Subwoofers overpowering highs

[mjoekingz28]

This has probably been beat to death, but I was thinking about it when I was looking at a brochure for my home speakers. They a three way cabinets and I wondered how the tweeter and midrange still work when the subwoofer is sharing airspace.

Then I wondered how you guys who have a wall of 15s or 12 12"s have any highs audible at all. It seems the bass from the subs would tear up the cone and surround of the highs. But even if it didnt tear them apart, it at least seems to me that the hard hitting bass would not even allow them to play anywhere near properly.

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[fixinit]

I highly doubt any home audio is being overrun by bass unless it's intentional. It's the nature of the game. There's more space for those highs to travel and they penetrate our ear more effectively and act as an equalizer for tone control when the low hz vibrate our stomachs. Check out McIntosh. They're the leader in home audio hands down.

 

[JohnKuthe]

I highly doubt any home audio is being overrun by bass unless it's intentional. It's the nature of the game. There's more space for those highs to travel and they penetrate our ear more effectively and act as an equalizer for tone control when the low hz vibrate our stomachs. Check out McIntosh. They're the leader in home audio hands down.

Macintosh is what I cut my audio teeth on as a child/teen! My father had a Macintosh 20W mono tube amp, Macintosh preamp and an Altec Lansing 15" studio monitor speaker. VERY cool and VERY good!

John Kuthe...

 

[fixinit]

Macintosh is what I cut my audio teeth on as a child/teen! My father had a Macintosh 20W mono tube amp, Macintosh preamp and an Altec Lansing 15" studio monitor speaker. VERY cool and VERY good!
John Kuthe...

That's ******! I was brought up on an Onkyo receiver and Altec Lansing 15s - non-studio. They still kill after 30 years and each cabinet, holy eff! Heavy!

 

[JohnKuthe]

That's ******! I was brought up on an Onkyo receiver and Altec Lansing 15s - non-studio. They still kill after 30 years and each cabinet, holy eff! Heavy!

Yep! That old ANALOG audio equipment was and still IS pretty good, the good stuff anyway.

John Kuthe...

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

This has probably been beat to death, but I was thinking about it when I was looking at a brochure for my home speakers. They a three way cabinets and I wondered how the tweeter and midrange still work when the subwoofer is sharing airspace.

Then I wondered how you guys who have a wall of 15s or 12 12"s have any highs audible at all. It seems the bass from the subs would tear up the cone and surround of the highs. But even if it didnt tear them apart, it at least seems to me that the hard hitting bass would not even allow them to play anywhere near properly.

Most studio monitor type cabinets like that have mids/tweets that have sealed backs, are framed into their own enclosure within the box you can see, or are otherwise isolated from the woofer.

As far as breaking door speakers from bass pressure in a car I haven't seen it yet and I've seen some loud vehicles with mids in the doors. Blowing out a mid on a rear deck with subs in a trunk or just sounding awful is a more common complaint.

Certainly when you get big pressure everything is going to be effected, so any "sound quality" is relative at that point.

 

[El-Camino]

They are not really subs at all. The whole cabinet is a 3 way speaker system with a passive crossover network dividing the frequencies between the driver designed to cover the frequency spectrum. Although, some will drop nice and low like subs, they generally don't drop too low or deliver highs like modern speaker cabs apart from some harmonic content. This is because of the era of vinyl. The dynamic range of vinyl is roughly half of what a C.D can deliver. So early monitors had a frequency range of (varies) 50hz to 18k, which equates to what a vinyl can produce fundamentally. Although vinyl can produce 20hz - 20k, the content rolls off below 50hz pretty steep and above 18k the same (rough figures). That is probably why early hifi speakers and vinyl is often described as warm sounding. The frequency response of the altecs mentioned are an exception. Had a place in many studios and was the standard in music production of the day & still sound great! If only I could get my hands on a pair with a McIntosh mc 240 or 275. I love McIntosh. I have a MA5100 solid state in my collection, so nice.

