Guitar Woofer vs Home Audio Woofer

[Cogito]

Just look at the descriptions here: http://www.eminence.com/guitar-bass/ Pretty obvious that guitar speaker manufacturers are trying to sell speakers based on different voicings...

Roscoe

Makes sense. Thanks.

[Pelliott321]

looking at some of the curves of guitar woofers looks like the main differences is high native resonance and high efficiency. I would think most audiophiles would not call these woofers. They are more a mid bass to midrange drivers.

[SoundMods]

looking at some of the curves of guitar woofers looks like the main differences is high native resonance and high efficiency. I would think most audiophiles would not call these woofers. They are more a mid bass to midrange drivers.

You nailed it! If they are "voiced" they are designed to have a characteristic sound signature for a particular type of music or taste.

[Cogito]

looking at some of the curves of guitar woofers looks like the main differences is high native resonance and high efficiency. I would think most audiophiles would not call these woofers. They are more a mid bass to midrange drivers.

You might be thinking of subwoofers which a limited frequency response of upto 200Hz max.

Woofers can go into mid-range at the high end. Example would be Walt's Altec 416 15" driver which has frequency response of 30Hz to 1600Hz.

I will post more on the differences between guitar and home-audio woofers later.

[SoundMods]

looking at some of the curves of guitar woofers looks like the main differences is high native resonance and high efficiency. I would think most audiophiles would not call these woofers. They are more a mid bass to midrange drivers.

You might be thinking of subwoofers which a limited frequency response of upto 200Hz max.

Woofers can go into mid-range at the high end. Example would be Walt's Altec 416 15" driver which has frequency response of 30Hz to 1600Hz.

I will post more on the differences between guitar and home-audio woofers later.

Those Altec woofers still amaze me to this day how they mesh so well with the 800-Hz. horns. They're BIG yet they work like 6-inch mid-range drivers. Go figure.

[Roscoe Primrose]

And the 414s will go to 3k no problem...

Roscoe

[tomp]

Many of the older large drivers were able to go to high frequencies with low distortion and flat on axis response. My old 12" Bozak B199 woofers were flat to 4K on axis. However, you have to remember that the large physical size creates problems as the drivers start to beam. Using a 12" woofer higher than around 400 Hz or a 15 " woofer higher than 300 Hz causes problems with beaming. In that respect they do not act like a 6" midrange. As I mentioned before, when the radiation patterns (polar response) do not match between drivers at the crossover point anomalies in response and imaging occur. Those may be somewhat offset by gains in other parameters but again there are always tradeoffs.

My use of the terms for different drivers vs frequency are:

Subs - 80 Hz and down to minimize localization.

Woofers - 200 Hz and down to as low as they will go if no sub is used.

Mids - 200 Hz to around 2K with flexibility depending on the design.

Tweeters 2K and up again depending on the driver.

Those are definitely not set in concrete and I have deviated from those parms in different designs but they are my go to points.

[Pelliott321]

I run my subs from 40 on down. I let the maggy's go full range. I tried rolling off the maggy's at 100 but I could never get the xover right and gave up. The xover calculator did not get me anywhere and I did not have the patience nor the parts bin to just try stuff

[SoundMods]

I run my subs from 40 on down. I let the maggy's go full range. I tried rolling off the maggy's at 100 but I could never get the xover right and gave up. The xover calculator did not get me anywhere and I did not have the patience nor the parts bin to just try stuff

Your Maggies running full range with the subs filling in the bottom that way is a ventriloquist act. The Maggies seem to be doing the deep bass and there is no sense that there are sub-woofers. I heard your speakers a couple of times and that was my impression.

[tomp]

Running the Maggies full range puts more strain on them that can lead to IM distortion, but hey if it works that is all that counts.