I was researching on the internet about woofers and how to use them, I saw tutorials and such.
But the main thing I wanted to know is what are the starting points to know if a woofer is good or not?
What parameters do I have to observe to know?
Is choosing a Woofer the same as choosing fruit at the market?
How do you know if it's bad or not?
But the main thing I wanted to know is what are the starting points to know if a woofer is good or not?
What parameters do I have to observe to know?
Is choosing a Woofer the same as choosing fruit at the market?
How do you know if it's bad or not?
It's not a matter of a woofer being good or bad. Ask yourself if the woofer is fit for the intended application.
For example, a woofer designed for use in a sealed enclosure will not function well in a ported enclosure and vice versa.
One of the first parameters to consider is the Qts of the woofer, as explained here under "Q Parameters":
https://eminence.com/pages/support__understanding-loudspeaker-data
For example, a woofer designed for use in a sealed enclosure will not function well in a ported enclosure and vice versa.
One of the first parameters to consider is the Qts of the woofer, as explained here under "Q Parameters":
https://eminence.com/pages/support__understanding-loudspeaker-data
If you have a lot of clean power and proper DSP EQ, I would say; yes. One important aspect is distortion - and thats typically not described - sad really... and the ones displayed like frequency response cant be trusted as there is no standard on how to measure and display data that every producer follow.
So you select from the ones that look colourful and juicy, put them in a close box and season (EQ) to taste and hope they are not sour (distorted) ;-)
//
So you select from the ones that look colourful and juicy, put them in a close box and season (EQ) to taste and hope they are not sour (distorted) ;-)
//
Do your research and then some more. Have a look at what others are using and their results and observations. It's not easy picking a raw driver when you are new in the game as that requires experience which includes lots of failures. In other words, steal the best and forget about the rest.
So much things to consider:
-price
-Efficiency
-parameters
-actuall measurements on baffle
-cone material
And on and on.
Mission impossible. That's why manufacturers stick to a certain brand of drivers and invest years in learning them and experimenting.
Even after those years of work it is not guaranteed that all will acknowledge the masterpiece you have created.
-price
-Efficiency
-parameters
-actuall measurements on baffle
-cone material
And on and on.
Mission impossible. That's why manufacturers stick to a certain brand of drivers and invest years in learning them and experimenting.
Even after those years of work it is not guaranteed that all will acknowledge the masterpiece you have created.
I think you are asking this question in the wrong forum.
Sub-woofers are pretty expensive things when done well and properly and used exclusively below about 80Hertz.
Sub -Bass frequencies. I use mine to allow the bass to midbass frequencies to be played with less distortion.
Woofers may be the same drivers as subwoofers sometimes but are used differently.
You really do need to do as rabbitz suggests and do more reading and personal research; but "Yes" some people do pick a particular woofer, like an apple, because it's pretty and shiny and with little regard to taste { ie: How it performs}
Sub-woofers are pretty expensive things when done well and properly and used exclusively below about 80Hertz.
Sub -Bass frequencies. I use mine to allow the bass to midbass frequencies to be played with less distortion.
Woofers may be the same drivers as subwoofers sometimes but are used differently.
You really do need to do as rabbitz suggests and do more reading and personal research; but "Yes" some people do pick a particular woofer, like an apple, because it's pretty and shiny and with little regard to taste { ie: How it performs}
You first have to define what "good" or "good enough" means for you.
If you can find any. Peerless left the diy market, unfortunately.
I found that for my smaller car trunk installation, that a particular mid-lower powered driver would match the desired roll off and blend very well with the response of the rest of the vehicles interior/existing system without any eq.
It was also $20 on sale, so that was a bonus.
So many speakers, just have to do a ton of reading and try to get an idea of what will be appropriate for your application. You’ll be better off having a bit more volume available than too little, which helps keep distortion down. Also need to define what type of sound you prefer that works for your music preferences.
I have had a few of the popular JBL/Infinity powered subs that just didn’t deliver in the house, always sounded better without them.
Were usually free or cheap and went back out to donation soon.
It was also $20 on sale, so that was a bonus.
So many speakers, just have to do a ton of reading and try to get an idea of what will be appropriate for your application. You’ll be better off having a bit more volume available than too little, which helps keep distortion down. Also need to define what type of sound you prefer that works for your music preferences.
I have had a few of the popular JBL/Infinity powered subs that just didn’t deliver in the house, always sounded better without them.
Were usually free or cheap and went back out to donation soon.
I'd say that there's grosso modo a "frontier" between the Woofers, built around their QTS value :
* QTS >= 0.4-0.5 ---> Woofers for Sealed enclosure or Open Baffle.
