My reply should have been at the start of the thread, but now two threads are merged it on the next page.
I wrongly assumed you were thinking of using a pa driver instead of a subwoofer (bad idea obviously). Emimence, Faital and Beyma are all produce drivers that are good value for money. 18sound and B&C are also worth looking at, but can be expensive.
I wrongly assumed you were thinking of using a pa driver instead of a subwoofer (bad idea obviously). Emimence, Faital and Beyma are all produce drivers that are good value for money. 18sound and B&C are also worth looking at, but can be expensive.
In the States, Faital costs as much as B&C, if not more, for similar drivers. Is that not the case in the EU? Just curious. B&C as expensive as they can be are still an extremely good value for the money - offering performance for years that Eminence has only recently begun to touch. 10 to 15mm linear xmax’s, shorting rings, split VC’s, inside/outside winding - stuff the Italians have been doing for a long time.
PRV was starting to get a foothold in the states on value priced drivers with very hefty conventional motors, but lately availability has gone to hell. Their $200 price class 12” mids will eat Eminence for breakfast, and it’s only really above that price class where B&C really shines - you start getting into the advanced motor technology. If you’re running a 50 Hz crossover frequency you really need that advanced motor to get the highest output levels. Bump it up to the 80 to 100 Hz range, that becomes less important (but the subwoofers have to cover more range).
PRV was starting to get a foothold in the states on value priced drivers with very hefty conventional motors, but lately availability has gone to hell. Their $200 price class 12” mids will eat Eminence for breakfast, and it’s only really above that price class where B&C really shines - you start getting into the advanced motor technology. If you’re running a 50 Hz crossover frequency you really need that advanced motor to get the highest output levels. Bump it up to the 80 to 100 Hz range, that becomes less important (but the subwoofers have to cover more range).
Don't buy just by (seemingly) impressive stats without even knowing which does what, you're looking it from the completely wrong perspective. If you want to use it as bass mid driver, you don't want a huge Xmax. With an excursion of more than ~4-5mm you will have distortion in the mids. And if you want to use them as low as 60 Hz you'll lose a ton of spl because they will definitely drop off, you can expect they will give you maybe 90-92 dB/1W (not 2,83V!). And you won't get a precise bass at high power/excursion from the door either, especially in a small enclosure, I'm very confident you can't get 50l out of a door unless you're driving a 70s landyacht because if you don't fit a solid enclosure into it or heavyly reinforce it, it will pump like hell, bending the panel and the steel of the door. And you can't use a port either because of the mid garbage comming out of it with your ear very close and the mechanical noises at high excursions are also very much audible. Your posted requirements don't fit the physics, with such high excursions the kick won't be very precise.
It would be much better if you would use the bass mid drivers 90~100 Hz up to 500 (or 1k) so maybe you can get away without building an enclosure in the door, your sub surely can play that high. That means you can use the high spl of a PA driver, have cleaner and more precise kick and mids and with a low volume sealed mount enclosure you'll get what you want - a precise kick.
My suggestion: Look how much enclosure volume you can actually get into the door, it's no use to talk about drivers and stuff if you can't fit them after all. You'll likely not get more than 25-30l of an enclosure into it. Look at the depth of the driver too and keep in mind you have to leave room for the pole core ventilation or you're sacrifycing a lot of precision and power capability.
Then look which of the drivers are available at 4 Ohm (unless you want to halve your power) and work nice in that enclosure (simulate it) and don't have a high Mms but a reasonable motor. You will probably not find many drivers to that profile and it will be very hard to get them for 100 bucks. A 10" is a better fit for your needs, if you'd ask me.
About the Xmax: To really compare them, you have to know how they got the result. The mathematical linear excursion formula is
(Voicecoil winding height - pole plate thickness) / 2
Many manufacturers add 1/4 or even 1/3 to that, so a conservative/honest excursion stats might be equal or in some cases even higher than the inflated value.
What crossover will you use?
(Voicecoil winding height - pole plate thickness) / 2
Many manufacturers add 1/4 or even 1/3 to that, so a conservative/honest excursion stats might be equal or in some cases even higher than the inflated value.
What crossover will you use?
