Speaker magnet interaction ?

[kennyhorn]

I am planning to add a second bass driver to my ob speakers. I wanted to place them at 90 degrees to the bass drivers already mounted. The drivers would be close enough that their magnetic fields would interact. I was wondering if this would cause any kind of issues.

 

[Galu]

The magnetic field of a speaker is mainly concentrated on the voice coil. Only a stray magnetic field exists to influence neighbouring components, and its strength decreases rapidly with distance.

It is unlikely that mounting drivers in close proximity will affect the core strength of their respective magnetic fields and hence the operation of the individual drivers.

However, you could give more details about the arrangement and proximity of your drivers - a notated sketch perhaps.

 

[kennyhorn]

Thanks for the response. My current bass drivers are the eminence 15a. the baffle is just wide enough to mount the 15 inch woofer. I use an all active system with lots of eq in the bass so I didnt need a wide baffle. I have a pair of dayton 10in bass drivers. I plan to add side wings onto the lower half of the baffle and mount the daytons so they are side firing. the magnets on the daytons are quite strong and when you hold them approximately where they will be mounted you can def feel them pulling toward the frames of the 15's.

 

[Galu]

Speaker drivers will attract each other, but I can find no reference to that attraction adversely affecting the operation of the individual drivers.

Drivers are mounted close to each other in various loudspeaker configurations.

What is the distance separating the 10" magnets from the 15" magnet?

 

[kennyhorn]

It would likely be about 3 inches between the frames.

 

[Galu]

I don't think you have anything to worry about.

Usually, when I make a statement like that, an expert chimes in to contradict me - so let's wait and see!

 

[AllenB]

Not an expert but I think since the magnet structure is designed to be saturated it tends to suggest that this won't be an issue.

 

[kennyhorn]

Lol thanks to you both for giving me peace of mind ��

 

[scottjoplin]

Have you considered the radiation pattern or doesn't it matter?

 

[kennyhorn]

Not 100% sure what you mean.

 

[scottjoplin]

Having the drivers at 90 degrees to each other will mean you don't get a dipole pattern response.

 

[Galu]

What response pattern would you expect to result?

Might it not even be advantageous?

 

[egellings]

The iron in the magnetic circuit of the driver is intentionally run saturated so that the voice coil's magnetic field meanderings will not destabilize the B field (bounce it around with the music) of the magnet assembly.

 

[kennyhorn]

To be honest I am not super knowledgeable about such things. I had always assumed that bass was pretty much omnidirectional. I already had the drivers and was just going to use them.I can mount them to be rear firing directly behind the 15a's. Would this give better results?

 

[scottjoplin]

Might it not even be advantageous?

I can't imagine how?

 

[scottjoplin]

I had always assumed that bass was pretty much omnidirectional. I already had the drivers and was just going to use them.I can mount them to be rear firing directly behind the 15a's. Would this give better results?

That's one of the advantages of dipole bass, it's directional. Mounting them behind would be worse.

 

[kennyhorn]

OK thanks for helping with that. I did some reading. I had a bit of misunderstanding of what "dipole" Bass actually was.

 

[scottjoplin]

Linkwitz Lab site is full of good info, you may have found it already.

 

[kennyhorn]

I have been on that site many times but honestly have not read a lot of the info about bass. I will though. I have decided to just scrap my original plans. I have a few mids and tweeters kicking around so I will likely just use the daytons for bass on a smaller OB system.