Four Decades
of Loudspeaker
Design
Software

Origins on the factory floor

Redrock Acoustics was founded in 1985 in the car audio industry. From 1989 the company worked with Sonavox — one of the highest-volume loudspeaker manufacturers in the world — and the pace of new designs there (hundreds per year) drove the creation of SpeaD, the loudspeaker design software that would become an industry standard. The original SpeaD was forged out of years of work on the factory floor, fed by complex mathematical models and refined against thousands of physical samples until it could predict Thiele-Small parameters and produce a complete driver design in minutes. SpeaD has been a tool of choice for professional loudspeaker engineers ever since.

Built on real drivers

More than 2,500 loudspeakers designed with SpeaD have reached the market under familiar brand names, many reviewed as best in category and recognized with over 20 industry design awards. SpeaD's models are checked against magnetic, mechanical and thermal FEA and against Klippel measurements of real drivers, so its predictions line up with what engineers measure.

Founder & principal engineer

Behind the work is founder Patrick Turnmire, who has spent his career designing transducers and the software used to design them. In addition to leading Redrock, Patrick is a partner in Step Technologies, an audio IP firm holding more than thirty patents and applications across motor topology, materials, arrays, and enclosure enhancements — including the Dual Gap and Low Reluctance Return Path motors that enable extreme excursion from short voice coils. Patrick studied jazz at North Texas State, and that musician's ear continues to inform every design decision the company makes. From Placitas, New Mexico, Redrock Acoustics develops SpeaD for loudspeaker engineers around the world.