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Why so few speakers with Passive Radiators?

Folks,

What are your thoughts on Passive Radiators in speaker design?

I've had many different speakers (and like many here, have heard countless varieties outside my home), from ported, to sealed, to passive radiator, to transmission line.

In my experience by far the best bass has come from the Thiels I've owned - CS6, 3.7, 2.7 which use passive radiators.  The bass in these designs are punchy yet as tonally controlled, or more, than any other speaker design I've heard.  So I figure the choice of a passive radiator must be involved somehow, and it makes me wonder why more speaker designers don't use this method.  It seems to give some of both worlds: extended bass, no port noise, tonally correct.

And yet, it seems a relatively rare design choice for speaker manufacturers.

Thoughts?
prof

Showing 1 response by 10000_hz_legend

10000_hz_legend
72 posts
 
OP,

I agree, it seems like a very good way to deal with the air, but sometimes it makes no sense to me.

The KEF Q series floorstanders for instance seem to me to be a complete engineering disaster.  You have two chambers, one on top that holds the uni-q array (tweeter and midrange) and one passive radiator, then the bottom chamber holds an active woofer and passive radiator.

SO..  When the active woofer is moving OUTWARD the passive radiator is moving INWARD.  180 Degress out of phase.  How can you deliver a clean wave to your listener when BOTH the top and bottom passive radiators are 180 degrees out of phase??? They should have been place on the back, or bottom IMO.
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