Small drivers vs big drivers

Large drivers with large diameter voice coils will push much more air and stay cooler and consequently remain incredibly dynamic and effortless at concert volume levels. Minimal distortion.

A small woofer with a small diameter voice coil pushes very little air and heats up very fast - they always sound dull and strained at realistic volumes. Lots of distortion.

Small Diameter = 6” with 1” voice coil
Large Diameter = 15” with 3”+ voice coil

@twoleftears

+1. A 12” or larger woofer can pressure up the room much like a real kick drum would do. The difference is very noticeable. The tendency of speakers with smaller woofers is to generate the lowest frequencies through port tuning which gives a muddy sounding kick drum, as the transient response is smeared by group delay. The frequency response on small multiple woofer speakers can be sometimes equaled to that of a large woofer by clever use of ports to plumb the subsonic depths but the time smearing from porting leaves one with the impression of a kick drum that sounds a bit like a bass guitar - it hums or resonates rather than sounding explosively punchy.

Large woofers really make a kick drum sound realistic and much more distinctive from bass guitar despite sharing similar frequencies.

@erik_squires

I think we hear it but you are right in the sense that it isn’t really a change in the sustained note of the kick. It isn’t because there are more lower frequencies present - more a time coherence thing - the slap of the head with the kick pedal is matched by a very low frequency room compression that the ears “feel” more than hear - like descending in an aeroplane but infinitely faster. It is very useful to clearly distinguish kick from bass guitar. A timbral effect caused by a time coherent transient.

You won’t get this effect from a ported subwoofer but you can get it from a sealed one like a JL sub.

There is a huge amount of detail in the bass range - most bookshelf ported designs can sound enjoyable but fail completely at conveying this detail or texture. All Headphones fail too. Maybe feeling does have something to do with the effect - our bones would pick this pressure or LF up too.

+1 Audiokinesis 

I can’t think of anything to add as Duke knows a lot more than I ever will!!

We are lucky to have such knowledgeable contributions!

Agree 100% everything Duke said!