'Speed' in my mid is nothing to do with frequency response but all to do with dynamic response - i.e. how the speaker deals with rapid pulses in volume. More of an issue with bass drivers I think as there is considerable moving mass. We are talking about transient response (not step response). Although a good step response usually results in a good transient response (in a system).
The idea that big woofers are slow, or lack transient response is kind of a half truth.
What really happens is the lower you go in a room, the more you run into room modes so the sound can become flabby or bloated. Treat the room modes properly and a 15" - 18" woofer will be startlingly fast and have such low distortion and large dynamic range smaller woofers only dream of.
Best,
E
What really happens is the lower you go in a room, the more you run into room modes so the sound can become flabby or bloated. Treat the room modes properly and a 15" - 18" woofer will be startlingly fast and have such low distortion and large dynamic range smaller woofers only dream of.
Best,
E
This is where there is some confusion. A large bass driver with say a bandwidth up to 150 hz. Won't be able to produce a transient faster than 1 wavelength of 150 hz. It relies on the mid and tweeter to produce the transient. The transients of say a drum kick are all in the upper frequencies and a perfect transient response would rely on integrating all these frequencies perfectly. Your woofer will only be able to reproduce something resembling a sine wave on its own. Sine waves are not what generates impact! That's where full rangers sometimes shine. It's more about coherence than maximum volume. Or at least it is for some!
The alternative is also true. A limited bandwidth speaker won't have the impact that it would with a subwoofer, same reasons. The full waveform won't be reproduced. 🙂
That's true. The fuller the bandwidth the better the transient as long as integration does not suffer. The subwoofer works because it is relatively easy to integrate at very low frequencies. The difficulty is in the mid range where some multi ways sometimes split the frequency between drivers. That tends to ruin the coherence and hence musical transients. By the time you have got to the tweeter you are talking g about a fraction of the audible sound energy and coherence issues are picked up less by the ear.
So, perhaps an ideal speaker would be one where the "splits" occur in the lower areas, and then a devoted full range/ wide-bander doing as much as possible, and then cross to a tweeter very high up, so that the coherency of the total system does not suffer. Is that kind of what you are saying ?
Yes indeed, this is a good approach. There are others - for instance having an array of full-range drivers in a transmission line that is fully bass capable. Then add an adjustable tweeter at relatively high frequency, without full crossover is another!
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