Question about lower freq response.


During shopping for a set of speakers, I ended up comparing Paradigm s8's to revel f52.
In the end i picked paradigms s8 for several reasons. But one thing i just couldnt wrap my head around is that the F52 appear to go a bit lower in comparisons. The revel has 3 6.5 inch drivers wheras the paradigm s8's have 4 7inch drivers. But somehow the revels have more low end extension. Can someone explain why?
docks
Technically speaking there is not much difference in cone displacement between 6.5 and 7' and since most manufacturers measure cone area differently, i would bet they were pretty close in measured displacement, making the difference heard not really related to cone sizing , but more in it's application...

regards,
It's a lot more complicated than simply looking at cone size. Several mechanical and electrical parameters are involved, some of which tend to go in a particular direction as cone size increases, but there is a great deal of variation in these parameters on a case-by-case basis... so talking about "smaller woofers" vs "big woofers" is an oversimplification, and there are many exceptions to the general "rules". What does not change is the basic inevitable tradeoff relationship between box size, bass extension, and efficiency.

Duke
Thanks for the reply, so... why would someone roll their eyes at that statement? Which other factors are there? Care to explain a bit?
Docks, in general bigger woofers only give you deeper bass if they are used in an enclosure large enough to take advantage of their capabilities. The smaller woofers in the Revel are in an enclosure large enough to allow them to go down a little deeper then the big woofers of the Paradigm.

For those of you with a technical background who are rolling your eyes, yeah I know that's an oversimplification.

Duke
The responses ive been reading are from the same review site. So the paradigms are ported, have larger and more drivers but somehow dont go as low as the f52?
The three factors that get traded off are box size, efficiency, and bass extension. Greater cone size in the same box size often means higher efficiency, and therefore less bass extension. The box sizes are pretty close (the Paradigm is maybe 10-15% bigger), and as cone size would predict the Paradigm is also slightly higher in efficiency. I would expect the real-world anechoic -3 dB frequencies of these two speakers to be within a few Hz of one another, assuming their rated efficiencies were measured with the same yardstick. If not, then all bets are off.

Duke
dealer/manufacturer
There is a lot more to bass response than cone size and total radiating area.
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