Not to suggest any lesser of your other videos whatsoever, I always find you easy to understand and so good at communicating, but I do think this is one of your best videos yet, superb!
Could we please get more videos like this? This one is elementary and easily googled but still very useful when starting out (and was very well explained). One thing I would very much like to see is a video explaining how the air inside an enclosure acts when the speaker is moving, ESPECIALLY when you have an enclosure undersized to the point it restricts cone movement and how that would change its movement etc. Because I’ve had a fair few arguments with seemingly very intelligent people who can’t seem to grasp the fact that pressure inside the cabinet builds the further the cone moves in or out; that the more air is compressed/stretched the more resistance it’ll have. I’ve had people state that an undersized enclosure will have absolutely no impact on a speaker save for how far it moves/it’s amplitude, and even if it did the driver would only spend more time at the resting position,… and nothing I can say will get them to understand that at the resting position pressure inside the cabinet will be the same in an enclosure with effective internal volume of 1”x1”x1” will be the same as in a 12’x12’x12’ room,…
Because air compresses things get extremely complicated when looking at or trying to calculate air motion in an enclosure. Literally every parameter you can think of goes right out the window as soon as you change just one of them. Probably the best way to explain it would be with a series of animated cut away views showing air motion for a given design but at several frequencies and several amplitudes but since we are talking about a three dimensional space you would have to show it on at least two axes. It's a ton of work to demonstrate what you're asking
We typically view this in a linear fashion, where the volume of the enclosure only changes a little as the piston moves and so the effect of the enclosure, at least at low frequency, can be completely described as a stiffness with a fixed value. This stiffness ads to the stiffness that the driver has in its suspension. There can be thermal and viscous losses to include in the enclosure especially if there is a damping material there.
@@Rene_Christensen I'm going to go ahead and say that you most likely know a metric $#&@-ton more about it than I do so how do you account for things like air motion to and from an off axis port or back waves from an adjacent cavity and how they affect the response of a woofer? As a specific example, Bose's wave cavity in their little radios that made them so famous. I know from experience that they used some processing to compress or limit the speaker's excursion but that wonky looking cavity seemed to have a lot going on.
Paul and I went to the same High School. I think I would love one of his BHK line amplifiers. Of course everything I like can be rather expensive. Especially since I desire a monster amp. Can drive you nuts picking one. Lol
thanks Paul, your videos are a great education in audio!! You could put together, with help from your engineer, a 'test' viewers could take, with short answer written responses, and high scorers could apply for jobs at PS Audio!!
well its a dustcap for the magnet, but not a complete dustcap for the woofer, so it keeps the dust out from something at least :P im more worried about using these open designs in sealed boxes, even tho i had those type of woofers in some spendor speakers that sounded really good.
everything must work together in a nice harmony. Also depends on what the factory wants to achieve with the speaker. pure midrange cannot have too stiff a suspension. Combined bass and midrange must have stiffer suspension.
Hi Paul. I went to Valencia High School as well. My father gave me the audiophile bug and loves SAE and very large Infintiy and Martin Logans. Am in the market for one of your larger amplifiers. Only my father understands why I'd spend several thousands of dollars on an amplifier. Am leaning towards a PS Audio amplifier.
I bought a pair of Tekton Moabs and received them last September. I spent the first few days in awe of their size, power, detail, etc. But then I noticed that the powerful bass was actually pretty sloppy and the mid range was too thin and V-shaped. Weeks 2-4 that I owned them, I was disappointed and had started to really regret my purchase. Some time during week 5 it was like someone flipped a switch and they just opened up. The bass is now tight, the mids are rich and they're extremely coherent top to bottom.
Thanks for sharing. Yes, very scarry when you buy speakers or gear and they change. Fingers crossed that they live up to the hype once they're yours and in your home 🤞😳 it's Doom until they Do. Lol
@@LuxAudio389 They sound fantastic now! I'm not planning to ever get rid of them. In fact, I'm working on upgrading the crossovers right now, too improve them even more! I've noticed break in with pretty much every piece of gear if bought new and I don't think anything has ever sounded worse after being run for a while.
@@Canadian_Eh_I I think that's a factor in people's perception over time, but break in is still very real. This was a blatant transformation and I've got other equipment that I reference along the way, such as my headphone system.
