Area is square of linear dimension; 4 x 8" woofers ~ one 16" woofer. Actually, 16" probably have more active cone area, since surrounds are not twice as wide, so 4 x 8" is probably nearer one 15".
The answer is: 1) Although those 8" woofers can produce deep base, those 8" woofers cannot push the same amount of air as a 12" woofer. So you will not get the same punch. But by having four 8" woofers, their combined air movement gets the job done. 2) 8" woofers will be faster than a 12" woofer. The bass will be tighter, snappier, more defined. ----- The part about the width (that Paul spoke about) for the mids and highs is true. It also has next to nothing to do with the woofers, which you can see are in their own boxes. The top and the bottom of those speakers are two separate boxes, that get professionally attached to each other. I am at a loss as to why Paul conflated the top section with the bottom section in his explanation. The bottom box could have been a wider box, to accommodate larger woofers. Paul chose not to take that route (see #2, above). With the bottom enclosure being what it is, the upper enclosure is at the optimum height. Lastly, wider speakers will result in a few less sales. Narrow speakers can fit in more rooms. Often with Paul, it is what he does not say that is troubling. He comes across as a kind neighbor. But never forget that, first and foremost, his videos are for increasing sales.
Sort of the same reason that bass guitar cabs have 4x8" speakers and guitar cabs have 4x12s. A 12 inch bass amp will just give you a bunch of indistinguishable hum, the smaller subs are more articulate. The other distinction apart from size of course being that guitar drivers are built a bit differently, shallower and with more dispersion and presence
You can never have to much "woof" :) Actually back in the 70's I had 2 pair of LWE speakers stacked and each had a pair of CTS 15 inch woofers, in a large room. It was great fun on very low passages watching the cones move, and could they ever. Years gone by and now either Quads or big Sound Lab speakers. Not very much "woof" with those.
@@nightdrive2646 Yep. 4/2/1 driver configurations for the line, with the FR10 still pending. There is also that slight wrinkle that despite Paul's early musings the '30, '20, and presumably '10 digits in the model number are indeed the price in k$'s as many speculated. The other oddity is that the FR30's published frequency measurements from reviews bear a striking resemblance to the published data for the B&G/GRS 10" planar midrange. If so and they are indeed having it play so high these could have quite poor directivity. They are intriguing, but I don't know if I would want to actually purchase one given how slippery Paul is and how he seems to insist on meddling with the designs. That said it would be interesting to see these larger planar drivers properly implemented in a more sophisticated design that can address their large size and tendency for beaming at higher frequencies.
@@nightdrive2646 I would think they would have to given their small size. Its also potentially one of the speakers worth checking out assuming it has a neutral response. The smaller midrange will be easier to tame, and the low sensitivity won't be as much of an issue in terms of specmanship unlike the larger speakers where they had to try and strive for some efficiency.
I was also told that by using multiple smaller speakers, the rise time (attack) is much faster due to each having a smaller mass, thus increasing bass impact. And because they are of less mass, they can handle higher frequencies and increase that of the crossover to the midrange.
Actually, what one is perceiving as a (barely measurable) increase in rise time (needless to say, the respective moving mass of each individual driver remains the same, as does the motor), but they sound faster due to lesser excursion, with the respective voice coils barely leaving the magnet gap (staying in or near the center of the magnetic field), with air being compressed across a larger surface. They do not measurably play higher into the midrange (especially not off-axis due to cancellation), but distortion may be reduced (thanks to the aforementioned reduced cone movement), nor would it make sense to allow them (all) to play higher up for a number of reasons (mostly to do with the fact that the source of low and especially subsonic frequencies cannot be localized, but upper bass, midrange and treble can). Don't underestimate the fact that a larger woofer with the same surface as several combined isn't going to have greater excursion to achieve the same result, so distortion may be similar or higher, it really depends on the construction, design and quality more than the fact alone it's one big or several small ones, especially considering one high-quality woofer is likely to cost less than e.g. four lesser quality woofers. What Paul says, that it's a design choice based on using a baffle of less width is what's central here.
