Flatwound vs Round - Does it affect sound quality?

[sjuddslvrss 10+ year member]

Does using a flat coil just increase heat dissipation and power handling or does it also affect sound quality? Will a round coil noticeably sound better?

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[ciaonzo 5,000+ posts]

It's not that easy. Flat or round doesn't equal good or bad sound. You can ususally fit more flat turns in the same space as round so you may have a higher BL product, and you may also enjoy a higher thermal.All depends. Copper weighs more, obviously. Factor in all the variables of how many layers, coil diameter, wind width, etc... and you can see why you can't just say flat or round equals this or that.

 

[sjuddslvrss 10+ year member]

So for example, will a Fi SSD 10 sound better with the round or flat coil?

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

So for example, will a Fi SSD 10 sound better with the round or flat coil?

Most likely the difference will be inaudible.

 

[nu2spl 10+ year member]

It's not that easy. Flat or round doesn't equal good or bad sound. You can ususally fit more flat turns in the same space as round so you may have a higher BL product, and you may also enjoy a higher thermal.All depends. Copper weighs more, obviously. Factor in all the variables of how many layers, coil diameter, wind width, etc... and you can see why you can't just say flat or round equals this or that.

forgot to include that copper wire will handle more current then the cca flat wire,but the trade off is it holds more heat than the cca flat wire,so for thermal you should go with the flat wire,but alot of people dont understand if you are putting 10k+(for burps) you should use copper,just because of the higher voltage and current capabilities.but for music imo i would go with the flat cca.

 

[sjuddslvrss 10+ year member]

I'm stuck between Fi SSD 10 d2 with flatwind, cooling and high qts or Fi Q 10 d2 with cooling/p chamfer, high qts, spider and i heat ring. Going sealed .6 cube in a firebird with a 105 amp alt with big 3 running off a crossfire vr1000d. Trying to justify the cost of the Q..which is the sub I'd rather have.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

The BL is better than the Q IMO, I've owned both. I would go for the flatwind coil regardless.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

forgot to include that copper wire will handle more current then the cca flat wire,but the trade off is it holds more heat than the cca flat wire,so for thermal you should go with the flat wire,but alot of people dont understand if you are putting 10k+(for burps) you should use copper,just because of the higher voltage and current capabilities.but for music imo i would go with the flat cca.

Copper actually holds up to long term heat better from my experience.

If you're doing huge power burps actually ALUMINUM is better since it's a bit lighter, and unless you have a really over-built former round wire is slightly less prone to bubbling the former from outgassing.

 

[SPLaudio 5,000+ posts]

^ exactly copper daily

alum for burps

 

[ciaonzo 5,000+ posts]

The only way to extract the true differences between copper and aluminum is if we leave certain things static, like (L) and compliance and WW and layers, so that we may see differences in parameters.

Almost everything would be affected by simply swapping out a same dimension copper coil with and aluminum one. We could do it again with same dimension flat vs. round of the same materials (copper flat vs. aluminum flat, copper round vs. aluminum round). Again, that's leaving all soft parts unchanged. Every option would have a very different set of parameters, including the impedance magnitude and efficiency.

You can change spiders and such to compensate for the added or subtracted Mms in hopes of preserving power handling or efficiency, but now you're affecting Vas and Qms (among other things). You could change flux to address BL lost or gained, but now you're affecting Qes and sensitivity (again, among other things). This isn't just a simple matter of saying use flat or round for daily or for this amount of power. And it REALLY wouldn't matter, anyway, if the T/S parameters ended up being all wrong for the enclosure because you decide on flat or round, copper or aluminum for the aforementioned reasons.

So, in the end, flat and round can sound different and that can impact sound quality. And for what it's worth, every single driver I have uses aluminum (flat and round) and the parameter sets vary, drastically. Some are dedicated SQ drivers, some are setup to tolerate considerable abuse. Some have ultra-low Fs figures with VERY light aluminum coils, some have highish Fs figures and incredible power handling with VERY heavy aluminum coils, and vice versa. It's all about the design goals and intended use.