In Reply to: Four Pi plans and a question posted by dbeardsl on February 24, 2002 at 17:08:49:
When comparing a compression horn to a cone driver designed to cover the same range, you will find that the cone driver is incapable of providing the same dynamic range, or probably even anything close. It also can't beat the horn's low distortion. There are some technologies that improve distortion of a direct radiator, like shorting rings, but they can be used in a horn driver too. So the horn beats the direct radiator in terms of dynamic range and distortion. The only thing a direct radiator can offer is greater bandwidth, but that's not necessarily a good thing, since increasing bandwidth necessarily increases intermodulation distortion.About Eminence woofers and their measurements, I had a discussion with them about consistency (and therfore, the reliability and accuracy) of their measurements. One thing I learned is they are installing the drivers on an infinite baffle for measurement, and that is likely a big contributor to response problems below 100Hz. Not all drivers are well suited for infinite baffle use.
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