Speaker size 10" vs 12"

[agedhorse]

I don't know about Asia, but AFAIK by the late 1800s a good chunk of Europe was already metric. Apparently, a number of non-European countries worldwide started adopting the metric system in the 1920s. Your story provides a neat explanation why the US didn't convert in the postwar period, but does so in contrast with the rest of the world, part of which had actually been converted for a while, and leaves out why the US had 150 years to go metric before 1945 but failed to do so.

Agreed, much of that conversion occurred while those countries were in the early stages of industrialization so there was not much cost that factored into the choice and in Europe it was the neighboring countries that tended to adopt earlier as it spread out from France as the epicenter. The colonized countries adopted because they didn't have a choice.

The same applies to the US, it started out using the imperial system because it was a colony of Britain. The difference is that the heavy manufacturing infrastructure developed faster and at a much greater scale and remained intact throughout WW2 even though we were beginning to adopt the Metric system around that time (and earlier in some industries).

I don't think many people understand or appreciate the scale of our installed infrastructure and the lifespan of many of these items. In heavy manufacturing, at the end of WW2 there were enormous numbers of very expensive machine tools and tooling in production use with many decades of service life left. We are talking about tens of trillions of dollars in today's dollars, nobody wanted a mixed system, with the cost that the US spent on the war AND THE REBUILDING EFFORTS, scrapping and replacing was not financially affordable and we knew from the experience of WW1 that if the world did not commit to rebuilding those countries there would never be any hope of stability. Many of these machine tools and processes are still being used in current heavy manufacturing, after WW2, we had more manufacturing infrastructure than the rest of the world combined.

Here's an example of what I am talking about, this is just a single department and a factory might have 20 different departments like this which continued to work at full capacity through the 1970's when 30 years later CNC gradually was phased in. Each machine would cost (in today's dollars) $50k - $500k. We are also not talking about just machines but the existing tooling, the existing designs and the drawings/documentation. Much of what was manufactured for industry was intended to remain current for 20 or more years, not unlike Mesa Boogie's business model where many products remain current and unchanged for 20 years.

While we didn't want a mixed system, that's ultimately how it's evolving.

 

[5StringBlues]

My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!

 

[yberwaffe]

I don't know about Asia, but AFAIK by the late 1800s a good chunk of Europe was already metric. Apparently, a number of non-European countries worldwide started adopting the metric system in the 1920s. Your story provides a neat explanation why the US didn't convert in the postwar period, but does so in contrast with the rest of the world, part of which had actually been converted for a while, and leaves out why the US had 150 years to go metric before 1945 but failed to do so.

That's because in the USA, the metric system is considered communist.

 

[HaphAsSard]

Agreed, much of that conversion occurred while those countries were in the early stages of industrialization so there was not much cost that factored into the choice and in Europe it was the neighboring countries that tended to adopt earlier as it spread out from France as the epicenter. The colonized countries adopted because they didn't have a choice.

The same applies to the US, it started out using the imperial system because it was a colony of Britain. The difference is that the heavy manufacturing infrastructure developed faster and at a much greater scale and remained intact throughout WW2 even though we were beginning to adopt the Metric system around that time (and earlier in some industries).

I don't think many people understand or appreciate the scale of our installed infrastructure and the lifespan of many of these items. In heavy manufacturing, at the end of WW2 there were enormous numbers of very expensive machine tools and tooling in production use with many decades of service life left. We are talking about tens of trillions of dollars in today's dollars, nobody wanted a mixed system, with the cost that the US spent on the war AND THE REBUILDING EFFORTS, scrapping and replacing was not financially affordable and we knew from the experience of WW1 that if the world did not commit to rebuilding those countries there would never be any hope of stability. Many of these machine tools and processes are still being used in current heavy manufacturing, after WW2, we had more manufacturing infrastructure than the rest of the world combined.

Here's an example of what I am talking about, this is just a single department and a factory might have 20 different departments like this which continued to work at full capacity through the 1970's when 30 years later CNC gradually was phased in. Each machine would cost (in today's dollars) $50k - $500k. We are also not talking about just machines but the existing tooling, the existing designs and the drawings/documentation. Much of what was manufactured for industry was intended to remain current for 20 or more years, not unlike Mesa Boogie's business model where many products remain current and unchanged for 20 years.

View attachment 5101121

While we didn't want a mixed system, that's ultimately how it's evolving.

