surround stifness and bass response?
- Thread starter gogofast
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There is a relationship between surround stiffness and bass response, but it's not quite as intuitive as that.
A softer surround will lower the resonance, raise the effective volume (Vas) and lower the Q (resonant peaking factor) of the driver. In general, this results in a "better damped" bass (smoother, better defined, in general), that sometimes will extend to a lower rolloff frequency.
OTOH, a stiffer surround will do the OPPOSITE- raised resonance, lowered Vas, raised Q. This will result in a less-damped bass response... which some people find to be "punchier" (more "impact" in some cases). Sometimes, the stiff surrounds will result in a LOSS of low bass extension, in exchange for additional midbass output (ie, "punch").
The problem with the term "tight bass", is that it seems to mean different things to different people. To me, it's about clean, artifact-free response... but to others, it could mean very "fast", very "high-impact" response", possibly at the expense of ultimate resolution...
So, the answer to the above, is "it depends on what you mean by "tight"...
Regards,
Gordon.
A softer surround will lower the resonance, raise the effective volume (Vas) and lower the Q (resonant peaking factor) of the driver. In general, this results in a "better damped" bass (smoother, better defined, in general), that sometimes will extend to a lower rolloff frequency.
OTOH, a stiffer surround will do the OPPOSITE- raised resonance, lowered Vas, raised Q. This will result in a less-damped bass response... which some people find to be "punchier" (more "impact" in some cases). Sometimes, the stiff surrounds will result in a LOSS of low bass extension, in exchange for additional midbass output (ie, "punch").
The problem with the term "tight bass", is that it seems to mean different things to different people. To me, it's about clean, artifact-free response... but to others, it could mean very "fast", very "high-impact" response", possibly at the expense of ultimate resolution...
So, the answer to the above, is "it depends on what you mean by "tight"...
Regards,
Gordon.
gogofast
Addicted Member
no, i didn't cover the whole surround - i meant the edges of the surround.outlawmws said:
anyways, i like tight bass, and what i mean by it is clean yet more precise. i've seen some british spaekers like kef with woofer surrounds and cones completely glued over, and indeed, it had very "tight" bass with more mid-range.
andy
Super Member
I've started to see more and more cloth surrounds that have become very stiff. The doping material has dried out and hardened. It can be temporarily softened with a solvent like acetone, but as soon as it dries it goes hard again. Coating with rubber cement doesn't help. I think the only solution is to replace the cloth surrounds.
andy said:
This is my experience, in what seems to be an increasing number of cases, too.
My response is to try replacing corrugated-roll (pleated) surrounds directly with fabric surrounds (you can get corrugated surrounds from many pro-audio speaker reconers), and replacing "single-roll" fabric surrounds with foam surrounds (the Sansui 12" woofers in the SP200s and SP2000s immediately come to mind as a frequent subject for this treatment). Seems to work OK... I couldn't tell the difference when listening, to a Sansui SP200 with a good fabric surround and one with a foam surround, at least for one example...
Regars,
Gordon.
