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driver specs

F

funnyfingers

Nov 27, 2005
766
4
#1
I was reading through some 10" and 15" drivers on the Eminence website. At least with the one I checked, the 15" driver needed much more cabinet volume in order to produce the lows of the 10" driver. Is this generally always the case? Scanning through some of them, I see the 10" actually produce more lows, yet I read a post recently that said a 10" will never do a low B like a 15". What does this all mean? The 15" below will handle a lot more power and I would assume can be EQed to do even lower. Would that be where it can get much lower than the specs for the cabinets say?

15" Legend CB15
5.3 ft3 -> F3 of 47 Hz
2.75 ft3 -> F3 of 61 Hz

10" Legend B102
2.8 ft3 -> F3 of 44 Hz
1.7 ft3 -> F3 of 54 Hz
 
#2
funnyfingers said:
I was reading through some 10" and 15" drivers on the Eminence website. At least with the one I checked, the 15" driver needed much more cabinet volume in order to produce the lows of the 10" driver. Is this generally always the case? Scanning through some of them, I see the 10" actually produce more lows, yet I read a post recently that said a 10" will never do a low B like a 15". What does this all mean? The 15" below will handle a lot more power and I would assume can be EQed to do even lower. Would that be where it can get much lower than the specs for the cabinets say?

15" Legend CB15
5.3 ft3 -> F3 of 47 Hz
2.75 ft3 -> F3 of 61 Hz

10" Legend B102
2.8 ft3 -> F3 of 44 Hz
1.7 ft3 -> F3 of 54 Hz
Click to expand...

Who said such nonsense?

Every cab design is a balancing act of many specs. You pick the goals that are most important to you, then try to optimize the rest as best you can. Per the two drivers you mentioned, the 10's may be able to go lower, but to match the output of the 15 you might need two or more 10's, and at that point your boz size has grown as has your cost and weight of the cab. Also this is not indicitive of all 10 and 15 inch speakers, just the two you are looking at.
 
#3
It's possible to choose reasonable specs for 10" and 15" drivers so that the two systems have exactly the same frequency response curves in the low end. The 15" will typically end up in a bigger cab, but will have higher sensitivity.

It's an embodiment of the rule: "Small, loud, and low, pick any two." You have to decide what you want your speaker to do.
 
#4
fdeck - So would you be able to throw the 15" into an even larger box than the Eminence data sheet shows? I imagine that the larger box would mean you have to give it a little less power. Also would the 10" be limited much sooner as you try to make the box larger?
 
#6
#7
funnyfingers said:
fdeck - So would you be able to throw the 15" into an even larger box than the Eminence data sheet shows? I imagine that the larger box would mean you have to give it a little less power. Also would the 10" be limited much sooner as you try to make the box larger?
Click to expand...

No a larger box than the speaker needs means the speaker can no longer be loaded properly. Power handling will go down as well as sound output across the frequency band with the exception of some very destructive peaks.
 
#10
funnyfingers said:
I was reading through some 10" and 15" drivers on the Eminence website. At least with the one I checked, the 15" driver needed much more cabinet volume in order to produce the lows of the 10" driver. Is this generally always the case? Scanning through some of them, I see the 10" actually produce more lows, yet I read a post recently that said a 10" will never do a low B like a 15". What does this all mean? The 15" below will handle a lot more power and I would assume can be EQed to do even lower. Would that be where it can get much lower than the specs for the cabinets say?

15" Legend CB15
5.3 ft3 -> F3 of 47 Hz
2.75 ft3 -> F3 of 61 Hz

10" Legend B102
2.8 ft3 -> F3 of 44 Hz
1.7 ft3 -> F3 of 54 Hz
Click to expand...

The CB15 is a good general all-around 15" bass guitar speaker. The B102 is unusual for a 10" in that it's optimzed to go quite deep, but it trades off efficiency and top-end extension to do so.

The CB15 is about 6 dB more efficient than the B102, so that's why the CB15 needs more internal volume even though it doesn't go as deep.

Both can be very good choices depending on what you're trying to accomplish.
 

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