Watts and power

Hi @audiozenology:

I did a complete speaker and crossover analysis.

This means I measured the impedance and FR of each driver in the near field to achieve quasi-anechoic measurements. I further took the crossover apart and simulated the entire speaker in XSim. I validated my simulation by matching the simulated frequency and impedance curves to actual.

I then compared the simulated original crossover to a simulated crossover using a more conventional approach. So when I write:

would have duplicated the transfer function

This means that the input of the crossover to the output of the crossover would have been the same given the measured driver impedance.

What you are describing is akin to notch filters. That’s not what was present, and if I had not taken this into account, the two transfer functions would have been different. Further, resonance filters typically appear at the top end of a driver’s range, not the bottom.

Best,

E

Oops, sorry meant to say:

simpler 3rd order low pass

Best,
E

Hey there @audiozenology

That dip in impedance is a factor of woofer electro-electromechanical properties and sometimes a 2.5/3.5 way folding in another driver. Crossover may shunt current from woofer to tame a peak.

The speakers in question were a pair I did a complete speaker and crossover analysis. I am confident of my conclusions. The impedance dip was deliberate and unnecessary. A simpler 3 way low pass would have duplicated the transfer function and raised the minimum impedance by 2 ohms.

However, in a lot of cases, your statement above would be true.

After a lot of listening and reading speaker specs here is what I feel to be true:

Amps, including solid state, are a lot more susceptible to low impedance in the bass region than we should expect by the common mathematical models.


If you have a speaker that dips below 4 Ohms in the 150Hz or lower region, that is a speaker I'd expect to come out as more "discerning" of amplifier gutsiness. You can also call that speaker more challenging, and less amplifier friendly. I've even seen speaker manufacturers deliberately make their speakers dip in this region, I suppose that the idea was that by dipping the speaker would be called more transparent, because you can hear the quality of different amps. I don't know why they did it, but i know they did.

I also think this is why cables seem to matter. Amps are more susceptible to variations in impedance than we think.

I really don't like the class stereotypes. I know a lot of Class D that have got tons more balls than some class A amps.


I currently listen to Luxman. They have more bass spunk than both a Parasound and Class D amps I've listened to.  So, in this class one particular class A/B amp beats another Class A/B and a class D.


Unfortunately some will always read this as proof that a Class A/B (the Luxman) beats all Class D.