Best 15" and 18" woofers up to 200Hz >96dB/1W

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What are The best 15" and 18" woofers >96dB/1W/8 Ohm for aplications up to 200Hz-250Hz?
For 18" Faitail PRO 18FH500 looking very good but for 15" I don't know which woofer is worth to chose. I mean easy to drive woofer for vented cabinet.
Good low bass in medium/big cabinet and good efficiency is prefered 🙂
 
"Good" and "Best" are VERY RELATIVE. You need to put forward some actual numbers to get meaningful answers!

So, what is:
Desired max SPL
How much amplifier power you have and what load is the amp rated for (2 Ohms, 4 Ohms, etc.)
Desired F3, F10, etc. - how much low frequency extension do you want?
Size of room - dimensions or volume
What cabinet volume do you mean when you say "medium/big"???
What in the heck does "easy to drive" mean.

Please don't use words that are open to interpretation or this thread will become a bunch wasted electrons.
 
OK - concrete:
Impedance 8 OHm
Good for amplifier 20-60W (D class)
Max SLP about 115dB
Cabinet volume: about 100dm3 (3 cuft) for 15" or up to about 200dm3 (7 cuft) for 18"
F3 35Hz would be nice (<40Hz)
Freq range up to 200-250Hz
Price 250-300 USD for one woofer
 
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Good for amplifier 20-60W (D class)
That is not much power for a 15-18" sub, in sealed cab. I do not think that you will get 115dB with that setup? Might want to try tpa3251 🙂 check out gmarsh.
I have a 15" in a 3cu-ft sealed cab and I use a 100W amp.
check out Parts-express for ideas. I know that it is too far to order from Poland, but lots of good ideas.
 
Great, thanks for providing the info. I Think you should stick to a 15" if you want to use a vented enclosure with 60W or less power. Even a pro driver will have a difficult time getting to 115dB with only 60W and a larger vented cabinet will both help extend the bass response, reduce the effect of port resonance from long ports (needed when vented box size gets small) and you can maximize efficiency. Unfortunately there is a tradeoff with efficiency and bass extension - the lower you play the less efficient you can be. So you will need to choose where you want to build along this continuous spectrum, and I think you will need to increase your F3 to 50Hz to reach your SPL goal.

For some interesting examples of tradeoffs in efficiency and extension you can look at this web page that talks about the response and efficiency of a vented box with a first order filter (active):
Satellites and Subwoofers
In the alignment tables, the column with Kp indicates the relative efficiency for each alignment. You might model some of these to see if they will work for your driver. Since you will be using a pro driver, you should focus on Group I, because the Qts of high sensitivity drivers tends to be low. Don't forget to check Xmax below tuning...

You need to look for a driver with as high a sensitivity as possible (dB/W) to meet your goals. Unfortunately I think that you will have to evaluate all the different possibilities yourself, but this is not too hard using a box modeling program. Then when you have a couple of possibilities you can ask for advice about which is best in terms of sound quality. I think if you do it the other way around, people might suggest a driver that in the end won't meet your needs (even though you have made them clear now).
 
Well - thx for advice 🙂
115dB is desired level for speaker (let's say 50Hz to 200Hz) - not with 60W amp.
I had set 100W amp and speaker with eff. 90dB/1W and it is 110dB with this 100W (and it was not enough 🙂 )
With that efficiency (>96dB) vented cabinet is only choise (if we wont deep bass without electornic correction) - that's I didn't meansioned type of cabinet... sorry for so many open to interpretation - my bad.
 
Well, to give you an example, I am soon (hopefully) building a system that will have a large, separate subwoofer. The driver is a Peavey Low Rider 18, which has about 95dB@2.83V. If I put this in a huge box (225 liters / 8 cu.ft.) tuned to 27Hz with 2 4" ports about 7.25" long with 60W I can get about 110dB SPL and F3=27Hz. This is a proven driver and available (in the USA) for about $225. I can input more power to increase SPL without a problem.

If you can live with a box this large and could increase the power level to 250W you can reach 116dB SPL with still some Xmax to spare and only a small amount of port power compression. Increase port total area if you would like to eliminate that.

Perhaps that is the kind of recommendation you are looking for?
 
I would put the BMS 18n862 on your list of best 18" woofers. High xmax and low fs for a pro woofer and triple shorting rings for low inductance and distortion . go to data-bass.com for Mr ricci's tests of this and other woofers

Mark

Sure, but just one small problem... that driver is WAY above the price point stated by the o/p.
 
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The BMS Woofer is surely one of the best, but you need real power to drive it an sensivity is quite low.
I wouldn´t start with this woofer under 1000W.

I use 18FH500 OEM Driver, in a 55x60x70cm vented enclosure driven at about 500w max. F3 around 45-48hz.
More power results only in more power compression.

Before I used a RCF 18g400 in the same enclosure f3 about 40hz but 3db less sensivity and much heavier.
 
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