Speaker Definitions 101

Vancouver

Vancouver

Full Audioholic
Guys,
I have been spening most of my money and time buying and learning about upgrading my video quality. My next projoect is to develop my knowladge on speakers a little more. I can easily tell the difference between good and bad speakers and understand how room dynamics play the biggest part. I am, however, stuck on the "specs" of speakers. Generally how much can be told about the quality of a speaker by what the specs are on paper. I understand frequancy range and response, but the following I just dont get yet...can you help?

I took the specs of the B&W FPM6 as an example


what is unclipped?: 25W – 150W into 8 ohms on unclipped programme


what is Crossover Frequency?:180Hz, 4.8kHz

What is Normal impedance?: 8 ohms (minimum 3.5 ohms)


Thanks
 
C

craigsub

Audioholic Chief
1. Unclipped power means power at or below what your amplifier can deliver. If you could see what sound looks like, an unclipped signal would look smooth, while a clipped signal would be chopped off at the top of the sine wave, with a "Jigsaw" look to it. This tends to destroy drivers, especially tweeters.

2. This tells you the -3 dB point between the woofer to midrange (180 Hz), and midrange to tweeter (4.8 Khz, or 4800 Hz). In other words, both drivers are -3 dB at the crossover point - leaving (in theory) a flat response.

The crossover will then "roll off" the signal above 180 Hz for the woofer, below 180 Hz and above 4.8 KHz for the midrange, and below 4.8KHz for the tweeter, at a rate of 6, 12, 18 ... etc... dB per octave.

Each 6 dB is called an order. In other words, a first order crossover is 6 dB per octave, second order is 12 dB per octave ... and so forth.

So ... Let's say the B&W uses a 2nd order crossover - the woofer will be "down" 15 dB @ 360 Hz (one octave above 180 Hz) - the 3 dB down and an additional 12 dB from the slope, at 540 Hz, it will be down 27 dB.

3. This shows the resistance as "nominal" (I think you saw nominal, not normal, though in reality, "normal" would have been as good a choice in words) ... or 8 ohms is typical, with 3.5 Ohms as the minimum across the frequency band of the speaker. Knowing this is helpful when choosing an amplifier.
 
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