wolfgang said:
By the way, trying not to hijack the thread. What is it that give the impression that a certain loudspeakers seems to be able to resolve more details then others? To my ears what I am refering to is the ability to reveal the minute details of the sound a singer voice. One pair of loudspeakers give a good impression of the voice but another some how allow you to hear or feel the emotion of the same voice far more easily.
To a certain extent frequency balance is one reason for this. A speaker that is has a slightly raised presence region will be percieved as having more detail than a neutral speaker.
From the perspective of the drive units themselves is it to do with various parameters, such as
resonance - of the cone/dome and various other parts of the drive unit - including the basket and mounting plates.
moving mass: BL ratio - determines the control the motor assembly has over the cone
suspension compliance - has an affect on transient response
suspension/ cone interface - has the an affect on the way energy within the cone/dome is dissipated and how damped the reflected energy is.
cone material with respect to energy storage etc
The cumalative effect of all these (and other) parameters of the drive unit can be reasonably well sumarised by obtaining a waterfall plot, (a 3D level/frequency/time domain response), for the drive unit. Good units can be easily distinguished from other units by there much faster loss of energy and lack of resonances in the time domain.
With respect to the importance of the cone material. Well the cone material has a very large influence on the electrical characteristics of the motor assembly and the other physical aspects of the drive units design. The end result is that the cone has a significant influence on the performance of the finished drive unit is a major way. It affects such things as frequency response, cone break up frequency and severity, cone movement linearity, THD distortion and intermodulation distortion.
Of course putting drive unit in a box has a fundamental affect on the sound produced. For a start most drive units are designed to work in a box (of what ever design - vented etc), with the enclosed volume as part of the way the drive unit works. Look up Thiele Small parameters for various drive units and you'll see that it's not as simple as to say a 10" bass unit should be put in a box of X litres volume to work properly.
Every part of the speaker has an effect on how well the other parts can work, but if there is one fundamental truth about speaker design, it is. You can NOT improve the performance of a given drive unit any further than its specification will allow. All cross-over/cabinet design etc can do is release the full potential of the drive units being used, (there is some leeway within the crossover to improve the electrical characteristics of the drive unit but the better the drive unit works natively in this respect the less work has to be done in the cross over). For this reason you will never get a great sounding speaker by using mediocre drive units, no matter how good the cross-over or cabinet in use. You can however, get a very good sounding speaker by using good drive units and ok quality cross-overs, (assuming they have been suitably matched with the drive units), and cabinets. As has been proven by many a speaker manufacturer.
GTM