Developed by Grimani Systems founder Manny LaCarrubba, the Conic Section Array™ (CSA) is a novel waveguide that represents a new class of ultra-wide dispersion device.  The CSA grew out of Manny’s work with a previous invention called Acoustic Lens Technology (ALT).  Danish consumer electronics company Bang & Olufsen utilizes ALT.  You can find Manny’s invention rising out of the dashboards of several of the major European automotive brands, and in nearly all of B&O’s higher end speaker and video products.
What these waveguides do is solve the age-old problem that all conventional high frequency drive units have with the beaming high frequency content in an ever increasingly narrow coverage angle.  This means that you can only hear full frequency content if you are directly in front of the speaker (or nearly so).  It’s important to realize that ALL loudspeakers exhibit this behavior to some degree –Acoustic Lenses or a Conic Section Array™ GREATLY mitigate the problem.
Why is this “beaming” of high frequencies phenomenon a problem?  Well, it’s in the high frequencies (above approximately 3kHz) that the attack of a drum, the pluck of a string, the sibilance of the voice, the brassiness of trumpets and the “air” in music lives.  It’s the high frequencies that bring life to recordings; too little and everything sounds “soft” and un-engaging; too much and things get “hard” and “edgy” sounding — which is very fatiguing to the ear. This problem is particularly acute in loudspeakers for cinema use.