Common Loudspeaker Format (CLF) News

By Pat Brown

An update on Common Loudspeaker Format (CLF) .

The Common Loudspeaker file Format continues to gain strength and recognition among audio manufacturers and sound system designers. The CLF serves as an electronic specification sheet as well as a platform-independent data file format that can be used in room modeling programs that support it. Community Professional Loudspeakers has just added over 30 models to the on-line database. Major releases from several other manufacturers is imminent.

The CLF is not tied to any specific prediction platform. CLF data can be produced by anyone with polar measurement hardware and an anechoic environment, including loudspeaker manufacturers and independent test labs.

While we encourage manufacturers to re-measure their loudspeakers for CLF, many have legacy data in the XHN text format. There is now an XHN-to-CLF converter that will transfer most of the XHN information to CLF. The remaining data can be entered with a text editor. If you have an interest in this converter, please send an email and an example XHN data file to bid@catt.se.