Woofer X-max ?

[kg4guy]

Is the X-max of a woofer as important in a sealed enclosure as a vented one ?[*-)]

[tommyboy]

You should put this in the powered sub section. You'll have better luck there...............

[michael hurd]

Yes, but in a sealed box compared to a vented box given the same driver and power, in the bandwidth near tuning and to some degree above, excursion will be less for a vented box in comparison to a sealed one.

Xmax is a figure that there are no hard and fast rules how a manufactuer rates it... some go stricty for one way coil overhang, some are 30% down on the Bl compared to rest, etc...

What is important is how linear the woofer is in it's 'xmax' that the manufactuer specifies. There are also many types of coil and motor designs, each having their good and bad points.

There are lots of low xmax woofers that are very sensitive and will play very loud, with the coil obviously moving more than what you would believe and still sound good. There are also lots of' 'high excursion' woofers that aren't worth a pinch of... well. There are obviously good and bad examples in the market, trouble is to sort through what is good and bad.

[Don Richard]

Xmax defines a displacement limit. There are mechanical and magnetic factors that go toward determining Xmax. Here's one method:

http://www.diysubwoofers.org/misc/dumax/dumax.htm

[pzannucci]

There are lots of low xmax woofers that are very sensitive and will play very loud, with the coil obviously moving more than what you would believe and still sound good. There are also lots of' 'high excursion' woofers that aren't worth a pinch of... well. There are obviously good and bad examples in the market, trouble is to sort through what is good and bad.

The one thing likely at work here is that our hearing does not notice bass distortion as much as we would notice midrange/treble distortion. That's I think the major reason during testing, many of the tests are done to relaxing the distortion level to 10% when doing maximum output tests.

You have it right though, there are good and bad examples of each. Some are only good for BOOM!!! and others can be tuneful with music.

[kg4guy]

Thanks I was wondering about that as the K-33 was used in both sealed and vented cabinets or was there a different K-33 for the La scala and the Klipschorn than the Cornwalls.