I have a pair of klipch KLF20s 50th anniversary klipch legend series from the late 90s bought new in 98, probably need new caps in the crossovers, and tweeter diaphragms,, but they have only gotten better over the years, quality speakers you love last a lifetime
What he holds in his hands is a SEAS speaker from Norway. (P21RF/P) from the year 2003. You can say a lot of good things about SEAS, but SEAS has a slightly special negative sound type on many speakers which means that it is not as easy to get good sound out of many SEAS speakers.
@@JK-rt2jj I have heard (seas xotic w8) and (ca22rny) and (p21re) and other old seas models. Have also heard seas in a really heavy and stiff case. I'm not a beginner! Many seas speakers have their own seas sound and color, especially in some areas that are typical for several seas speakers models. You must have experience and know what to listen for. you also have to compare seas with other brands. I'm not saying that absolutely all seas speakers have this problem, but MANY.
I'd have loved seeing a sacrificial disassembly of a woofer, where showing how the voice-coil secured to the back of the cone. Additionally, how the voice-coil interacts with the magnet to produce movement, along with an explanation of tight tolerances in design and assembly. Nice job, though.
Not just any surround. That one is INVERTED just like my Martin Logan 1600x subwoofer. They don't want the woofer's surround to make contact with any objects during high excursions. The suspension 'roll' is on the back side of the speaker as seen here in Paul's example.
The question is, does PS Audio base their speaker measurements and voicing AFTER many hours of breaking in at the factory, otherwise breaking in at home could make things worse and out of spec.?
Speaker break-in may occur during the first hour or two but it is unlikely to have any audible effect. A woofer natural resonant frequency may drop by 2-3 Hz after a short initial use, but this effect is audibly trivial.
Speaker break-in is however a real thing (unlike Paul's claims about electrical components such as resistors needing break-in) and the material properties in a speaker driver will determine how audible and how long time it takes to get the material softened. I agree with your view. The spider, surround and also the cone itself (in any bending structure) will soften during the initial usage. It would be nice to see some measurements of the distortion before and after break-in. Whatever is audible in terms of initial material stiffness should be measurable in some way, perhaps as THD. Speakers usually make a lot more THD than the electronics.
The center of this woofer model does not have a dust cap, instead it has an aluminum or brass,copper pole piece. It’s used in place of a dust cap to help disperse heat in non back vented woofer’s and midrange drive units. The pole piece can also affect frequency response if engineered to do so. Many diy builds use them in midrange cover ,to aid xover control patterns. If you look closely you will see it does not move when Paul pressurized the cone with his hands. A dust cap moves with the cone. When you do not see a dust cap it’s called a one piece cone , look at the woofers in the PSAudio FR30.😅
Some inexpensive driver’s can have a dust cap that looks like a pole piece but performs no function at all they are made from plastic . Some better variants are made from carbon and do affect frequency by design and are vented at the motor.😅😅
Not exactly; in this case that’s called a “phase plug” and it has its advantages that it helps with sound quality. The pole piece is underneath that phase plug.
Also very rare are expensive drive units with neodymium motor in the pole piece mostly for midrange or in wall loudspeaker builds. I have a few of them. They also allow better transmission line work since they are shallow mounts and motor does not affect the chassis.😅😅😅
@@Bassotronics you are correct, I couldn’t think of the name while writing. And even the faux plastic phase plugs that are actually dust caps which move with the cone can affect frequency by design.😅😅😅
The materials sciences behind the suspension parts must be quite complicated. Do the materials go back to their original state if not used for a long time? Do the materials change in terms of flexibility over their lifetimes? Etc!
Paul, your T-shirt says PS Audio what a coincidence....it has same name as your business what are the odds of that ?...Amir at ASR channel would like it for measurements...ASAP
What he holds in his hands is a SEAS speaker from Norway. (P21RF/P) from the year 2003. You can say a lot of good things about SEAS, but SEAS has a slightly special negative sound type on many speakers which means that it is not as easy to get good sound out of many SEAS speakers.
@@flebnard Yes and no. If you know what good sound should sound like, you know what kind of frequencies you should NOT have too much of. If you listen to many seas speakers on youtube, you often hear that they color on some frequencies and have their own seas sound that shouldn't be there on good sounding speakers. This is a problem with the speaker and not the audio crossover. Yes, you can remove this with a specially built speaker crossover filter if you know what you're doing. Often SEAS does not deliver a good, constructed crossover drawing!
