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Speaker size

M

Masterbasser71

Jun 28, 2003
168
0
37
San Francisco, California
www.myspace.com
#1
So.....what do different sizes of speakers make "X" bass?

A 1" speaker would make X bass sound ________________.

An 8" speaker would make X bass sound _______________.

An 10" speaker would make X bass sound ______________.

An 12" speaker would make X bass sound ______________.

An 15" speaker would make X bass sound ______________.

An 18" speaker would make X bass sound ______________.

Just very curious about tonewise how each speaker would make a bass sound. Thanks!
 
#3
From what i know, the bigger the speaker the lower the frequency. Say you have a 18'' speaker and you put 300 watts into it. It's going to be low really low. Then lets say you have a 12'' inch speaker it is going to produce the frequency between a 15'' speaker and a 10'' speaker. People here who are better knowlegded about this stuff can help you out more. But the general idea is the smaller the speaker the higher the frequency of sound it produces.
 
#4
In general the larger the driver the lower frequency it plays to, if all other design factors are equal. But they aren't. A driver's potential performance can be calculated from its Thiele/Small parameters. You can get a basic projected response using a minimum of three of those parameters, and driver size is not one of them. In fact, rated in order of importance to accurately predicting driver response the Sd (cone area) is well down the list.
 
#7
I'll add to the knowledgeable Bill Fitzmaurice, whom I agree with.

There are general frequencies & applications you'll typically see coming out a given size driver. In addition, you can change one or many of the parameters of any speaker & it can change everything drastically.

A 10" can be made to sound like a 15"; a 15" can be made to sound like a midrange, etc.

Mark
AccuGroove Speakers
 
#8
Whappo Grande said:
A 10" can be made to sound like a 15"; a 15" can be made to sound like a midrange, etc.

Mark
AccuGroove Speakers
Click to expand...

Uh - not quite. Due to the inertia of a large speaker, it will be limited somewhere in the mid-range. It will also start to get extremely directional or "beamy" above a certain wave length.

In general, a larger cone area will be more efficient at lower frequencies - ie: for a given electrical power in, you'll get more acoustic power out. This can be influenced by the type of enclosure the speaker is in. Also by the excursion capacity of the speaker and its thermal dissipation capacity.

Charlie Irwin
 
#10
cirwin said:
Uh - not quite. Due to the inertia of a large speaker, it will be limited somewhere in the mid-range. It will also start to get extremely directional or "beamy" above a certain wave length.

In general, a larger cone area will be more efficient at lower frequencies - ie: for a given electrical power in, you'll get more acoustic power out. This can be influenced by the type of enclosure the speaker is in. Also by the excursion capacity of the speaker and its thermal dissipation capacity.

Charlie Irwin
Click to expand...

I dont know man, Accugroove speakers are supposedly some of the best speakers, so Im sure Mark knows his stuff.
 
#11
He does.

But look at Accugroove cabs, in general, the lower the frequencies the speaker is expected to reproduce, the bigger it is.

Whappo Junior and Bill Dicken Sub excluded of course. So there are ways to fudge the rules, just like with ANY 'rule'.

EDIT - And what do you mean some of the best? I demand you rewrite to say 'the best' imeediately! :D
 
#12
15s tend to give you that "old school" motown/flat-wound warm sound - at the expense of some muddiness/weakness in the higher frequencies.

10s tend to have more "punch" (mid-range clarity), but can sound weak in the low-end - unless you've got enough of them to really push the air.

These are *only* generalizations. The cabinet construction (size, ported, etc.) has a *lot* to do with the sound.
 
#13
I wrote:
There are general frequencies & applications you'll typically see coming out a given size driver.
Click to expand...
Or as philman99 said:
These are *only* generalizations. The cabinet construction (size, ported, etc.) has a *lot* to do with the sound.
Click to expand...

I think we agree that in general certain size drivers are naturally better for a given application.

My other comment was that size is not the ONLY thing that dictates what you use that size driver for like many musicians think. By adjusting any of the 25+ parameters of a driver, your design can drastically change its applications. In addition to the parameters, there's the cabinet design that is built around the drivers, including volume, porting, etc. that can manipulate the outcome as well.

90%+ of the time drivers are used in their typically thought of applications & that’s OK.

Jack & playmybass...thank you for the kind words!

Mark
AccuGroove Speaker Cabinets
 

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