 

[JohnKuthe]

They are not really subs at all. The whole cabinet is a 3 way speaker system with a passive crossover network dividing the frequencies between the driver designed to cover the frequency spectrum. Although, some will drop nice and low like subs, they generally don't drop too low or deliver highs like modern speaker cabs apart from some harmonic content. This is because of the era of vinyl. The dynamic range of vinyl is roughly half of what a C.D can deliver. So early monitors had a frequency range of (varies) 50hz to 18k, which equates to what a vinyl can produce fundamentally. Although vinyl can produce 20hz - 20k, the content rolls off below 50hz pretty steep and above 18k the same (rough figures). That is probably why early hifi speakers and vinyl is often described as warm sounding. The frequency response of the altecs mentioned are an exception. Had a place in many studios and was the standard in music production of the day & still sound great! If only I could get my hands on a pair with a McIntosh mc 240 or 275. I love McIntosh. I have a MA5100 solid state in my collection, so nice.

So as an audio engineer, I'd guess you would say that my father's audio system starting with a Pickering phono cartridge into a Macintosh preamp then to a Macintosh 20W MONO tube amp into a single 15" Altec Lansing studio monitor speaker was pretty rock solid? That's what I had to listen to growing up as a kid and teen. VERY cool, speaker was super efficient! Wish I or he still had it. :-(

John Kuthe...

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

You should hit up a show and see how big boy mids and highs setups are done. Well... United states big. Brazil beats us in loud mids and highs by several thousand miles. Most properly made speakers are more than durable enough to withstand pressure without negative effects since the car cabin is pretty big. They arent your typical paper cone home theater stuff.

 

[dbjunior 10+ year member]

Most studio monitor type cabinets like that have mids/tweets that have sealed backs, are framed into their own enclosure within the box you can see, or are otherwise isolated from the woofer.
As far as breaking door speakers from bass pressure in a car I haven't seen it yet and I've seen some loud vehicles with mids in the doors. Blowing out a mid on a rear deck with subs in a trunk or just sounding awful is a more common complaint.

Certainly when you get big pressure everything is going to be effected, so any "sound quality" is relative at that point.

The jeep would shred door speakers if they where paper. I talked about it with mike before keith got it. He tried a couple sets and blew them after every burp so he stopped replacing them. With a stronger cone they might last but he was not interested in playing music with it.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

The jeep would shred door speakers if they where paper. I talked about it with mike before keith got it. He tried a couple sets and blew them after every burp so he stopped replacing them. With a stronger cone they might last but he was not interested in playing music with it.

T3 van seems to hold door speakers though.

 

[mjoekingz28]

The jeep would shred door speakers if they where paper. I talked about it with mike before keith got it. He tried a couple sets and blew them after every burp so he stopped replacing them. With a stronger cone they might last but he was not interested in playing music with it.

This was pretty much my question. If the sub is hitting so hard that your mirror is shaking and your roof is flexing- then how in the world will your mids and highs reproduce any actual music since they are 'being taken along for the ride' and are probably getting a lot of excursion from the big bass.

 

[dbjunior 10+ year member]

This was pretty much my question. If the sub is hitting so hard that your mirror is shaking and your roof is flexing- then how in the world will your mids and highs reproduce any actual music since they are 'being taken along for the ride' and are probably getting a lot of excursion from the big bass.

In this case the vehicle could do 165db burps. The speakers used where also very cheap thin paper cones. Most people will never deal with that kind of pressure. The people that are that loud who play music also dont cheap out on speakers.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

This was pretty much my question. If the sub is hitting so hard that your mirror is shaking and your roof is flexing- then how in the world will your mids and highs reproduce any actual music since they are 'being taken along for the ride' and are probably getting a lot of excursion from the big bass.

you are coming from a place with very weak speaker construction aka home audio. Most speakers in car audio are kevelar/carbon fiber treated material and stronger spiders/voice coils. They can handle the pressure just fine.

 

[mjoekingz28]

Im not just talking about the door speakers surviving, I mean how are they playing "music" will being shook to death from 8 15"s in a tunnel with 10,000 watts? But I kind of found the answer when I read how a speaker can reproduce a cymbal clash and a vocal at the same time. Even though I do not understand how a speaker can make two sounds while only being able to cycle at one frequency.