@Douglas Blake I own several seas speaker elements and I have made speakers with seas speaker elements. Also someone I know! I know Seas speakers well!! All you have to do is take the exact same song and listen to it first. Then you know how it should sound!! I use either good earphones or mine good hi-fi speakers! You don't know about weaknesses in speakers you own until you've listened to others speakers without these weaknesses! And an opinion you have built up over many years is difficult to change
Always considered the term "break in" to be unfortunate (and I'm not referring to the criminal act.) Things age and change. Usually it is a degradation of the material. Of course some electronics age - electrolytic capacitors, tubes, etc. Does it mean they make better audio as they age? Probably not. And mechanical devices deform, such as speaker components. Now some people may prefer the sound of say their Magnepans after 30 years of use, but usually aging of components leads to a lower quality. All too often I suspect that when someone claims a sonic improvement after some hours of "breaking in" that the real phenomenon is a psychological one. Our hearing is literally all in our head. Our perceptions of stimuli change with our internal, psychological changes.
Does your car have a recommended break in, or is that all just snake oil? Pretty much all moving parts experience break in and it is most certainly *not* degradation of materials. Flextures like surrounds and spiders are under forming stress that continuous working removes. As for electronics, it's funny how performance change can be measured on a computer after a stress test, but it is all your head with audio.
Give the guy a break, will ya? He's explaining things, not lifting weights. As an owner of a pair of 240 TI's that needed their woofer surrounds replaced, I know about hefting a 14-inch cast-frame JBL driver --- two, actually. Holy crap, those things are heavy!
Agree, there is zero science behind breaking in electronics or cables. Still the myth exist. Breaking in is about softening some mechanical part like a spider in a speaker. Burn in is common in electronics as a method for detecting failures such as a bad soldering. PS audio disappoints me when Paul makes a point about breaking in electronics. Worse is the cable company Nordost promoting that burn in of their cables makes them sound better.
Paul knows a lot, but there are also many things I disagree. If it cannot be measured with a calibrated microphone, it simply cannot be heard. There is no audible difference between for example speakercables if they have sufficient thickness and normal quality. Expectation bias is a big thing and costs a lot of money if you suffer from it.
@@FairyNL Well, I almost agree except our hearing is quite sophisticated in terms of interpreting tiny nuances in e.g. the phase of the sound waves to interpret a sound stage. You can use a calibrated microphone (I have one btw) and measure details our hearing can't even hear on parameters such as distortion, decay, frequency response, noise etc. but our hearing beats any such simple metric on psychoacoustics on soundstage interpretation. Much of the audiophile industry is using such argument for a lot of snake oil business unfortunately.
There is no breaking in of cables or electronic components. Breaking in is about causing mechanical stiffness to soften up and that’s why we call it breaking in.
@@Douglas_Blake And Paul even said in this video: "We talked about breaking in capacitors and resistors; and those are important things". I like to see some correlation between such statement and the underlying science of how the current flows. I could see a correlation if it involved battery chemistry and manufacturing dust on a potentiometer internal resistor track. When electronic companies do "burn in" they do it to screen out any faults such as a bad soldering. I wish PS Audio's engineering staff would review these videos and let Paul know when he made wrong statements.
@@FairyNL LOL, yes, indeed. Same goes for capacitors and semiconductors. This topic made me think about how you could engineer an electronic component intentionally that needs break in. In case of a resistor, you could have some chemical in it that needs to dry out by the heat for the resistance to get right. A donut used as resistor is probably initially with lower resistance due to the liquids in it and if you keep heating it, the resistance will stabilize. But you are right, any such resistor would be a very bad one LOL. Paul is promoting bad components, it seems 🤔
@@dhpbear2 Really? What does "form" mean? Do you have some credible science paper or reference that documents this phenomenon? I wouldn't discard that some specific chemistry in an electrolytic capacitor would change due to initial usage, but without a proper scientific grade reference there is nothing to trust about it. Try again with a proper reference.
