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How do cabs even work?

M

mayoayox

Mar 30, 2022
53
1
19
#1
whats the baffling do? how does that all affect the tone? i can read schematics but i still dont really understand physical sound design after the signal leaves the amp

Prompted by a five watt world video on the Ampeg B15

I can watch videos comparing 4x10 vs 1x15 or closed vs open back, but I still have a hard time with some vocabulary words like Baffling, and how that affects anything. I've also seen intricate double box designs from people building for their cars sound system -- how does sound travel through a box like that?

I might have a hard time understanding in text, but ive tried Google and YouTube and searching this forum. ANY help is appreciated, but a YouTube video is doubly so.
 
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#6
Don Lancaster had a paperback book that explained this, but the more you understand, the mor you will realize how complicated GOOD speaker designs can be. There are a lot of important details, some designers can control but unless able to get into driver design, some things are already decided for you.

I've only been doing it for 40 years, my current designs are much better than at the beginning of my career (part due to better materials and part due to better understanding).
 
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#11
mayoayox said:
I can watch videos comparing 4x10 vs 1x15 or closed vs open back, but I still have a hard time with some vocabulary words like Baffling, and how that affects anything.
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Just a side note, don't use any "4x10 vs 1x15 comparison on YouTube", to make any real decisions on which behaves this or that way. When recording a speaker enclosure there are so many factors like microphones and the room itsself, and maybe even post editing that the viewers have no idea on. I'd say videos on bass speaker cabinets are rarely very representative to the real life experience.
 
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#14
agedhorse said:
I misremembered the name, it was Vance Dickason wrote the loudspeaker cookbooks, Don Lancaster wrote the active filter and opamp cookbooks.
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Vance is such a cool dude. He's been a judge several times at the Parts Express Speaker Design Comp, of which I've entered many times.
 
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#16
Beware that there’s a lot of bull-poopie being passed off as legitimate technical information, especially on audio influencer social media sites (including videos).

This gets in the way of understanding what’s really happening because they are production a convincing manner (including AI use).
 
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#17
Slevage said:
The basics are pretty easy to learn and understand if you have a technical mind with a bit of mathematical knowledge.
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What they do and “how do they work” are two very different questions. If you glance at the formulation of Maxwell’s Laws and really understand them, then you’re on the path. Otherwise, buckle up, you’re in for a long ride. 😆
 
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#18
If you haven't done so, brush up on calculus and advanced algebra.

You need it, Acoustics Physics is heavy sh****t . Not expecting you to be there but math is really the key to understanding . I haven't delved into it myself but even in computer science, once we have real life applications, even if it is just optimizing schedules, it really helps to math it all out.

Now sound and fluid (air) mechanics, that's another ball of wax and gets complicated real fast. Then there is this tribal knowledge of parts where the physical properties of available parts may not be readily available but if you worked in the industry you would know. Maybe not relevant to what you are after now but definitely something needed in product design and manufacture,

A video may be worth a thousand words but equations made it possible to display videos on the screen and encode and decode the file
 
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#19
6thplanet said:
Vance is such a cool dude. He's been a judge several times at the Parts Express Speaker Design Comp, of which I've entered many times.
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I still have his book sitting at the head of my bed just to review every once in a while, and I more or less stopped building DIY cabs years ago, although I do currently have a few small projects in my work queue.
 
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#20
mayoayox said:
I've also seen intricate double box designs from people building for their cars sound system -- how does sound travel through a box like that?
Click to expand...
Car speakers (and high-end home audio) are pretty heavy on folklore and collective beliefs, frequently coming up with systems that are at cross-purposes with their intentions.

If you want to learn how things work (as opposed to how they're built), there are probably better places to start.

Pro audio and instrument amplification isn't necessarily the be-all end-all in speaker engineering, especially since it's in the service of particular priorities that aren't shared in other contexts (home speakers can be heavier than anvils because they don't have to be picked up and moved multiple times a day; car speakers can be wildly unbalanced because that's what the aficionados tend to prefer). On the other hand pro audio is the realm that's least accommodating to anybody free-jazzing their ideas (and has the harshest consequences) so there's going to be higher standards in many respects.
 
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