Mid 19th-century Latin America is an interesting example: those countries had gained independence from Spain and Brazil decades before and very much had a choice, yet they decided to go metric anyway.
That the Anglo-Saxon world, whether independent or not, didn't at that time has probably a complex, cultural answer.
Yet, your discussion about the state of postwar industry seems to throw some light on what made the US miss the train of a crucial phase - Sixties to Seventies - of metrification efforts involving English-speaking countries, which, whether or not because heavily hit during the war (UK vs. Australia, Canada), had a lot less industrial complex to retool.

My hunch is, in the last three decades the internal debate has turned itself back into a mainly cultural one.
Then again, I know nuthink.

That's because in the USA, the metric system is considered communist.

If we were in Back to the Future, I would say it's because metric is too Lybian.

 

[GSNOLA]

Yes - partially = only for beer (not for bass amps)

And milk. And petrol (gas). And bananas. I got sued by the UK government for selling beer in litres.
It’s a less than perfect system.

 

[fdeck]

Here's my own pet theory for what's happened with US/Imperial measurements. Like Andy says, there was a huge amount of tooling built up during WWII, that wasn't going to suddenly go away. Some of that equipment spread to Europe in weird ways. For instance, there were screw thread standards on Italian and French bicycles that had metric diameters but Imperial thread pitch, because a conventional lathe could be set up that way.

When plants were retooled for new products, they kept the old machines, sometimes just changing cutter blades, molds, fixtures, etc. This prolonged the use of Imperial dimensions.

I remember as a kid in the 1970s, the government made an effort to promote the metric system, but I think did so in the wrong way: "Metric is easy, it's just math." Well, most people are terrified by math. I met a machinist who told me: "I hate the metric system because of all the math." Yet he could do complicated calculations for Imperial units in his head. A generation of Americans were convinced that Imperial was easier.

Now we've reached the point where it no longer matters. Imperial measurements are gradually vanishing. Most products manufactured in the US use metric parts. There are a few weird remaining standards that are unique regardless of unit, such as spark plug threads. Lumber is its own beast. Plywood is sold in Imperial dimensions but metric thicknesses. It wouldn't surprise me if industrial users of wood can get it made in any dimensions they want. My bass amp uses metric fasteners. Ohms are metric.

CNC machine tools can switch between Imperial and metric at the click of a mouse. CAD drawings can display either units. In fact the internal measurement scales of machine tools are all metric, the use of Imperial units implies a software conversion.

I think the idea that the US is backward because of Imperial units may be a sign of a national inferiority complex. Thomas Jefferson correctly pointed out that 1/10000000 of the distance from the north pole to the equator through Paris was as arbitrary as any other standard. We will continue to use a few weird Imperial units such as miles per hour and miles per gallon, but those units have little use outside of their unique niche.

 

[agedhorse]

That's because in the USA, the metric system is considered communist.

That’s just absurd.

Here's my own pet theory for what's happened with US/Imperial measurements. Like Andy says, there was a huge amount of tooling built up during WWII, that wasn't going to suddenly go away. Some of that equipment spread to Europe in weird ways. For instance, there were screw thread standards on Italian and French bicycles that had metric diameters but Imperial thread pitch, because a conventional lathe could be set up that way.

When plants were retooled for new products, they kept the old machines, sometimes just changing cutter blades, molds, fixtures, etc. This prolonged the use of Imperial dimensions.

I remember as a kid in the 1970s, the government made an effort to promote the metric system, but I think did so in the wrong way: "Metric is easy, it's just math." Well, most people are terrified by math. I met a machinist who told me: "I hate the metric system because of all the math." Yet he could do complicated calculations for Imperial units in his head. A generation of Americans were convinced that Imperial was easier.

Now we've reached the point where it no longer matters. Imperial measurements are gradually vanishing. Most products manufactured in the US use metric parts. There are a few weird remaining standards that are unique regardless of unit, such as spark plug threads. Lumber is its own beast. Plywood is sold in Imperial dimensions but metric thicknesses. It wouldn't surprise me if industrial users of wood can get it made in any dimensions they want. My bass amp uses metric fasteners. Ohms are metric.

CNC machine tools can switch between Imperial and metric at the click of a mouse. CAD drawings can display either units. In fact the internal measurement scales of machine tools are all metric, the use of Imperial units implies a software conversion.

I think the idea that the US is backward because of Imperial units may be a sign of a national inferiority complex. Thomas Jefferson correctly pointed out that 1/10000000 of the distance from the north pole to the equator through Paris was as arbitrary as any other standard. We will continue to use a few weird Imperial units such as miles per hour and miles per gallon, but those units have little use outside of their unique niche.

The Imperial tools and tooling goes back to around the turn of the century (1900), to our Industrial Revolution that spurred large investments in manufacturing and fabrication infrastructure.

