As a fairly proficient EE/ME, I'd like to try my hand at building my own loudspeakers (I have the opportunity to contract out the cabinets at a great price). As I'm perusing the various driver suppliers, I notice that there seem to be discrepancies in the way different manufactures take parameters (specifically the frequency response).
I wouldn't even worry about manufacturer plots beyond "can this work in the design?". You will want to measure paramters - both electrical and acoustic, yourself. On that note, I recommend gettng any necessary tools and software now. Some software is free for DIYers, by the way - including Jeff Bagby's PCD.
For example, if I look at similar 10" woofers from SEAS and ScanSpeak, there is a huge difference in bass response. My assumption is that they've measured differently, but I'm then left wondering how to pick drivers that fit my design. Am I just out of luck if I don't have a modeling program I can throw the Thiele/Small parameters into?
Get a modelling program (very basic, but the free WinISD pro is fine) or we can help you out by running it through our own (I use Martin J King's mathcad worksheets).
Your best bet is to start a thread on the DIY forum of audioholics where we can help you out.
Thanks for the reply. The reason for the lack of specifics is that it was a rather general question. I'm trying to get an idea of the response ranges of the various drivers out there and it would seem that companies measure in very different ways. I don't currently have software i can plug all the values into.
Like I said, winISD is free and easy to install.
For what it's worth, there's a lot of factors that mfgr spec is useless for - especially in terms of large signal testing.
As far as the scan and seas woofers go, you can see that they're wholly pretty similar, but the seas has a lower q (and with it a higher sensitivity). So the scanspeak probably goes deeper.
For a 10" Woofer in that mid-price bracket though, you should strongly consider the Dayton RSS270 and the Usher 1001B as well.