Dual woofers VS a single Woofer...?

Yamaha~Josh

Member
Hi, has anyone done a side by side comparison of a dual Woofer speaker vs a single Woofer one using the same equipment and size woofers?

I'm considering using two 18"ers
or would that be overkill? what does dual woofers even sound like compared to one? Does bass ever get overwhelming with two?

Theory: well I figure since an 18" kick drum has two vibrating diaphragms then two 18" woofers should sound more like a real drum than a single 18", right?
 
How do you find such big speakers?are you talking about Pa speakers?
Duel is probably just louder spl , more punch.
If it’s a bigger space go duel.

If it’s cheaper to just get a sub a 18-21” could add even more .
I always liked big speakers just home theater dosnt need huge. And need to move to fit them haha.
Never heard em beside each other, but depends how loud you want.
 
Are you talking woofers built into speakers or dual subwoofers??

I actually use 3 12" subwoofers in my home theater. I have 2 stacked in the front and one next to my seating position. They all have the capability to be tuned and turned off if I choose. I don't find them to be overbearing at all.

I have a number of speakers that have dual woofers that I really like. I don't have any that are in the same line with singles to compare them to tho. If that is your question, that would be the only real accurate way to make an observation.
 
More volume for the watt. I had the single driver version of my dual driver speakers at one point, and they didn't fill the room as nicely with the same electronics. The bad: double the enclosure size.
Something you may want to consider:A push/pull woofer scenario, like that popularized by M&K with their subwoofers. Make the best of two drivers.

M&KPushPull.jpg
 
Yes guys I mean 2 hifi woofers per cabinet not 2 standard subwoofers.

Pork', that's exactly what I mean I want sound that will fill a room up and engulf me in deep tight balanced powerful bass that doesn't distort.
My XO point will be 45Hz, I don't like high XOs on woofers.

I'm guessing 2 woofers sounds more like a kickdrum than a single Woofer would. I always found my 12" single woofers per cab lacking in giving me a fully convincing sound of kickdrum.

Here's a perfect example of dual Woofers per cab in action:

 
Ahh bjork,I still have her gling glo album,
I love big speakers as there is no replacement for displacement,in the studio mastering/playback setting,there use to be some big speakers,yes the jbl 4350 is a classic animal,followed by https://augspurger.com/pages/the-augspurger-range-of-systems
Then I love these guys with twin 18 http://www.westlakeaudio.com/Speakers/Hi_Fi_Series/tower_sm-1.html

And my fantasy to build my last pair of speakers somewhere as I now only use eight 15 inch drivers,

My drivers of choice is the 24 inch precision devices http://www.precision-devices.com/Product-Range/Models/24

Have fun,I remember a while back circa 2002 listening to the massive attack album in a mastering studio with some older versions of this driver,I swear when the kick drum hit,a rogers Ls/35a flew from the port and physically hit my chest.
 
More volume for the watt. I had the single driver version of my dual driver speakers at one point, and they didn't fill the room as nicely with the same electronics. The bad: double the enclosure size.
Something you may want to consider:A push/pull woofer scenario, like that popularized by M&K with their subwoofers. Make the best of two drivers.

View attachment 1289583
That’s an impressive subwoofer I’d imagine it costs a lot !! Some hard to engineer stuff !:angel:
 
The only example I can personally comment on is kind of apples and oranges. I have a pair of Altec Lansing 315s with single 10in carbon fiber woofers and they put out plenty of clean tight bass. The speakers in my main system are Allison Twos with twin 8in woofers in each cabinet that put out an appreciable amount more clean, tight bass than the Altecs larger single woofer can. And yes, at elevated listening levels the kick drum reproduced by the Allisons feels like you're getting punched in the chest. I have A B'd them side by side with my Kenwoods driving them, and the 315s ended up in a secondary system.
 
That’s an impressive subwoofer I’d imagine it costs a lot !! Some hard to engineer stuff !:angel:
Actually, it's one of those elegant solutions that one wonders why it wasn't deployed much earlier in speaker history. M&K uses top quality components and thus, the high cost of their subwoofers, but the same techinque, along with adhearance to basic Thiel/Small parameters could be applied to any driver with positive results.
 
I don't mind the extra large cabinet.

What are the benefits of that push pull design?
I don't know if I can do it justice.
Basically, you have one woofer mounted in the conventional front-of-cone-facing-out style. The second woofer is mounted with the back of the cone facing out. They're wired out of phase so that their physical movement in relation to the enclosure is the same. As the face of the first cone is moving outward from the enclosure, so is the back of the second cone. The advantage kicks in as the distortion generated by the forward (in relation to the voice coil/magnet assembly) movement in the first woofer is cancelled by opposite distortion generated by the rearward (in relation to the voice coil/magnet assembly) movement of the other woofer. It's a good example of two wrongs making a right.
 
