Why is a pro woofer bad for home use?

[JMFahey]

Yes, that's the point.
And it will be LOUD !!!

[picowallspeaker]

Loud is not a quality

[tinitus]

that depends

[picowallspeaker]

Sure, why not, it depends...
It's called intensity of the sound Vs distance

[chrispenycate]

Why is it being assumed that a "pro woofer" is a PA speaker? Just because we're in the live sound, PA section?

After all, I work in a studio. Are my studio monitors not professional? One thing is obvious, a large percentage of their ancestry comes from cinema speakers – but so does a lot of PA technology. And, for that matter, most of HiFi and computer speaker systems, although quality might not be maintained across the range.

If drivers are well matched, what matter if they were originally designed for one function or another? And multiamping can match speakers that would have been exceedingly problematic in my youth.

Perhaps one could generalise that touring PA subwoofers tend to have stiffer suspensions than drivers intended for fixed listening (be that installation PA or home systems), so the voice coils show less of a tendency to bang against the magnet during transport, which means that for a given cone area they tend not to go so far into the bass, and certainly they are usually higher efficiency, so the amplifier doesn't have to work so hard (and thus frequently sounds better, although hum and noise are increased) but this isn't a reason to reject them out of hand.

A good studio monitor system, a good PA system, can give high quality sound, and reproduce a more realistic dynamic range (assuming you have tolerant, distant or deaf neighbours) than anything but an economically unthinkable HiFi set up.

Ok, it might seem silly that your low end can deliver 124 undistorted dBs, while your mids and highs struggle to give 98, but 5.1 in cinemas demonstrates that reserve low frequency power can enhance the listening experience considerably.

[tinitus]

old story
since we don't know the difference it won't matter either

but you are not going to say in-wall speaker are also pro speakers, are you ?
but I guess they actually are, stricktly speaking

hey, just joking

but what is PA, bass guitar, or studio woofers...its not so simple any more
I suppose more a matter of where you use them, and the way you design

[cbdb]

Ok, it might seem silly that your low end can deliver 124 undistorted dBs, while your mids and highs struggle to give 98, but 5.1 in cinemas demonstrates that reserve low frequency power can enhance the listening experience considerably.

Fletcher Munson.

This thread has the wrong title, it should be PA drivers not Pro drivers. Pro drivers include Genelec (and other pro studio monitors) that you would never see in a PA.

[JackNZ]

@chrispenycate
This is exactly whatI wanted to say.
There seems to be the general opinion that a P.A. speaker is loud and a home speaker is not but sounds good.
First of all a decent P.A. speaker is out of the price range where people play around at home. So when someone here tryed out a P.A. speaker and did not like it, it would possibly not have been a expensive chassis from 18 Sound, B&C or maybe PHL. but something like this Dayton mentioned by the threadstarter or some cheap speakers from Emminence. Those drivers are cost optimized and can take some abuse because they are designed with a stiff suspension and a underhang voice coil to not excurse to much.
There is no inductance control ring nor sophisticated cone design. Also those speakers are not manufactured to low tolerance because that would rise production cost. But that's where good sound comes from at the end.
So a top range Scan Speak or Vifa or Morell 8" chassis will outperform the
cheap 12" driver even if it says "pro" on the box it came out.
But take a top line 18Sound or BMS 6" with long excursion and high BxL and the story looks totally different.
It is a fact that there are good sounding speakers on the market and you can divide them anymore between pro and home. There are also good designed ceiling speakers:-)

[picowallspeaker]

Speakers, though very important, are just part of the problem of sound reproduction

[JackNZ]

But then we should say there's no problems, only solutions;-)