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size of the driver

Coming from the "old school" and being a complete (or almost) novice here - in the old days back in 1970-75 we thought that the big (read - wide) driver will have better capability to produce more realistic sound, talking about lower end of the spectr at least. But nowdays I am seing 6 inch drivers stated as "bass". Just curious how well those perform or in another words what is the secret behind those if they really can perform at the same level as the 12 inch ones?

And another question which I guess is too simple and too basic around here that's why I couldn't find some point to point answer - when we speak about sensitivity - would that be a true statement to say that higher level (say 92-95 db) will allow to extract "fuller" sound spectr at a lower level of volume? My feeling is that with somewhat lower 89 db or less you need to increase the volume in order to have more visible lower end?

Thank you for your time
avs9

Showing 1 response by jmcgrogan2

jmcgrogan2's avatar
jmcgrogan2
6,346 posts
 
Smaller bass drivers have gained in popularity for two reasons.
A) They allow the speaker designer to make the speakers smaller, so they usually "image" better.
B) they may not go quite as deep, but the bass will be tighter.

AFAIK, Sensitivity has nothing to do with the sound being "fuller". Yes, you may need to turn your amp up a bit more for less sensitive speaker to play at the same sound level, but whatever listening level you are at, 80 db, 85 db, is still 80 or 85 db no matter what the sensitivity rating of the speaker is.
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