@@carlosoliveira-rc2xt They're more directional, so if one aims them at the listening position, it may seem so. The point of slim baffles as PS Audio does it in their new speakers is to get, apart from the obvious (the WAF), wider dispersion for a wider sweet spot, favoring the planar drivers they use which tend to have a cylindrical dispersion pattern. I build loudspeakers and hesitate to call one "better" than the other, but it must be said that omnidirectional speakers aren't particularly living room friendly (too many reflecting surfaces nearby), and for that reason tend to agree with your view. I like e.g. the transition from upper bass to lower midrange, i.e. the grunt, chest and body that larger drivers give to voices. But it's really a tendency and not impossible to achieve in other designs.
Matching the transient capability of those push pull, planars considering the constraints of Newton's 2nd Law of Motion, requires lower Mass transducers, especially when transitioning to moving coil transducers. Smaller, multiple moving coils, with usually lower Mass per diver makes the transition less perceptible.
What’s that going to tell you? Absolutely nothing that’s what. Unless you are listening to the stream through a pair of FR-30’s then you’ll still have absolutely no idea what they sound like. You will have an idea what your own speakers sound like but that you should already know.
@@scottyo64 >Maybe poster George Bliss just wants a comparison, any comparison that "may" indicate some relative superior design despite the obvious limiting factor of looking through a dirty, and inferior filter at home. I remember when HD TV first came out, even though I didn't have one at the time the shows were obvious sharper even though I was looking through an old analog TV. Looking at a pre-HD TV to compare HD to the CRT you will still see the difference between the two. I remember the first time I heard a Magnepan intro line speaker. It wasn't at a high-end store, but on RU-vid some years ago. Yeah, RU-vid! The "relative" sound even through my standard-it-came-with-the-TV-speakers was much better than that of the the other speakers shown, and sounded much better than all other programing I saw on TV. High-end audio equipment sounds much superior than mediocre EVEN WHEN LISTENING to them both through the same mediocre indirect equipment! I don't know why, I'm not an electrical or sound engineer. You would think the sound would be equally crappy, but it is not. There seems to be some "relative" comparison that is borne out in hearing even through the same inferior equipment. Of course no one would truly buy high end equipment based solely on the ears of some TV audition for the very reasons you and others have already mentioned, but I understand why he is asking, and I think he is already aware of the limitations. Again, how good is a good TV if you see it only through a bad TV? Why bother? You won't know how good, but there may indications seen that it is "better" (relative) than what you have. At least good enough to know to actually go out and check it out. I "think" Paul and the FR30 designer may have already played the speakers? On one video they shipped and set up the speakers in someone's home home last year. They positioned and repositioned the speakers and added room treatment, etc.
I previously posted, but should have added this link: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YrpYAMfB318.html If the link doesn't work the name of the video is "PS Audio FR30 Loudspeaker Installation number 2"
Well, do you know or propose any improved design ? Some speakers are big and some rooms too, some are smaller like the Bose cubes and their hidden passive/active box that fit well in smaller rooms. Do they sound the same ?
The comments section is worse than a misinformed, unscientifically educated forum. If you have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about, either ask a question or go type nonsense on a social media platform.
@@clickbeetle2720 why don't you talk about the difference of 4 motors vs the 1 big one? Because we don't have the space in youtube comments for a full college course on speaker design. My comment was a rule of thumb. If you add "more or less" it's always true, and sufficient for casual discussion
They are horrid looking aren’t they. Even if they did in fact sound better than what I currently own, which I’d be willing to bet they don’t, I still couldn’t stand to look at them on a daily basis.
