Bass--which speaker is best?

[Supercooper188]

what speakers would produce the most bass and the fuller sound? The AR-93 with 2 8" woofers or the AR 58 with 1 12" woofer?

[ninohernes]

It depends. The 8 inch woofers are a little quicker, but the 12 inch woofer goes deeper. Which would you rather have, speed or depth?

[Kencat]

The total area of 2 8" cones is a bit more than the single 12" cone (using simplified math ie. assuming actual 8 and 12 in dia cones).

The deeper bass response of the 12" must be due to factors other than the cone area then ? Could a dual 8" not be designed to give as low a response as a 12", and move the same amount of air, in which case the twin 8's could then also be faster as well as low ?

Or is there phasing problems with two smaller cones working together, that cannot simulate the single large amplitude wave from the single larger cone ?

This was actually a very good question....it would be interesting to hear more theory on this. Transmission line designs would start to dispute the bigger is better theories...???

[Guest bocoogto]

I don't know what formula you used for area of the cones, but I recall area of a circle is calculated by multiplying pi (3.14) by the radius squared.

The 8" woofers have 50.24 square inches each for a total area of 100.48 square inches. The 12" woofer has 113.04 square inches of area, considerably more than two 8" woofers.

Have any of you heard a comparable-quality speaker system with two 8" woofers that out-performed a single 12" woofer in any system? It is unusual for an 8" woofer to have as low a resonant frequency as a comparable 12" woofer. In acoustic suspension or infinite baffle systems, this has a major affect on low frequency response--probably the largest factor.

Polk tried an interesting variation with their vintage Model 7, Model 10, and the SRS systems. The small (7") active drivers operated larger passive radiators. These systems produced extended, accurate bass, but not like the AR-1 & AR-3, in my opinion. The vintage Polks are, however, very accurate comparing very well with the AR systems overall. The Peerless tweeters are a very good dome design--surely influenced by the earlier AR designs.

What do you think?

[dynaco_dan]

>what speakers would produce the most bass and the fuller

>sound? The AR-93 with 2 8" woofers or the AR 58 with 1 12"

>woofer?

Hi there

It sure would be nice and simple if the original AR graphs, which, AR used to display for the 3A's and LST's were also available for these speaker systems.

A good comparison was between the AR5's (10") and 3A's (12") .

A slighlty deeper reach was available with the 3A's.

Was it worth the slightly deaper reach?

When compared side by side, as I remember, the slight edge of the 3A's was noticeable and made for an enjoyable listening session.

The 3A's were like more authoritive when deeper bass music came along.

This does not take away from the AR5's as back then the price difference was about $75.00 US ea. which was, in my opinion worth the difference.

When the AR5's were used for a while they sounded great. When the 3A's were used they sounded really great. There was something powerful missing when the 5's were used but there was that price difference again.

Their old graphing systems were even in colour as I remember.

I would see if there is graphs available and hopefully a good comparison could be made without a lot of guess work.

Rattle, rattle, rattle.

Good luck with your research.

[soundminded]

The AR9 is living proof that there is no problem using two woofers together so long as the design takes their combined properties into account. Unfortuntely the effective radiating areas of the cones isn't even close to one half of the nominal diameter because the outer portion is take up by the frame and suspension which do not contribute to the sound. The effective cone diameter of the AR 12" woofer is much closer to 8" and its effective cone radiating surface is closer to 50 square inches. 8" loudspeakers can in principle be designed to have effective low bass frequency response greater than any arbitrarily chosen 12" woofer if the moving mass, enclosure design and stuffing are properly chosen. However, being smaller, to achieve the same movement of air, it must make a correspondingly greater excursion. In this case, the 12" woofer has been selected as the more practical device for deep bass.