Question about Active speakers?

[Kevin K.]

Been a while, hope all you fellas are doing well. This last year went by in the blink of an eye and throughout it, didn't find a lot of time for creating new speakers, not for myself anyway. Made some adjustments recently and hoping to have a little more time for the personal projects or projects for loved ones, you know, the fun stuff. Built some speakers last year as Christmas presents for my daughter and boss, both have let me know how much they enjoy them. Planning some desktops for my Sister and Neice as Christmas presents this year. Looking for insight on the project I have in mind and hoping you guys can help.

Wondering what the "Pro's" or "Con's" would be for venting a small set of Active desktop speakers. In most cases (subwoofers in particular), it seems like sealed cabinets are always the cabinet of choice followed by throwing ton's of boost to achieve the desired F3, within reason. One of the "Pro's" I can see to that approach is obvious, smaller enclosure. But isn't it also at the expense of requiring more power?

Based on simulations I've run, a HP Actively boosted vented enclosure somewhere in between the optimum sealed enclosure and the optimum vented enclosure would require less power from the amplifier, as compared to the other way, boosting the smaller sealed enclosure. Couple of drawbacks I can see in the simulations. One, longer vent requirement, easy enough to overcome. Two, driver excursion limits, which I'm assuming would still apply to either style cabinet. Other than that, just wondering why this isn't this more common, what am I missing? Hope I've worded this in a manner that makes sense, thanks for your feedback.

[Kornbread]

In your scenario, what would happen to excursion if instead of a vent, you were to use a passive radiator?

[Kevin K.]

In your scenario, what would happen to excursion if instead of a vent, you were to use a passive radiator?

I assume there would be a little more control but haven't modeled it to say for sure. Definitely an option worth exploring at some point.

[1100xxben]

Wondering what the "Pro's" or "Con's" would be for venting a small set of Active desktop speakers. In most cases (subwoofers in particular), it seems like sealed cabinets are always the cabinet of choice followed by throwing ton's of boost to achieve the desired F3, within reason. One of the "Pro's" I can see to that approach is obvious, smaller enclosure. But isn't it also at the expense of requiring more power

If you're comparing the same driver sealed vs vented, you will get more overall SPL out of the vented system (above tuning) and less thermal compression/distortion because it is more efficient in the low frequency. You can see this is WinISD if you look at the max output plot. Boosting a sealed enclosure can get you the same frequency response graph, but it requires a lot more power, and you're going to run out of excursion a lot quicker.