* QTS <= 0.4-0.5 ---> Woofer for Bass-Reflex enclosures or Horn load.
But OK : this rule is valid only because there's exception to the rule !
T
* QTS >= 0.4-0.5 ---> Woofers for Sealed enclosure or Open Baffle.
* QTS <= 0.4-0.5 ---> Woofer for Bass-Reflex enclosures or Horn load.
But OK : this rule is valid only because there's exception to the rule !
T
This is exactly what you do. You use requirements and come up with a design. Requirement: You decide how loud you want to play the lowest frequency from your speaker and this determines what woofer/s you need. Say 35 Hz at 105 dB at 1 meter. That requires a specific amount of displacement of air, 582 cm^3. In a woofer that is specified with two numbers: maximum linear cone travel Xmax and cone area S. It's the swept volume of the piston, just like a car engine. Just like car engines, displacement is what costs money. There are cheap 12" woofers that only have 3 mm of linear travel and expensive woofers with 26 mm of travel. So you might need 8 cheap woofers and 8 boxes to equal the clean output of one expensive woofer and one small box. For instance a 12" Scan Speak Discovery woofer has 582 cm^3 of displacement. The higher quality cones will give a flat response to a higher frequency before flexing. I find it desirable to build smaller boxes as they have a higher first resonance frequency. If you plan carefully that can be above the range you run the woofer, so you have a resonance free speaker. So I look for woofers with a large displacement for the required box size. This is a volume ratio. I have a spread sheet that computes the displacement given the SPL and frequency as well as sorts several woofers for box size / displacement. With modern digital filtering you build a small sealed box and apply a Linkwitz transform to equalize the response the other parameters really just don't matter. If you want a passive system, then build the traditional huge box and vent it. I don't do that as it's a resonance. There are four pages to the sheet. See the tabs at the bottom.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18BXQP-WSRRbQHTR_mXJ0OVdyYF8tixPRP3dvkLzf5m0/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18BXQP-WSRRbQHTR_mXJ0OVdyYF8tixPRP3dvkLzf5m0/edit?usp=sharing
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Depends on sensitivity goals.
Or genres of music you like.
And listening levels.
Some people might be fine
with a 6.5 inch with 65 Hz Fs
Others may like deep bass
and search for 8 to 12" woofers
which have Fs down into the 30 to
even 20 Hz range.
Not always about piston diameter of course
its is mechanical design.
High sensitivity 8" might be 92 dB
but Fs be high 50 to 60 Hz
Other 8" might be 83 dB
but Fs be low around 25 to 35 Hz
So there is multiple trade offs for
sensitivity and how low or deep they go.
Usually in the suspension design.
Generalized a loose suspension
which works in smaller boxes and goes deep
will trade off sensitivity to achieve that.
Of course people seek low distortion motors
and also large xmax.
Simple speaking I like anything from
Jazz to classical to pounding EDM.
And listen at childish loud levels.
So default just go for real woofers
and go big. the bigger the better.
Or everyday 12" be fine.
And the size will hold up sensitivity
even for loose suspension and go deep.
If the reflex isn't tuned at 20 to 35 Hz max
then isnt a woofer in my book
Especially a 3 way design.
It is the main benefit to dedicate a motor
for bass duty only.
Tradeoffs come with 2 ways since larger
drivers are harder to cross over a tweeter
low enough.
Or genres of music you like.
And listening levels.
Some people might be fine
with a 6.5 inch with 65 Hz Fs
Others may like deep bass
and search for 8 to 12" woofers
which have Fs down into the 30 to
even 20 Hz range.
Not always about piston diameter of course
its is mechanical design.
High sensitivity 8" might be 92 dB
but Fs be high 50 to 60 Hz
Other 8" might be 83 dB
but Fs be low around 25 to 35 Hz
So there is multiple trade offs for
sensitivity and how low or deep they go.
Usually in the suspension design.
Generalized a loose suspension
which works in smaller boxes and goes deep
will trade off sensitivity to achieve that.
Of course people seek low distortion motors
and also large xmax.
Simple speaking I like anything from
Jazz to classical to pounding EDM.
And listen at childish loud levels.
So default just go for real woofers
and go big. the bigger the better.
Or everyday 12" be fine.
And the size will hold up sensitivity
even for loose suspension and go deep.
If the reflex isn't tuned at 20 to 35 Hz max
then isnt a woofer in my book
Especially a 3 way design.
It is the main benefit to dedicate a motor
for bass duty only.
Tradeoffs come with 2 ways since larger
drivers are harder to cross over a tweeter
low enough.
