Still trying to understand the relationship between driver and cabinet volume

It may sound stupid but I still can't understand this relationship. If a driver requires 20 litres for optimal performance, under what circumstances does it need the volume: 3v, 20v?
Again, sounds stupid but due to the loose nature of air molecules isn't the an output level where the driver is not creating enough pressure to excite the port?
I ask because I have cabinets that sound excellent at low volumes but flatter to deceive & others that only sound good when driven hard?
 
All circumstances. The port and enclosure volume have a resonance, no matter the drive level.

In broad terms, I would expect differences at various drive levels to be more related to port area inadequacies/non-linearities or driver peculiarities.
 
It may sound stupid but I still can't understand this relationship. If a driver requires 20 litres for optimal performance, under what circumstances does it need the volume: 3v, 20v?
Again, sounds stupid but due to the loose nature of air molecules isn't the an output level where the driver is not creating enough pressure to excite the port?
I ask because I have cabinets that sound excellent at low volumes but flatter to deceive & others that only sound good when driven hard?
How many books on speaker design have you read ?
 
It may sound stupid but I still can't understand this relationship. If a driver requires 20 litres for optimal performance, under what circumstances does it need the volume: 3v, 20v?
Again, sounds stupid but due to the loose nature of air molecules isn't the an output level where the driver is not creating enough pressure to excite the port?
I ask because I have cabinets that sound excellent at low volumes but flatter to deceive & others that only sound good when driven hard?
This aspect is not related to enclosure volume, per se. It has to do with the linearity of the driver itself. I don't know if you used 20 litres as an example, or, if your enclosures are actually 20 litres (?) It seems to me that a few of the textbooks explain the relationship between enclosure size and performance. If 20 litres is the required box size for said driver, then, dynamics is not going to be very good. If it is a relatively low efficiency system, then YES, a little more power might be required to get the speaker to "turn on"......to be clear "turn on" is not meant in the literal sense. Most folks realize there is a MAXIMUM power rating for a speaker, but in some cases, there is a minimum as well. This is very rarely discussed,
 
Most folks realize there is a MAXIMUM power rating for a speaker, but in some cases, there is a minimum as well. This is very rarely discussed,
Hi, I seen this mentioned few times witgout explanation. Logical explanations include ppl like distortion, which increases with excursion, or it's about equal loudness curves, or perhaps the box was tuned for warmed up voice coil, so misaligned untill warm. Do you know more, what are the circumstasces when this happens?
 
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I ask because I have cabinets that sound excellent at low volumes but flatter to deceive & others that only sound good when driven hard?
I would say that generally listening louder (up to a sensible level) reveals more low frequency details of the music due to the human hearing sensitivity and is "more involving".
But some vented enclosures can quickly sound annoying because of compression and chuffing.
Big ports and optimized port geometry can help a lot.
But many hifi speakers have too small vent diameters and/or no vent roundovers and start compressing and chuffing at low levels. That ruins the listening experience.

where the driver is not creating enough pressure to excite the port?
air has no "threshold" below which pressure is not transmitted, so any pressure excites the port.
Not sure but there may be drivers that need some minimum signal to get "loose" (but that would be a bad driver).
And, as mentioned above, the human hearing needs a minimum level of spl to be excited. That threshold is quite high for low frequencies.

Edit: the above implies you are speaking about vented enclosures.
 
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