Technological advances in signal processing have been applied in the design and construction of modern audio systems to deliver undistorted audio signals intended to a listener. Musicians and audio producers, for example, desire that their listeners realize a natural and high-quality acoustic audio signal with the least amount of distortion possible. However, various electrical and hardware components of conventional speaker systems intended to deliver the acoustic sound signal to the listener can also introduce undesirable noise (i.e., distortion) into the sound signal.
For example, it is typically necessary to take into account one or more components of the underlying sub-system such as the amplifier and the driver response limit since these components can bottleneck acoustic performance even with a perfect equalization settings. In addition, a typical consumer grade driver has limited excursion. As a result, typical consumer grade drivers are susceptible to saturation (i.e., operating in a power compression mode in which the input power will be mostly converted to heat) when the (equalized) power level delivered to the driver exceeds the driver's operating limit Driver saturation can cause the driver's impedance to rise, which in turn generates distorted audio and reduces the quality of the sound output. Consequently, the listener realizes a lower-quality audio signal that lacks natural sounding acoustics.