When can a subwoofer be a woofer?

We have all seen the hatchet jobs where a car audio subwoofer is used to replace a bad woofer but that begs the question how rigid is the dividing line between woofers and sub-woofer drivers?

For example let's say one were designing a passive three way with the crossover from the woofer to the midrange in the vicinity of 400-450Hz could one reasonably use this driver as the woofer even though it is sold as a sub?

https://www.parts-express.com/Peerl...fessional-Paper-Cone-Subwoofer-8-Ohm-264-1480
https://www.parts-express.com/pedocs/specs/264-1480--tymphany-fsl-1830r03-08-spec-sheet.pdf

The voice coil inductance is not any larger than drivers I have seen marketed as woofers.
 
The bigger the woofer, sooner it starts beaming and having cone breakups.
Looking at that peerless 18" woofer, 400Hz would be maximum I would take it to. Perhaps 350Hz would be better.
 

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They both fit the woofer category going by the 6mm max excursion, not so heavy cone and 32 hz fs.
They would need more magnet in order to get more excursion without sacrificing BL.
The one from parts express is still a good deal. I just would not consider it a subwoofer.
 
As soon as people stop thinking in defined boxes/labels aka pigeonholing.

It is nothing more than just a few words to very roughly name what we want to talk about or to roughly name the majority of its use cases.
There are plenty of woofers than can be used as subwoofers and vice versa.
In fact there are speakers labeled as woofer out there that perform significantly better than some speakers that are labeled as subwoofer, in the "subwoofer region" (< 100Hz or so)

How useful a combination of speakers is, is defined by multiple technical factors.
One has to focus on those technical factors, NOT the labels things carry.

In general there is nothing to stop you using a tweeter as a subwoofer.
If it's wise, is another question.
 
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