Why so few speakers with Passive Radiators?
@jon_5912 that sounds right. From Richard Hardesty in APJ Vol. 3: Vented subwoofers offer inferior performance compared to sealed enclosure subwoofers of equivalent quality in the following areas: transient response, phase response, group delay,and low frequency extension. You might ask why anyone would choose to make a vented subwoofer. There is one very good reason—high output. The one advantage that vented enclosure designs offer is a reduction in cone excursion at low frequencies.Reduced cone excursion allows vented designs to play louder. A side benefit is that reduced excursion will also produce lower steady-state harmonic distortion measurements.and Hardesty in his review of the Thiel CS6 in APJ Vol. 8: They have vented bass loading utilizing passive radiators rather than ports. Alignment is unusual and bass is tightly controlled with little evidence that the enclosures are not sealed.So, Hardesty was a big fan of sealed enclosures (and even bigger fan of Vandersteens) yet he implied that the Thiel's passive radiator sounded not too different from that of a sealed enclosure. In turn, this implies that Thiel's passive radiator is a "good" trade-off between sealed and ported enclosures. At least that's *this* bozo's take :^) |
I have a pair of Golden Ear Triiton Reference speakers, each of which have four passive (infrasonic) radiators. Suffice it to say the bass is incredible, IMO. Authoritative, deep/low, and so many other accolades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudspeaker_enclosure#Passive_radiator |
I used to own the original Sonus Faber Grand Piano which had a passive front radiator. A small floorstander that was pretty easy to drive but always seemed a bit bass shy to me. Never really fell in love with it and sold it before to long. I know that adds nothing to the conversation and I am at the very back of the bus. |
