Over on Facebook, there was a discussion about pro sound vs car sound subwoofers.
A lot of people were saying that pro sound drivers are better because they're more efficient.
I stated that
subwoofer efficiency is mostly irrelevant.
For instance, if you have two drivers, and one has an efficiency of 80dB, and the other has an efficiency of 90dB, they will produce just about the same amount of SPL at low frequency if they're fed with the same amount of power.
This probably sounds nonsensical; you would think that the more efficient driver would be...
more efficient.
But it doesn't work like that, for the most part. Because at low frequency, subwoofers are basically pumps. The size of the cone matters, and the power handling matters,
but efficiency just isn't a factor for the most part.
In order to evaluate this statement, here's some data.
In this corner is the Sundown SA-18 V2. It's a car audio subwoofer with low efficiency and a lot of displacement. Fairly typical for car audio.
In this corner is the Eminence NSW4018-8. It's a pro audio subwoofer with high efficiency and moderate displacement. In the realm of pro audio subs, it has unusually high displacement, but it's efficiency is typical.
The Sundown 18 has an efficiency of 87 dB:
Sundown Audio SA-18 REV3 D4 18 Inch 750 Watts RMS Dual 4-Ohm SA Series Subwoofer
The Eminence has an efficiency of 96.6 dB:
https://www.parts-express.com/pedocs/specs/290-5660--eminence-nsw4018-8-spec-sheet.pdf
Efficiency and box size are connected, per Hoffman's Iron Law. This mean that the LOW efficiency car audio sub needs half the space as the HIGH efficiency pro audio sub.
So, let's compare the output of two SA-18s vs ONE NSW4018 in the same box.
Note that a pair of SA-18s will set you back $700 while a single NSW4018 will cost you $580.
Here's the frequency response and displacement of ONE NSW4018 vs TWO SA-18s.
The box is identical, the watts are identical.
Thought the Eminence is 9dB more efficient than the Sundown, the output at low frequency is basically identical, as one would expect. (Hoffmans Iron Law.)
There's a VERY noticeable efficiency advantage above 100Hz. The Eminence is much more efficient above 100Hz. But this is consistent with what I've proposed:
Subwoofer efficiency is mostly irrelevant.
If you want your woofer to play to 1khz or 2khz, you definitely want to examine the efficiency spec. But at 60hz? It doesn't really matter, for the most part.
One of the reasons that the Eminence is so much more efficient at 1khz his because the Sundown has a lot of inductance. Scott Hinson writes a lot of great stuff, and he observed that car audio subs often have higher distortion. I'd agree with him; the Sundown will likely have higher distortion than the Eminence. Non linear inductance leads to distortion, and considering the very high inductance of the Sundown, I'm willing to bet that it has higher non-linear inductance than the Eminence.
In Sundown's defense, keep in mind that distortion and excursion are generally correlated. IE, if your subwoofers are using up their xmax, you're likely to hear distortion.
Sundown has an advantage here: because it works in a box that's half as large, you can use two. And because you can use two, each woofer is only traveling half as far. This lowers distortion.
So there you have it:
The response shape of the two solutions is virtually identical below 80Hz. The Eminence is flatter, but only by about 1.5dB, which isn't going to be audible.
The Eminence has less inductance and an advanced motor, which is nice. But the Eminence costs nearly twice as much and it needs a box that's twice as big as the Sundown. The Sundown motor is fairly basic. But you can cram TWO Sundowns into a box that's big enough for ONE Eminence.
Basically:
There's no free lunch.