To Sub Or Not To Sub, That Is The Question

[Musical Bass]

Amplifier damping factor is moot if reactance is involved with the load.

Our subwoofers also result in a bass image that appears to be part of the soundstage. We build speaker systems where the subwoofers are an intergrated part of a 4-way system, so a subwoofer behaving as you claim traditional subwoofers do would not cut it.

The problems you describe do not exist in a modern subwoofer with a modern class D amplifier. Such an amplifier stays linear irrespective of changes in impedance. There are no resonance issues or timing issues.

I didn’t say that the amplifier became non linear its current flow through the VC that’s non linear. It’s not the amplifiers fault that the system is operating in a resonant mode with rising impedance on both sides of the box frequency!

 

[Musical Bass]

What is most confusing in this whole debate is that I have completely failed to identify what you present as a big problem during development of our subwoofers. If it is such a huge problem, surely I would have encountered this and found it to be problematic. But that has not happened.

So, I am not completely sure what is happening.

All current reflex designs are resonant for efficiency not sound quality! I’m not criticizing your design it has been accepted by the industry! If you saw the impedance curve presented for our MS-6 it is 4 ohms for a broad range minimizing reactive interactions from ambient. There is no resonance at one frequency just efficient loading of the diaphragm for the bass broadband.