But there seems to be a lot of drivers that have that characteristic. My guess is that using them in a horn to bring up part of the response would be part of their intended use. I don't really know... maybe Wayne can comment.The older driver has better efficiency also... just by a smidgen. The newer 2012 is supposed to be lower distortion but I suspect they are both so low over the their frequency range that the parts would be identical for all practical purposes.