Back on Critical Damping.
By principle, critical damping acts only on the resonance(s) frequency(s) of the speaker or the box. These resonances are way in the low frequencies region of the speaker response.
We can measure how the critical damping changes the bass SPL response and only the bass.
But this SPL change does not reflect the extend of the openness that our ears perceive. A critically damped speaker sounds very different at all frequencies.
Music is not sine waves we measure critical damping with, it is impulses, just impulses after impulses, most of the time non symmetrical impulses.
Overshot or undershot on bass impulses are already of great detrimental importance, but successive resonances and harmonics of them keep the whole music muddy, dull and tiring.
Playing with a serie resistor on an average Qts (0.4) Full Range speaker to reach critical damping is an amazing experience.
Reaching critical damping on a very low Qts full range speaker, I mean a Qts in the order of 0.2 or 0.1, i.e. a very fast speaker indeed, is the experience to come.
May be we should change sequence in which we combine speakers to amps.
We may select first the speaker and the box we want it in.
Then we shall play with a conventional voltage source amp and a variable serie resistor to find out the optimum output impedance of the amp we want ultimately use, this time without the serie resistor and its power loss.
By principle, critical damping acts only on the resonance(s) frequency(s) of the speaker or the box. These resonances are way in the low frequencies region of the speaker response.
We can measure how the critical damping changes the bass SPL response and only the bass.
But this SPL change does not reflect the extend of the openness that our ears perceive. A critically damped speaker sounds very different at all frequencies.
Music is not sine waves we measure critical damping with, it is impulses, just impulses after impulses, most of the time non symmetrical impulses.
Overshot or undershot on bass impulses are already of great detrimental importance, but successive resonances and harmonics of them keep the whole music muddy, dull and tiring.
Playing with a serie resistor on an average Qts (0.4) Full Range speaker to reach critical damping is an amazing experience.
Reaching critical damping on a very low Qts full range speaker, I mean a Qts in the order of 0.2 or 0.1, i.e. a very fast speaker indeed, is the experience to come.
May be we should change sequence in which we combine speakers to amps.
We may select first the speaker and the box we want it in.
Then we shall play with a conventional voltage source amp and a variable serie resistor to find out the optimum output impedance of the amp we want ultimately use, this time without the serie resistor and its power loss.