Just for completeness, that relates to sealed enclosures.
Resonator or horn systems such as bass reflex, passive radiator, TML or horn loaded systems will have lower displacement needs.
Dipole systems need higher displacement.
Now sitting and listening to all the music ( I mostly liked ) after coming back from the high-end show in Munich 2 o'clock this morning
A lot of systems actually did not really reveal any qualities of bass driver material, magnets and other exotic qualities, unless some kind of active approach was used. Seat to seat variation in bass is quite huge and even with the monstrous Moya from Vivid audio, you could stand in one place, and hear almost no bass at all, which is quite incredible from the extreme amount of displacement that speaker has. Again, just shows how immensely tricky it can be to judge between good woofers and bad ones, from a listening session, unless lots of precaution is made in advance.
I believe we, as humans, tend to fall in love way too quickly with looks, alluring features and impulses of joy, rather than statically long-lasting qualities. But hey... that's one side of the business coin
When asking one big general question, usually many other more relevant question surface.
So...
What size and shape of speaker can you accept?
The level of complexity of your skills, or budget for getting someone else doing it for you?
Your general budget and size/space at your home, for listening to this potential not yet created dreamt of speaker?
Max SPL, with respect to actually pressurizing the room, or just play "loud" like many typical speakers do. Because let's be honest, you actually need quite a lot of displacement to get a bit of physical feeling, when you go below 100-150hz. Meaning, do you like the woofer to say "woff" or do you want it to shock you a bit, like someone slammed the door to your room?
Intended cross-overpoint for your midrange/tweeter, and overall design of the speaker, is going to be absolutely key, to your choices of woofer(s).
My experience, tells me that a fixed, nicely measuring ported comercial designs, will be quite picky with how you set up the system, and I almost always feel that ported designs add some annoying "omph" to the sound, where closed, active/eq/powered designs, can be much more natural, taught, dynamic and overall pleasant to listen to - IMO.
At the exhibition this weekend, I got excactly that feeling again.... YG acoustics new active speakers and Lyngdorf subwoofer/open baffel(not the subwoofers/woofers) with room correction, where some of the best.
Marten, Avalon, Perlisten and Odeon did quite good too. And I believe it was not because they had more or less good woofers, than all the other speakers at the exhibition. It was much more because of an overall better design(cabinet, filters size... etc.) and the combination of the room, the chosen speaker and placement/setup.
I wanted good smooth deep response in a closed 35 liters box
Max displacement in smallest possible overall driver diameter
Good sensitivity
Lowest possible 2' and 3' order distortion
Good linear Xmax, but not a lot, since I use subwoofers
Classic elegant simple looks
Pistonic behavior way beoyond my cross-over point (400Hz LR24)
Not way too expensive
Running a fully active system with DSP, so I can tune in the last details easily.
I found the SB Satori 9½ as the only one doing this - and I love it
So my advice... after all this. Narrow it down!
And when things become much more specific.... then we can start to actucally chose some candidates
A lot of systems actually did not really reveal any qualities of bass driver material, magnets and other exotic qualities, unless some kind of active approach was used. Seat to seat variation in bass is quite huge and even with the monstrous Moya from Vivid audio, you could stand in one place, and hear almost no bass at all, which is quite incredible from the extreme amount of displacement that speaker has. Again, just shows how immensely tricky it can be to judge between good woofers and bad ones, from a listening session, unless lots of precaution is made in advance.
I believe we, as humans, tend to fall in love way too quickly with looks, alluring features and impulses of joy, rather than statically long-lasting qualities. But hey... that's one side of the business coin
When asking one big general question, usually many other more relevant question surface.
So...
What size and shape of speaker can you accept?
The level of complexity of your skills, or budget for getting someone else doing it for you?
Your general budget and size/space at your home, for listening to this potential not yet created dreamt of speaker?
Max SPL, with respect to actually pressurizing the room, or just play "loud" like many typical speakers do. Because let's be honest, you actually need quite a lot of displacement to get a bit of physical feeling, when you go below 100-150hz. Meaning, do you like the woofer to say "woff" or do you want it to shock you a bit, like someone slammed the door to your room?
Intended cross-overpoint for your midrange/tweeter, and overall design of the speaker, is going to be absolutely key, to your choices of woofer(s).
My experience, tells me that a fixed, nicely measuring ported comercial designs, will be quite picky with how you set up the system, and I almost always feel that ported designs add some annoying "omph" to the sound, where closed, active/eq/powered designs, can be much more natural, taught, dynamic and overall pleasant to listen to - IMO.
