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High Efficiency Speaker Asylum Need speakers that can rock with just one watt? You found da place. |
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High Efficiency Speaker Asylum Need speakers that can rock with just one watt? You found da place. |
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In Reply to: Subwoofer configurations posted by Wayne Parham on May 16, 2003 at 02:49:27:
The reductions in 2nd harmonic distortion from PP mounting on a flat baffle are well known, the non-linearities are equal and opposite and thus the 2nd harmonic is canceled. Because of the driver spacing it only happens in the bottom octaves. The cheaper the driver, the bigger the improvement. I have measured as much as a 20dB change.By mounting in a plenum several things change. The spacing becomes much tighter so the cancellation will work at higher frequencies, and a cavity is formed.
The cavity does several things, in no particular order:
The size, especially the depth, acts like a low pass filter. This can reduce 3rd harmonic distortion products near the top end of the passband, the effect is small, but audible. The cavity sizes I use have to be crossed in the 150hz~250hz region. It gives a slope of roughly 12dB/oct that must be taken into consideration in the design of the crossover. There is a small peak about two octaves above this point, ~800hz on many that I have done. By varying the Q of the 12dB/oct lowpass filter a LR4 I can get a LR4 transfer function. This filter also reduces the out-of-band peak to -30dB or better. There is also a big reduction in FMD, on the order of 6dB. The air mass at the exit of the plenum seems to act like a point source with no doppler, the cones are moving back-and-forth sideways rather than towards-and-away from you. At first glance this would seem to eliminate the FMD, in practice the reduction is on the order of 4dB~10dB depending on the frequencies.
I mounted a pair of drivers in another cabinet in a face-to-face, push-push mode. The box became very 'thick' sounding and had a broad peak centered at 160hz, just like the EV MTL4. In room the response of the push-pull was 6dB smoother in the 100hz~200hz octave.
Being compared side-by-side with the Klipschorn and Cornwall was interesting. At first the push-pull sounded 'funny'. Couldn't put my finger on it. Went back to the push-push cabinet. The push-push cabinet had that 'hi-fi' sound, similar to the Cornwall, but a bit 'thicker'. Klipschorn, much cleaner sounding. Back to the push-pull.
The reason the push-pull sounded 'funny' was the total lack of distortion. Much less than the Klipschorn.
I have not built a basshorn since.
I still use horns, but only above 150hz.
There are some drivers that are not suitble for home hi-fi, mainly those with small magnet vents that can make 'chuffing' sounds when up close.
If enough interest, I can discuss other practical points related to construction and use.
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Follow Ups
- PPSL - djk 05/16/0317:26:18 05/16/03 (9)
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