updating passive radiators

[aabernathy]

I recently had the pleasure of auditioning the Earthquake MKII sub - which by the way was outstanding, but what I found interesting about the design was Earthquakes us of a passive radiator called slaps (symmetrically loaded audio passive system). Of course, this got me thinking about the passive radiators used on my two pairs of Klipsch Fortes. According to Earthquake, passive radiators suffer from non-linear forward and backward movements due to what is called spider limitations. The forward movements demonstrate different resistance than the reverse movements causing inaccurate response. Here, read for yourselves.

http://www.earthquakesound.com/slaps.htm

There are also several magazine reviews of this system that go into further detail.

http://www.earthquakesound.com/home3.htm

and

http://www.earthquakesound.com/newpage3.htm

Anyway, my question is could the use of these types of passive radiators improve the bass response of the Forte or Chorus or any Klipsch speaker that utilizes a passive radiator? Earthquake says that the radiators can be individually tuned according to their enclosures. Looks like yet another upgrade for the Fortes! What do you audio wizards out there think?

I also posted this topic in updating speakers.

[JohnA]

There is NO reason a passive radiator must be different in compliance forward to backward. That some are is a fact of cost and manufacturing. Earthquake passive radiators are unusual in that they are VERY stiff. The earthquake components I have handled have a spider and are almost identical to the active driver, just like every other system.

The passive radiator is part of a system. The Earthquake passive is so stiff, it could not be used in anything else.

John

[aabernathy]

John,

That's exactly what I needed to know. Thanks for the input.