At the exhibition this weekend, I got excactly that feeling again.... YG acoustics new active speakers and Lyngdorf subwoofer/open baffel(not the subwoofers/woofers) with room correction, where some of the best.
Marten, Avalon, Perlisten and Odeon did quite good too. And I believe it was not because they had more or less good woofers, than all the other speakers at the exhibition. It was much more because of an overall better design(cabinet, filters size... etc.) and the combination of the room, the chosen speaker and placement/setup.
I wanted good smooth deep response in a closed 35 liters box
Max displacement in smallest possible overall driver diameter
Good sensitivity
Lowest possible 2' and 3' order distortion
Good linear Xmax, but not a lot, since I use subwoofers
Classic elegant simple looks
Pistonic behavior way beoyond my cross-over point (400Hz LR24)
Not way too expensive
Running a fully active system with DSP, so I can tune in the last details easily.
I found the SB Satori 9½ as the only one doing this - and I love it
So my advice... after all this. Narrow it down!
And when things become much more specific.... then we can start to actucally chose some candidates
As posted your question has no answer because it is TOO vague/generic.
You must FIRST define with precision what is the intended use, what it needs to do and then somebody will suggest how to meet that goal.
If there is no goal (so far there's none) then there is no answer.
So much things to consider:
-price
-Efficiency
-parameters
-actuall measurements on baffle
-cone material
And on and on.
Mission impossible. That's why manufacturers stick to a certain brand of drivers and invest years in learning them and experimenting.
Even after those years of work it is not guaranteed that all will acknowledge the masterpiece you have created.
I'm just starting to study this world of hifi, I apologize and please be patient for any mistakes I made...Now sitting and listening to all the music ( I mostly liked ) after coming back from the high-end show in Munich 2 o'clock this morning
A lot of systems actually did not really reveal any qualities of bass driver material, magnets and other exotic qualities, unless some kind of active approach was used. Seat to seat variation in bass is quite huge and even with the monstrous Moya from Vivid audio, you could stand in one place, and hear almost no bass at all, which is quite incredible from the extreme amount of displacement that speaker has. Again, just shows how immensely tricky it can be to judge between good woofers and bad ones, from a listening session, unless lots of precaution is made in advance.
I believe we, as humans, tend to fall in love way too quickly with looks, alluring features and impulses of joy, rather than statically long-lasting qualities. But hey... that's one side of the business coin
When asking one big general question, usually many other more relevant question surface.
So...
What size and shape of speaker can you accept?
The level of complexity of your skills, or budget for getting someone else doing it for you?
Your general budget and size/space at your home, for listening to this potential not yet created dreamt of speaker?
Max SPL, with respect to actually pressurizing the room, or just play "loud" like many typical speakers do. Because let's be honest, you actually need quite a lot of displacement to get a bit of physical feeling, when you go below 100-150hz. Meaning, do you like the woofer to say "woff" or do you want it to shock you a bit, like someone slammed the door to your room?
Intended cross-overpoint for your midrange/tweeter, and overall design of the speaker, is going to be absolutely key, to your choices of woofer(s).
My experience, tells me that a fixed, nicely measuring ported comercial designs, will be quite picky with how you set up the system, and I almost always feel that ported designs add some annoying "omph" to the sound, where closed, active/eq/powered designs, can be much more natural, taught, dynamic and overall pleasant to listen to - IMO.
At the exhibition this weekend, I got excactly that feeling again.... YG acoustics new active speakers and Lyngdorf subwoofer/open baffel(not the subwoofers/woofers) with room correction, where some of the best.
Marten, Avalon, Perlisten and Odeon did quite good too. And I believe it was not because they had more or less good woofers, than all the other speakers at the exhibition. It was much more because of an overall better design(cabinet, filters size... etc.) and the combination of the room, the chosen speaker and placement/setup.
I wanted good smooth deep response in a closed 35 liters box
Max displacement in smallest possible overall driver diameter
Good sensitivity
Lowest possible 2' and 3' order distortion
Good linear Xmax, but not a lot, since I use subwoofers
Classic elegant simple looks
Pistonic behavior way beoyond my cross-over point (400Hz LR24)
Not way too expensive
Running a fully active system with DSP, so I can tune in the last details easily.
I found the SB Satori 9½ as the only one doing this - and I love it
So my advice... after all this. Narrow it down!
And when things become much more specific.... then we can start to actucally chose some candidates
For example, I found this woofer on the internet and when I put it in WinISD, in the cone excursion graph, if I put 6w on it it already exceeds its Xmax and could cause damage (This is in a 30hz box).
I intended to put a maximum of 30w on it...
Even doing it in a sealed box the result will be the same
