Eric_squires—true, the diy community has been doing FAST (Full range Assisted Subwoofer Technology) or WAW ( Wide band Assisted Woofer) for some time now. My diy 2-way has a woofer that crosses over at 535 Hz to a Tang Band Full range driver loaded into a tractrix waveguide. The SQ is amazing and driver integration is seamless. Many designs set the crossover frequency lower, usually close to the baffle step frequency. One of the inherent challenges of these designs is the crossover component costs- you’re looking at huge inductors and caps crossing over that low—might explain why we don’t see more commercial designs.
Why Aren't More Speaker Designers Building Augmented Widebanders?
Over the years I've owned a number of different speakers - KLH, Cerwin
Vega, Polk, Opera Audio, Ars Aures, and Merlin VSM. One thing they all
had in common was a crossover point in the 2000 hz (+ or -) range. I've
read reviews of speakers where the reviewer claimed to be able to hear
the crossover point, manifested as some sort of discontinuity. I've
never heard that. My Merlin VSM's for example sounded completely
seamless. Yet my new Bache Audio Metro 001 speakers, with a single
wideband driver covering the range of 400 hz to 10,000 hz, augmented by a
woofer and a super tweeter, sounds different from all of these other
speakers. The midrange of the Bache 001's is cleaner, more coherent,
more natural than I have heard before. Music flows from the speakers in a
more relaxed manner, and subjectively dynamic range is greater, with no
etch or brightness, and no loss of resolution compared with the
Merlins. I have to conclude that Bache's design has an inherent
advantage over more traditional designs with a crossover point or points
in the midrange frequencies. I wonder why more speaker designers
haven't tried this approach?
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- 36 posts total
- 36 posts total