Yeas, lower Xmax drivers tend to have higher SPL, but take a look at the Lavoce WAF123.03.
It doesn't have the efficiency above 500Hz, but I don't need that.
It does have good efficiency lower though, which is surprising.
As I said, I am concerned about Xmax, but don't really know the sweet spot.
Faital is Italian as I know of, so it is cheaper here, and the lower end drivers are "really really" cheap. But I don't trust their Xmax ratings that much. But at low excursion they would be my first option.
B&C is a little more expensive here and seems to not be worth it in my price category.
I have PRV compression drivers and do like some of the specs in the mids, but the import cost make them at least half more, if not double the cost.
If I fiberglass the door panel and bolt it on the Dampened and stiffened door and put some sealing foam tape in between, it would make a "leaky", but still rather good midbass enclosure. And that would be 50-60l in a big Volvo.
If I fiberglass an entire solid enclosure inside of the door I would probably get 20-30l of usable space.
I know it's not ideal, but I'm working with what I have.
I have 10" Bass face PAW10s in my doors now. If you find some miracle 10s that give me good performance, tell me.
But I have found that 12s will outperform even in the same, small enclosure, especially with more cone area and more Xmax usually.
12s also have more sensitivity and keep up with my midranges and horns better.
I had 5" midbasses in the beginning and they could be crossed over at 80Hz with 150W each, without problem.
I can't see hoe 12s wouldn't handle a 60Hz crossover.
Remember, the car is a closed ish space, that will create more cone control for the driver.
I would rather go with 4Ohm drivers, but few seem to fit the bill, and the drivers properties often change from 8 to 4Ohms if the manufacturer makes the same driver at different impedances.
Wouldn't a 4,9 Ohm driver still be close enough?
Yes and no.
Technically there's a air gap depth and width. If that spec is the depth then yes, that's correct. The width should be as narrow as possible for a stronger and more consistantly magnetic field.Ah, okay, then that should be working fine. Some braces from the panel to the back fiber will improve its stability and the precision vastly.
That's a lot of work, very time consuming but I was thinking about exactly that for the best precision and minimal losses. Not that cheap either. A heavy, stiff panel will ofcourse also help greatly.
A larger cone can ofcourse move more air but if you want them to play down to 60Hz you can't use any of the higher spl, you have to pad them down to the level at 60Hz anyway or you won't hear them there. If you want precision, xo them half an octave higher. At that frequency they only need about half the excursion. Look at a simulation of the excursion, WinISD does that well. The response will still be different in a car though.
I'd gladly suggest drivers I know or will help searching for them. But maybe it would be a much more constructive strategy to first determine what you really need before throwing around technical data of drivers?
But that's exactly why you don't get the sound you want, you let them play way too deep!
They can of course handle 60Hz but you're throwing away all the spl advantage of a PA driver. If that's what you want, buy a car mid-woofer. The 12s can go louder and ofcourse deeper than a 5" but won't sound that much different. Don't fall into the 'gear swap trap', just swapping parts over and over and be disappointed like hundreds of other car hifi freaks. Instead of "it must be the JBL/Eminence/whatever for xxxx$" and buying more and more expensive gear, must be bigger, more power, newer, more specs!, solve the acoustical problems of your enviroment (car). Sound reproduction is physics and in physics there's no such thing as 'free lunch'. Physics don't care if you imagine that will work great.
No, it doesn't. It's a compression chamber. That will rise your system Qt and a high Qt is always worse in the response/group delay and loss at control. It will give you a fat sound but not precision. That's why sealed subs sound so much cleaner, more precise in a car, they drop with a slow slope which compensates for the compression chamber effect/rise in response. And that's also why so many ported subs in cars sound "wWOOOBMmm" instead of "POM" at a bass drum or tom ("PAM"), not to talk about a snare drum.
Yes, go for 4 Ohm drivers. 4,9 Ohm is nominal a 5,5 Ohm (minimum -20%) driver, still a lot better than 8 Ohm in your case.
You still haven't answered my question of the crossover, that part is vital for your project, the crossover is the most important part in a speaker or sound system. Yes, more important than the drivers. And that means you can probably already achieve the sound you want to have with your PAW10s if you get the crossover or dsp setting right.