The whole " break in" thing is a total peeve of mine. Imo it is a misunderstood misconstrued misinformed thing. Is break in real absolutely, is it a separate proceedures no.... unless you want it broke in before installation so optimal sound is instantaneous. A quality driver doesn't need any "break in" for function it needs break in to reproduce it's intended sound characteristics. Do you need to perform a break in no it happens from using it, it takes a certain amount of play time to achieve proper break in. How long does it take there's no answer it depends on many variables like the amount of power it's played on the compliance of the spider and surround, the type of music ect. It will naturally happen and the SQ will gradually lowering FS will lower allowing to play deeper frequencies. The thing that irks me is people saying you must "break in" your subwoofer before use... Nope that's a total myth. The suspension will be damaged or sperate because it's stiff nope not on any remotely quality driver if it did that's bad craftsmanship or defected or poor quality parts of it was the case you wouldn't be able to crank up a sub with 5 spiders for example you can barely push those in and they don't blow apart. Also unlike an internal combustion engine the coil(or as some call it a piston) does not touch anything so nothing to be done there, Where the term is misunderstood is thinking it's a needed procedure with a new driver when it's a thing drivers reach for optimal sound. "It needs break in" .. no. "It's broken in"... Yes. It would be like saying you need to break in a sofa by pushing it in and out before you sit on it because it may break., No it breaks in and gets softer eventually from just sitting on it or any other nefarious activity lol. Sorry about the rant I build subwoofers as a hobby and that term bugs me.
I definitely notice break-in on a pair of headphones. Normal loudspeakers not much if at all. Physics be physics and the more something moves the more flexible it becomes. Subs specifically? Build a tank box so it hits its best vs being hollow and muddying the sound.
You are compressing when the piston is going inwards, not outwards. This is probably the biggest misconception in the loudspeaker industry. The sound pressure is in phase with the acceleration, and in anti phase with the displacement. At least for free field radiation and steady state conditions. Your view only holds for a piston playing into a cavity, such as the enclosure.
@Douglas Blake Your intuition may tell you that, but any analytical expressions, modeling, or simulation approach will show that you are wrong. Look up the videos I did with ErinsAudioCorner.
@Douglas Blake Great. You can for example look at the Rayleigh integral. Certain books mention this. But it goes against intuition for several reason. One is the polarity test with a battery, which does hold, because there is pi radian phase shift from DC to above the characteristic frequency of the speaker, where we clearly see the outward movement. And the other being that for a positive voltage phase we do get a positive pressure phase, but that is a case of two wrongs making a right, since above f0 the cone moves inwards, not outwards, for a positive voltage, and that this inwards displacement in fact creates a positive pressure, not a negative pressure. For loudspeakers, people get away with this thinking, but in the hearing aid industry this can be detrimental for the stability of the device.
@Douglas Blake He is just telling (us all) how it is, there is nothing else to it. It's science most people do not know and that is fair enough that they don't.
@@Quickmcj Exactly. People argue until a point, and when they see the light, the get angry, instead of being annoyed that Paul and so many others keep pushing this wrong information. If Paul said it the right way, he would get the same push back.
literally the electrical values, the specifications changes over time, especially in the first while you use the woofer. its not like we argue religions and belief here.
@@sudd3660 electrical values change? Can you be more precise? In my opinion, elec properties actually wouldn’t change over time. What could change over time is the suspension stiffness if you use it for a long period of time. But this simply means the speakers degrade over time. Unless its related to glue properties.
@@waynepark Capacitors with mobile molecules will change. Look up electrolytic capacitor degradation. Additionally, most products used in audio will oxidize (gold and teflon being exceptions.) "Break in" is an unfortunate term. Better term is to simply say "age".
@@TheDanEdwards there is no cap in a “speaker unit”. I’m assuming you are talking about the cap in xover circuit. Oxidizing has nothing to do with aging. You read bs articles too much. Read real papers.
@@Art.von.Thiessen because he says so very publicly very often. What does being a businessman have to with leaning left? You know all of us work, no matter if we're conservative or liberal? My god that's funny, do you actually believe leftists sponge off handouts? It's amazing how conservatives have no idea about social or political realities.
