, Sony and others) designed their speakers for the mass market so all of the costly engineering was cut, while keeping the visual similarities. The magnetic motors have only a fraction of the energy of the originals. The cones were made ultra light to compensate. As a result, they are easily driven to break-up and have high levels of distortion. The majority used ceramic magnets compared to the Alnico originals. Ceramic motors have higher levels of distortion compared to Alnico unless engineered out. These differences were not known until the late 70’s so all of the earlier ceramics have higher distortion.
More troubling was the system engineering – there was none. The goal was to copy as many speaker clichés as possible to give the appearance of quality. For example, look at the 15” driver in the 888X. It has a metal center dome just like a D130. On the D130, the purpose is to extend high frequency response. In system design, it meant that the driver could be run full range or with just a small tweeter crossed over at a relatively high frequency. The 888X woofer is part of a 5-way system crossed over at a low frequency. The aluminum dome would never come into play and is just there for looks.
The multicellular horn is no better. Horns are designed for controlled dispersion to minimize room effects. The American systems are carefully designed so that the directionality of the woofer matches that of the horn at the cross-over frequency for maximum coherence. There is no such matching on the Kabuki speakers. Narrow dispersion horns are combined with wide dispersion cone and dome tweeters so that there is no control. I can go on and on about the use of multiple drivers covering the same frequency range in close proximity causing interference and cross-over discontinuities from 5-way systems, but I think you get the point. Acoustics has taken a far back seat to marketing in these designs.
Just to reinforce this point, look at what happened when acoustic engineering took a front seat with the Japanese manufacturers beginning in the late 70's. The five and six way systems were gone, replaced by systems that were seldom more than three-way. Instead of large flimsy boxes, you have smaller solidly built and braced boxes that are accoustically inert. The useless 15" drivers in small boxes were mainly replaced with 12" and smaller drivers. Nonetheless, these new systems (Yamaha NS1000, Pioneer HPM100, Technics SB8000) had greater extension at both frequency extremes, greater output and much flatter frequency response.
What's interesting is to check out the largest Japanese used audio website at:
http://free.happynet.co.jp/hifi/
There is an English search page here:
http://free.happynet.co.jp/hifi/old_db/esearch5.html
If you search for the Japanese Kabuki speakers, for the most part you will not find them. The few that are there such as this:
http://free.happynet.co.jp/cgi-bin/...?model_no=02-12804-10279-00-2002-08-17&lang=e
sell for less than $100/pr. In comparison, the classic JBL's and Altecs sell for for thousands of dollars per pair. In other words, there is no market for these systems in Japan.