Bigger speakers/cabinets sound better than small ones with high excursion . . .

[Steve Lee]

I think Wolf is on the right track with his Zingers.

[tvrgeek]

Known for about 70 years. Distortion and efficiency are inversely proportional . Paul Klipsch published papers on this in the '50's.
Distortion rises with a curve in relation to excursion, starting almost proportional, and ending up skyrocketing.
This is just the motor, not including the difficulty in keeping the driver in a piston motion, management of breakup, frame reflections, and the host of other distortion generators. Like all things, there are limits where tradeoffs overshadow the main goal. If you want to know more about this, AES published a four volume anthology of all the papers on loudspeakers. I wish they had produced a volume 5, as a lot more work has been published. The physics are well knows. The material science is still the holdup. It does amaze me how many still continue to fight mother nature. 3 " subs? We call it laws of physics, not suggestions of physics.

[Steve Lee]

Thanks, TVR - this is something we can agree upon with zero confusion.

Pulling out some old cabinets from my youth with 12 " drivers and crossing-over to a small MT outdoor speaker and EQ'ing them made me realize just how much I had overlooked and discounted the awesomeness of those big speakers of my youth.

I really don't have the space/room for bigger cabinets but I am going to figure out how to do so from here on out and
Wolf's Zingers and designs like that are what I am after - I love music and rarely get in front of the television any more.

[fpitas]

There's also so-called Doppler distortion to consider, caused by the moving cone modulating higher frequencies: https://sound-au.com/doppler.htm

[tvrgeek]

Do not overlook use of basement and attics for sub enclosure space. One can even do a BP cabinet and "duct" the sound in minimizing any floorspace in a room. Then a decent small tower can take over as it takes no more space than a monitor on a stand.

Elliot, Linkwitz, Murphy. All sites that should be read before anyone thinks they can design a speaker that violates the laws of physics.

[billfitzmaurice]

There's also so-called Doppler distortion to consider, caused by the moving cone modulating higher frequencies: https://sound-au.com/doppler.htm

Elliott was a late comer to that discussion. This dates to 1968: http://www.readresearch.co.uk/loudsp..._article_1.pdf

Elliot, Linkwitz, Murphy. All sites that should be read before anyone thinks they can design a speaker that violates the laws of physics.

Newbies. This is where you start: http://cyrille.pinton.free.fr/electr.../son/Olson.pdf

90% of loudspeaker technology was defined by Olson and his peers, Kilpsch among them, by the time this was published in 1957. The other 10% came from Thiele and Small.

[tvrgeek]

Of course, "doppler" or dynamic phase displacement, can be minimized by limiting excursion by design.

Olson may scare some folks off. Actual math you know. All this was published on AES. About 2000 pages covering from 1953 to 1991. Physics does not change, only implementation. The newer sites have it more boiled down for real people to understand. Getting back to where it started is with Rice And Kellog at GE and by Wente at Bell labs circa 1925. Went, like Grey didn't get credit as big names ( Rice, Kellog, and Edison) are the folklore. Do you know the name of the professor who figured out steam engine efficiency but could not get the model to work, so he turned it over to his janitor to fiddle with? We know the janitor's name, James Watt. Ever heard of Savery?

Modulation distortion, Klipsch 1970, but followed the work of Hyster and others. A lot of great fundamental work was done in these first two decades as the ability to test was getting better and being after the War, people could focus on mere entertainment issues.

For the hobbyist, it broke open with the paper by White and Bullock in Speaker Builder, Vol 1 through 3 where anyone could apply Dick Small's corrections for vented enclosures as it was now lookup-tables based on driver measurements. Then one day, we got CAD. Life is good. WinISD, PSD-Lite, Bagby... One should still go read and understand what you are actually measuring and what it means. Kind of like learning to do arithmetic before you rely on a calculator.

Besides these papers on speakers. PLEASE folks, spend a couple hours with a free on-line primer on basic AC/DC electronics.

[fpitas]

Elliott was a late comer to that discussion. This dates to 1968: http://www.readresearch.co.uk/loudsp..._article_1.pdf

Newbies. This is where you start: http://cyrille.pinton.free.fr/electr.../son/Olson.pdf

90% of loudspeaker technology was defined by Olson and his peers, Kilpsch among them, by the time this was published in 1957. The other 10% came from Thiele and Small.

Yes, it's a bit of a re-hash. Still, lots of people to this day ignore or deny the problem. I won't be surprised if someone shows up here to inform us we're dinosaurs because we use large drivers.

[billfitzmaurice]

That's because they aren't aware that advertising isn't reference work.

[fpitas]

That's because they aren't aware that advertising isn't reference work.

Yes. And that WAF, while making life easier, doesn't equal better sound.

[billfitzmaurice]

Everyone knows that you get better sound...through research.

Or not.

[Blenton]

Bwwwaaahahahahhhaaah!

[Steve Lee]

Every one also knows that a poor sounding stereo system is preferable over a screeching, complaining wife.

[fpitas]

Every one also knows that a poor sounding stereo system is preferable over a screeching, complaining wife.

Yes, I sympathize with the problem. My friend married a singer. She loves the sound of his huge horn speakers, so they stay. So, perhaps the trick is to marry a musician.

[Steve Lee]

^ That took experience to arrive at - not research.

:D

[fpitas]

^ That took experience to arrive at - not research.

:D

Lol