@@SpyderTracks listen, do not change the real meaning of "leftism" onto "liberalism". Originally liberalism is the idea which was declared by the French revolution and than maintaned by Napoleon. Liberalism is about freedom and equality of all citizens between each other and in relation to a state they live in. But THEY had borders! And they stayed divided with barbarians. Leftism is different. Leftism is about taking away wealth from talented and passing it to barbarians. You know who today's barbarians in the US are. I am Russian, born in Moscow. And I know how the USSR was launched. It was arranged exactly by the leftits who desieved stupid plebs with kinda liberal slogans. This process led Russia to repressions, organised by Stalin wchich killed more civilians than th ww2. Do u want the same in the US? BLM is today's proletariat. So I am a liberal in its original meaning. I am an atheist. But I am not left
Not to suggest any lesser of your other videos whatsoever, I always find you easy to understand and so good at communicating, but I do think this is one of your best videos yet, superb!
Great to see things you’ve explained close and personal, it’s educational in fact and would love to see more of these in the future, thanks Paul!
Could we please get more videos like this? This one is elementary and easily googled but still very useful when starting out (and was very well explained).
One thing I would very much like to see is a video explaining how the air inside an enclosure acts when the speaker is moving, ESPECIALLY when you have an enclosure undersized to the point it restricts cone movement and how that would change its movement etc. Because I’ve had a fair few arguments with seemingly very intelligent people who can’t seem to grasp the fact that pressure inside the cabinet builds the further the cone moves in or out; that the more air is compressed/stretched the more resistance it’ll have. I’ve had people state that an undersized enclosure will have absolutely no impact on a speaker save for how far it moves/it’s amplitude, and even if it did the driver would only spend more time at the resting position,… and nothing I can say will get them to understand that at the resting position pressure inside the cabinet will be the same in an enclosure with effective internal volume of 1”x1”x1” will be the same as in a 12’x12’x12’ room,…
Because air compresses things get extremely complicated when looking at or trying to calculate air motion in an enclosure. Literally every parameter you can think of goes right out the window as soon as you change just one of them. Probably the best way to explain it would be with a series of animated cut away views showing air motion for a given design but at several frequencies and several amplitudes but since we are talking about a three dimensional space you would have to show it on at least two axes. It's a ton of work to demonstrate what you're asking
We typically view this in a linear fashion, where the volume of the enclosure only changes a little as the piston moves and so the effect of the enclosure, at least at low frequency, can be completely described as a stiffness with a fixed value. This stiffness ads to the stiffness that the driver has in its suspension. There can be thermal and viscous losses to include in the enclosure especially if there is a damping material there.
@@Rene_Christensen I'm going to go ahead and say that you most likely know a metric $#&@-ton more about it than I do so how do you account for things like air motion to and from an off axis port or back waves from an adjacent cavity and how they affect the response of a woofer? As a specific example, Bose's wave cavity in their little radios that made them so famous. I know from experience that they used some processing to compress or limit the speaker's excursion but that wonky looking cavity seemed to have a lot going on.
Paul and I went to the same High School. I think I would love one of his BHK line amplifiers. Of course everything I like can be rather expensive. Especially since I desire a monster amp. Can drive you nuts picking one. Lol
Big dog is a woofer. Cat is a midrange. Robin is a tweeter. Hummingbird a super tweeter.
Well that was just awesome! Thank you Paul! So well explained and illustrated.
Great and very well explained introduction to speaker transducers. Thanks.
thanks Paul, your videos are a great education in audio!! You could put together, with help from your engineer, a 'test' viewers could take, with short answer written responses, and high scorers could apply for jobs at PS Audio!!
Haha an audio IQ! It would be amazing to work there.
I thought that was the “phase plug”, not the dustcap. 😁
Dust still goes in with that type of design.
well its a dustcap for the magnet, but not a complete dustcap for the woofer, so it keeps the dust out from something at least :P
im more worried about using these open designs in sealed boxes, even tho i had those type of woofers in some spendor speakers that sounded really good.
I couldn't wait and FF right to the spider 😂. Great stuff Paul
everything must work together in a nice harmony.
Also depends on what the factory wants to achieve with the speaker. pure midrange cannot have too stiff a suspension. Combined bass and midrange must have stiffer suspension.
Hi Paul. I went to Valencia High School as well. My father gave me the audiophile bug and loves SAE and very large Infintiy and Martin Logans. Am in the market for one of your larger amplifiers. Only my father understands why I'd spend several thousands of dollars on an amplifier. Am leaning towards a PS Audio amplifier.
