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In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: Constructing LF modules to the limits

Post Subject: Lots of Little "Woofers"Posted by Paul S on: 9/24/2011

The 10" "woofer" is well known to "high-end" designers, who love the "fast" bass, and I have to admit that Wilson and Dunlavy (among others) have also managed to get some impressive (at least for a while...) "dynamics" from the little woofers. To look at the 10" charts, or (God forbid) to listen to the 10", one sees (and hears), of course, that the "fast" 10" driver makes most of its noise well above LF, and the "long-stroke" 10" is mechanically and electrically tailored to make more LF, given a LOT more power. Fooling with mass vs compliance can certainly drop Fs, and there are plenty of other tricks, but nothing can make a single 10" driver produce "believeable", musical LF.

Of course, this is where the idea of multiples comes in, to increase "efficiency" at the desired (LF) frequencies, which is (paradoxically) accomplished by the rather "inefficient" means of scrubbing most of the "native" output from the individual drivers and the array. Consider as well that this "forced curvature" does not really change the "native" output of the drivers, which results in the still-widely-misunderstood "truncated" harmonics and tone, just as most "crossovers" do.

Is it even worth talking about Tone in this context? There are few opportunities to hear Tone from hi-fi LF, so most of us are probably either resigned to do without it, or we never factor it in to begin with. As for sealed enclosures, I have recently re-visited this idea in the context of Tone and found it wanting. For Tone, there has got to be a way for the speaker to "breathe" that does not cause either acoustic shorts, or the nebulous softening common to BR, or the Helmholz effects beloved of the "natural sound" crowd.

Paul S

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