Okay so slow work day here thanks to the CCP virus combined with misinformation keeping everyone afraid to go out (when they could just cover their face and be fine) so I had time to look this one up. Which I had to do seeing as its such an arcane and normally insignificant bit of audio trivia it had long ago been forgotten.
It seems you know the answer but dismissed it: cost. Since you know about Acoustic Zen then you probably know this too, it was easy enough to find:
In other words your question boils down to help me understand ad copy. That's easy! Ad copy is written to tell a story that will make guys go out and buy stuff. Is it working?
It seems you know the answer but dismissed it: cost. Since you know about Acoustic Zen then you probably know this too, it was easy enough to find:
To compliment the speed and low distortion characteristics of his tweeter, Mr. Lee decided to develop his own woofers. The custom designed woofer uses an underhung voice coil that is lower in distortion compared to the overhung voice coil found in the majority of loudspeaker designs.So there you have it. Its possible to get really good results both ways. Underhung is lower distortion but as always that is only when looking at it with blinders on, as if nothing else matters. When in fact everything else matters. Distortion also comes from the cone material, dust cap material, surround, basket, baffle material and shape, cabinet material and shape, on and on and on. Every single little bit of it either contributes or detracts from performance and distortion.
An overhung driver has a long voice coil in a short magnetic gap and the under hung type uses a short voice coil in a long magnetic gap. Short coils dramatically reduce harmonic and transient distortion because they have complete control within the magnetic field.
In an underhung setup the voice coil operates inside the boundaries of the edges of the magnet. On the other hand, the voice coil in an overhung driver will not only vibrate within the gap between the magnets but also extend beyond the end of the magnets. When the voice coil functions inside and outside the strength of the magnetic field it produces more distortion. Although underhung drivers are more expensive to produce, because of larger magnets, they are lower in distortion then their aforementioned counterparts.
In other words your question boils down to help me understand ad copy. That's easy! Ad copy is written to tell a story that will make guys go out and buy stuff. Is it working?