- Nov 24, 2008
- 4,343
- 7,163
- Disclosures
- Owner & designer, AudioKinesis; Auth. mfg, Big E (Home Audio only)
1. Foderaman gave you a better answer than I could!
2. I think you'll feel a little bit more low end from the Hathor 1855 at low volumes, but it's not really optimized for that. If optimizing a cab for low volume, I'd focus on increasing the upper bass and be less concerned with the very bottom end because the upper bass is easier to hear (Fletcher-Munson, as Selta pointed out).
Sidebar: Over in the home audio world, one of the things that looks like it should be easy, but is actually maddeningly difficult, is setting the level properly on a subwoofer system. This is because a small change in actual SPL in the bass region results in a disproportionately large chance in perceived loudness, as predicted by the bunching up of the Fletcher-Munson curves south of 100 Hz or so. So what measures as a small 3 dB change in SPL actually sounds more like a 6 dB change in SPL! Thus you end up chasing the right balance by making tiny changes using what is invariably a too-tiny knob. And of course the fact that the relative level of the bass often changes significantly from one recording to another doesn't make it any easier.
3. There is a good possibility that the 1855 will be getting an update. Not that it sucks, but I think there's room for a little bit of improvement in one or two areas.
Thank you very much, Foderaman.
I'm not yet ready to claim the Hathor 1855 is an 8-10 killer, but I think it can compete with most good 410s. By way of example, the Deltalite 10 has one of the more powerful motors this side of a 10" Kappalite, and the motor on that 18" woofer is more powerful than six Deltalite motors combined (and its air-moving capacity approaches that of eight Deltalite 10's), so it "hits" pretty hard. Of course the woofer in the Hathor 1855 has only modest efficiency, so given sufficient power, real-world I think it's probably closer to a good 410 in max SPL.
Actually I wouldn't mind using a slightly smaller enclosure for the 1855, but we need enough width for the woofer, enough height for the mids, and enough depth for the ports + woofer magnet.
Thank you, Duke!!
