2 or 3 of the same driver... reasons?

[GeniX]

Man do I have a whole stack of questions! Even speaker design is a lot more complex than I would have thought! I could bombard ya'll with all my questions, but I would tire of typing and most of you would learn to ignore threads started by me (if you havent already

Here is a more pressing question:

Why multiple drivers of the same type?

Messing with the stats and such in WinISD, I see an increase in SPL a bit, but other than that it appears much easier to squeeze more bass from just one driver. Should I increase box volume, select 1 mid-bass driver and try get ... say 50Hz out of it, its a much better job than.. say telling the program to do the same with 5 drivers of the same type.

If it is indeed the case that the only reason is volume (at the expense of bass extension and quality), then speakers like the Pipe dreams rack of drivers makes no sense. Obviously Pipe dreams must perform to some audiophile level of output, thus I am left with the conclusion that my aforementioned assumptions are wrong.

Please explain why.

 

[GeniX]

okay Ive been looking a lot at the gain graph, and I have a strange feeling that the SPL graph tells a better tale.

Im not sure still (as I hope someone will explain) as to how this multi-driver configuration is benefiting other areas.

 

[Thatch_Ear]

It is so youn can use skinnier boxes. Notice how the trend is to build tall and shinny? And now Mirage and Infinity have side firing subs to add balls to the phallic totem poles of drivers. I think it is a style trend more than anything.
To get a bunch of 4" drivers to do what a single 15" could do 45 years ago because do large box was so unatractive you now stack multiple drivers in multiple cells and try to do with complex crossovers things that the drivers can't do on their own.
Also since watts is a status symbal now the drivers that are affordable often have very bad voice coils in them to take the high power.(thicker wire in the coil to take higher wattage= more performance tolerance and lower quality)
In DIY, especially at first you always want to follow the rule of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). If you can use one driver that goes from 60 Hz to 20KHz with no crossover instead of 2 with a crossover do that.
Still want a 2 way? Get a woofer with the same SPL as the full range and where the woofer rolls off at the top of its performance you put an appropiate capasitor on the full range so that it picks up where the other quits and you now have a simple 2 way with crossover.
The most difficult part of it is getting the correct box size, but you had to do that before anyway.

 

[THOR]

I like big speakers in really big boxes Skinny speakers are for girls

 

[michael w]

You can lay the blame for tall n skinny at the foot of the dread Home Theater disease.



..and interior decorators who hate audio with a vengence.


In the case of something like the Pipe Dreams, the desired radiation pattern plays a large part in the type and configuration of drivers used.

These guys wanted a to be able to accurately reproduce the full size of an orchestra, hence the line source dispersion pattern with huge rows of highs and mids.

Using all those drivers is probably still more cost effective than a custom made 6-7' ribbon .

The other thing is using lots of similar drivers enables each driver to be less stressed and to be more responsive than a large single driver.

http://www.nearfieldacoustics.com/The Science.htm



cheerio

 

[GeniX]

Thanks ppl - just wondered.

I reckon it is also a status thing tho'... the common man reckons he is paying for drivers (as opposed to overall quality and build) and so a 3-driver speaker is so much better and gruntier than a 1 driver speaker (even if the 1 driver speaker almost goes as loud, and sounds a whole deal better).