I don't know if I can do it justice.
Basically, you have one woofer mounted in the conventional front-of-cone-facing-out style. The second woofer is mounted with the back of the cone facing out. They're wired out of phase so that their physical movement in relation to the enclosure is the same. As the face of the first cone is moving outward from the enclosure, so is the back of the second cone. The advantage kicks in as the distortion generated by the forward (in relation to the voice coil/magnet assembly) movement in the first woofer is cancelled by opposite distortion generated by the rearward (in relation to the voice coil/magnet assembly) movement of the other woofer. It's a good example of two wrongs making a right.
Wow how do you find a good enough job to afford one of these? It cost more then my entire set up.
https://www.amazon.com/X12-Ultra2-Certified-Active-Subwoofer/dp/B00KJJE5N0
Nearly 6-7x the cost of my current subwoofer.
That would be a beast sub 15” must be $5000?
I’m still looking for a job need to before my onkyo amp dies , hdmi boards are known to go bad someday.o_O
 
Wow how do you find a good enough job to afford one of these? It cost more then my entire set up.
https://www.amazon.com/X12-Ultra2-Certified-Active-Subwoofer/dp/B00KJJE5N0
Nearly 6-7x the cost of my current subwoofer.
That would be a beast sub 15” must be $5000?
I’m still looking for a job need to before my onkyo amp dies , hdmi boards are known to go bad someday.o_O
Those Onkyo receivers are a boon for DIY guys with a soldering iron - that, and 6 bucks worth of capacitors and they're good as new.
An older M&K subwoofer, like the MX-150, goes for considerably less.
 
Those Onkyo receivers are a boon for DIY guys with a soldering iron - that, and 6 bucks worth of capacitors and they're good as new.
An older M&K subwoofer, like the MX-150, goes for considerably less.
Ahh thanks I couldn’t figure out how to even build a crossover . I made one guy mad because I didn't build open baffle speakers but maybe parents would probably not allow it and I couldn’t make a crossover.

How does m & k compare to a sealed larger sub or so there older ones come in 15”?
If I could find one cheap enough maybe someday I’ll buy one and try it out.
Current 15” I’m using rattles the house is that due to size of sound bass waves ?

It is upstairs and the rooms floor might not be stable enough. Would Adding more carpet under sub help?
 
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Oh I think I've read about that dual driver out-of-phase noise cancellation technique. I wonder if a box like that sounds significantly much better than a precision hifi Woofer with low Qts.

I'll do some more research on it, thanks
 
Linn's isobaric did this: sealed box, both speakers facing same way - principle was
rear speaker pushing same air as front speaker.

the polk 7B's passive radiator re-inforced the bass from the smaller (bass) speaker.

if you double the speakers, the free air resonance drops by half. you could then double
again with the same benefit.

then you could double the amp power rating for each doubling of drivers.

so many ways to skin this cat. I'd pay attention to crossover design, cabinet volume
and rigidity, and eventual listening space,

imagine a 6x6 array of 8" woofers, each dimension holding to 2x the diameter for
spacing, and maybe 1500 watts per channel (dual AC circuits), and playing
opening track of Top Gun...
 
So then 4 woofers would reduce free air resonance by 75%?!
is this only with the isobaric configuration or?

Seems the more drivers you add the more SPL you get, +3dB with 2 woofers. So two more would be +6dB. But other than volume the bass should have a bigger stronger feel to it with more woofers.

I'll be padding them to match the mids sensitivity but the bass should still be more powerful
 
lower not reduce, the free air resonance, for example, if it's 100hz, then 2 equals
50hz, and four takes it half again to 25hz.

the spl is up 3db if you up the power - eg double for 2 speakers and quadruple for 4 speakers.

the way I see it is if 100w drives one speaker to say, 100db SPL, half the power (to supply 50w each
to 2 speakers, and eventually 25w to each of 4 speakers) will not get you double the sound pressure.

then there's the issue of whether sound pressure is linear to supplied power

however, more speakers always allow more power and therefore higher sound pressure.
 
Bass gets overwhelming with single woofer speakers if the room or setup stinks...at least at certain frequencies.

My listening room is a good example. Set up close to the rear wall and the bass is totally overwhelming and booming. I set up nearly 5 feet from the rear wall and 2 or three feet from the side walls to get around it.

As to your first question, I have Infinity RS5b and Infinity RSIIIa. They use the same midrange, same tweeter, but the RSIIIa uses two 10" woofers and the 5b uses one of the same 10" woofers. That's pretty close to an A/B comparison as you can get. Both great speakers but the RSIIIa are definitely more dynamic and have tighter bass. They also play a bit lower. The crossovers may be slightly different, and the RSIIIa cabinets are much taller. Pick the one to keep, the ones with two woofers...
 
Ahh bjork,I still have her gling glo album,
I love big speakers as there is no replacement for displacement,in the studio mastering/playback setting,there use to be some big speakers,yes the jbl 4350 is a classic animal,followed by https://augspurger.com/pages/the-augspurger-range-of-systems
Then I love these guys with twin 18 http://www.westlakeaudio.com/Speakers/Hi_Fi_Series/tower_sm-1.html

And my fantasy to build my last pair of speakers somewhere as I now only use eight 15 inch drivers,

My drivers of choice is the 24 inch precision devices http://www.precision-devices.com/Product-Range/Models/24

Have fun,I remember a while back circa 2002 listening to the massive attack album in a mastering studio with some older versions of this driver,I swear when the kick drum hit,a rogers Ls/35a flew from the port and physically hit my chest.
How or we’re do you fit so many huge speakers? I take it there pa models? Or hi fi
I don’t know how to even find ones 12-15”. Biggest I’ve seen in store was 8” duel.
 
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