 

[fdeck]

I recently read a book about the development of measurement systems in Europe and the US. It mentioned that prior to the metric system, there were local systems of units in practically every town. And people were suspicious of the national government coming in and imposing new units because they assumed that merchants would use it as an occasion to inflate prices a little bit or otherwise cheat people.

 

[fdeck]

So, here's an exercise you can do, though it takes a bit of math. If you can make up your own Thiele-Small parameters for make-believe drivers, than you can "design" two speakers to have identical response curves, with the only differences being cone area and box size.

I've played around with this. The end result is that for normal parameters that could in fact be manufactured, the speaker with the bigger cone will show higher sensitivity.

This is of course a pure thought experiment. In the real world, it's an open question if you can actually buy drivers to conduct this experiment, though commercial buyers have more leeway than those of us who must choose from off-the-shelf parts.

An example where this comes into play is (for example) a 1x10 and 2x10 using identical drivers and the same volume per driver. The 2x10 will have 3 dB higher sensitivity per Watt. You can also synthesize Thiele-Small parameters for a single driver that gives the same sensitivity curve as the 2x10.

This leads me to a hunch in favor of a 12" being likely to be louder, but still overshadowed by the rule of "it depends."

 

[agedhorse]

So, here's an exercise you can do, though it takes a bit of math. If you can make up your own Thiele-Small parameters for make-believe drivers, than you can "design" two speakers to have identical response curves, with the only differences being cone area and box size.

I've played around with this. The end result is that for normal parameters that could in fact be manufactured, the speaker with the bigger cone will show higher sensitivity.

This is of course a pure thought experiment. In the real world, it's an open question if you can actually buy drivers to conduct this experiment, though commercial buyers have more leeway than those of us who must choose from off-the-shelf parts.

An example where this comes into play is (for example) a 1x10 and 2x10 using identical drivers and the same volume per driver. The 2x10 will have 3 dB higher sensitivity per Watt. You can also synthesize Thiele-Small parameters for a single driver that gives the same sensitivity curve as the 2x10.

This leads me to a hunch in favor of a 12" being likely to be louder, but still overshadowed by the rule of "it depends."

You will also find that motor strength factors heavily into this exercise.

As the area increases, the force required to move the increased air mass increases too. In the case of the 210, there is double the motor.

 

[fdeck]

You will also find that motor strength factors heavily into this exercise.

As the area increases, the force required to move the increased air mass increases too. In the case of the 210, there is double the motor.

Yes, I'm assuming control over all the electromechanical parameters. Double the motor, the spring constant, the mechanical damping factor, etc.

 

[frankie5string]

The English certainly pick their battles... "Pineapple..."

 

[Snert]

The English certainly pick their battles... "Pineapple..."

Now I want a pizza...

 

[FollowMeDown]

So it seems like no one actually answered the first part of the question yet... Does a 12" cover lower fundamentals than a 10"?

 

[Wasnex]

So it seems like no one actually answered the first part of the question yet... Does a 12" cover lower fundamentals than a 10"?

The question has been answered. It depends. A 12 may cover lower fundamentals, but this is buy no means guaranteed...it depends on the design.

 

[fdeck]

There's a useful rule of thumb called Hoffman's Iron Law, which is succinctly stated: "Small, loud, low, pick any two." What it means is that for designs that are practical for bass use, there's a progression where a bigger cone (in a bigger box) is likely to be either louder, or have more low frequency response, or both.

The reason for the likely qualifier is that there are exceptions for specialized designs, and for bad designs.

I have two homemade speakers, a 12" and an 8". The 8" goes lower, the 12" goes louder. I'm happy with the 8"er for almost all of my gig work, but my rig will run out of juice if a band wants to overpower me.

 

[agedhorse]

So it seems like no one actually answered the first part of the question yet... Does a 12" cover lower fundamentals than a 10"?

They have, multiple times. The answer is "it depends".

 

[SteveCS]

The question has been answered. It depends.
...

They have, multiple times. The answer is "it depends".

Indeed, and cone diameter alone, as a single factor, seems to be one of the least influential on the low-end performance/extension of any given cab.

 

[HaphAsSard]

The English certainly pick their battles... "Pineapple..."

Now I want a pizza...

I literally cursed aloud.
(In dialect.)

 

[wiscoaster]

Does a 12" cover lower fundamentals than a 10"? And will it "move a significant more amount of air" than a 10" given the same amplifier?
Thanks.

Sorry, too many other variables more material to the answer than just size.

( also multiple other far more significant and informative replies to this question than mine already posted in this thread )