Nice video Paul, all your video's are very educational. Just one more note on decorations, the magnolia paint on the walls don't do your amazing matt white speakers any justice.
hello, there is currently a big high-end show going on in Munich and unfortunately we were disappointed to find out that there was no AspenF30 at the start🤔🤔🤔
Easy answer. The FR-30’s use dedicated woofers. (Even though they can go down to 25Hz thus it’s 4 each side). A subwoofer is supposed to be a subwoofer intended for sub-frequencies. The end.
The Neo10 planars they use for the midrange start to hit the skids below about 200Hz in terms of efficiency and distortion, so the bass module has to make it up to the crossover frequency of 400Hz as well. There are also other things such as TS parameters, cone break-up, beaming, etc. Like most other speaker designs, they opted for the skinny-thicc deal with the narrow front baffle for better control of directivity and diffraction. Realistically these probably will get to about 30-35Hz in-room, which may or may not be enough depending on your tastes.
I'm curious about those passive radiators - I think Chris mentioned in another video that they were plywood? So is it just plywood with a rubber surround or is there also a spider and suspension? And do you have each woofer isolated? Or is there just one divider in each speaker
You know what could be an awesome listening room, an oval, at the back of the room where the sound is riding down the wall to reflect back, make curved pocket walls at the back and fill the space with dampening, make a sound termination point, the curved wall sitting inside at the back of the oval making up the side pocket over hangs, is sending sound back into the field against the side walls. Make another inset pocket built into the wall that terminates there, as long as the second inset that breaks apart the side of the oval has smooth bullnosed corners and is perfectly inlined at both ends of the spacing, the sound would travel right over to the back termination, and the forward reflections off the back scoop would terminate diagonally into the side walls.. would be easier to show with a drawing anyways.......Like the painting of the guy watching tv and hes going 150mph sitting on his lounger...If you could completely eliminate all room reflections, it would be a true life reproduction of what was recorded, exact reverb tone and tamber that hit the mics and mixing.
I’m going to politely disagree with your analysis. The reason for multiple “smaller moving mass” woofers has to do with transient response time. You can move the same air-mass quicker with smaller drivers.
Transient response time is simply an equation of BL vs mms. You can get a welding 'shaker table' to have the same transient response time as a 1" dome tweeter with enough motor force. Decreasing driver moving mass also decreases the BL requirement.
@@nightdrive2646 not even close. Legacy WHISPER includes DSP, AND build in amplification, it's 2023, not 1963, which makes a BIG difference, these are over priced already OBSOLETE stuff.
Thirty thousand dollars and 8 low-frequency drivers and you still have to buy subwoofers from another manufacturer to get a low-frequency response that's usable?
With 8 woofers, subs really aren't needed. I've heard the FR20's that have 2 woofers per speaker instead of 4 per speaker, and they have decent low bass
@@TheDanEdwards Yes sometimes. But there are so many of these videos that are clearly self peomotion written content. Not to mention how he had specifically a video where he tells that question mails are so many and there is enough for years to come, yet conveniently there are questions of new and newish products which shouldn't be up the que for a loooooong time. I honestly don't mind self promotion, it's hks channel after all, but masking it like this is what ticks me. Honesty takes you much further.
@@user-od9iz9cv1w Convenience and the fact that these woofers are perfectly fitted for the speaker. Then there is less stuff in the room "better" looks etc. But yeah if you are only after great sound and wanna save a few bucks it makes sense.
@@mariodrv FR30 would be plenty for me. Sounds like the bass goes deep, fast and full. I'd love to go to Colorado one day and hear Paul's room in person.
With 3 or 4 woofer guys, separate subwoofer isn’t required. I got focal 948 and bass hits my chest. With small multi woofers, bass is tighter & faster, if you desire it. Bigger the woofer, less tighter n slower the bass.
Why...cuz full range is why? Reports say the bass is more than impressive Paul and team. Most new subs are coming with multiple drivers these days it seems...the one that has the first ever THX Dominat certification runs 2 massive motored 15" subs in it, weighs over 200lbs with 3000 watts. There is also that 80" sub in Germany too...in a cement enclosure.