I bought a pair of Tekton Moabs and received them last September. I spent the first few days in awe of their size, power, detail, etc. But then I noticed that the powerful bass was actually pretty sloppy and the mid range was too thin and V-shaped. Weeks 2-4 that I owned them, I was disappointed and had started to really regret my purchase. Some time during week 5 it was like someone flipped a switch and they just opened up. The bass is now tight, the mids are rich and they're extremely coherent top to bottom.
Thanks for sharing. Yes, very scarry when you buy speakers or gear and they change. Fingers crossed that they live up to the hype once they're yours and in your home 🤞😳 it's Doom until they Do. Lol
@@LuxAudio389 They sound fantastic now! I'm not planning to ever get rid of them. In fact, I'm working on upgrading the crossovers right now, too improve them even more!
I've noticed break in with pretty much every piece of gear if bought new and I don't think anything has ever sounded worse after being run for a while.
I think its likely your brain adjusted. Happens to me every time I try a new design
@@Canadian_Eh_I I think that's a factor in people's perception over time, but break in is still very real. This was a blatant transformation and I've got other equipment that I reference along the way, such as my headphone system.
You can bet a lot of people around the World would like to buy that speaker for their DIY projects.
I see that the surround is inverted like my old Ohm C2 speakers were while most surrounds bulge out , is there an advantage to having it inverted?
Hi Paul. I have a question unrelated to the video. Will there be a more affordable FR10 speaker in the near future? I'm 🙏 praying
I have a pair of klipch KLF20s 50th anniversary klipch legend series from the late 90s bought new in 98, probably need new caps in the crossovers, and tweeter diaphragms,, but they have only gotten better over the years, quality speakers you love last a lifetime
I'm told Bob Crites is the man for vintage klipch replacement parts
Duffere the camera or lens?
What he holds in his hands is a SEAS speaker from Norway. (P21RF/P) from the year 2003.
You can say a lot of good things about SEAS, but SEAS has a slightly special negative sound type on many speakers which means that it is not as easy to get good sound out of many SEAS speakers.
These 21 rf/p woofers sound delicious and play well into the midrange. They need a well damped cabinet though.
@@JK-rt2jj I have heard
(seas xotic w8) and
(ca22rny) and (p21re)
and other old seas models. Have also heard seas in a really heavy and stiff case. I'm not a beginner! Many seas speakers have their own seas sound and color, especially in some areas that are typical for several seas speakers models.
You must have experience and know what to listen for. you also have to compare seas with other brands.
I'm not saying that absolutely all seas speakers have this problem, but MANY.
I'd have loved seeing a sacrificial disassembly of a woofer, where showing how the voice-coil secured to the back of the cone. Additionally, how the voice-coil interacts with the magnet to produce movement, along with an explanation of tight tolerances in design and assembly. Nice job, though.
Easier and better, because it would be non-destructive, is a driver being reconed with an explanation.
So what is the surround made of if not a rubber or foam material obviously something that will not deteriorate over 20+ years
Not just any surround. That one is INVERTED just like my Martin Logan 1600x subwoofer. They don't want the woofer's surround to make contact with any objects during high excursions. The suspension 'roll' is on the back side of the speaker as seen here in Paul's example.
Yea, he left out a few details for a better explanation including the phase plug.
The question is, does PS Audio base their speaker measurements and voicing AFTER many hours of breaking in at the factory, otherwise breaking in at home could make things worse and out of spec.?
Paul, will you be carrying plenty of spare woofer surround kitss so that the woofers can be refurbished in years to come?
Highly unlikely rubberized surrounds will ever need to be replaced unless they’re intentionally damaged. That’s part of the beauty of these materials!
Speaker break-in may occur during the first hour or two but it is unlikely to have any audible effect. A woofer natural resonant frequency may drop by 2-3 Hz after a short initial use, but this effect is audibly trivial.
Speaker break-in is however a real thing (unlike Paul's claims about electrical components such as resistors needing break-in) and the material properties in a speaker driver will determine how audible and how long time it takes to get the material softened. I agree with your view. The spider, surround and also the cone itself (in any bending structure) will soften during the initial usage. It would be nice to see some measurements of the distortion before and after break-in. Whatever is audible in terms of initial material stiffness should be measurable in some way, perhaps as THD. Speakers usually make a lot more THD than the electronics.
My jordan drivers have pistons, is that posh or what? 😉
The center of this woofer model does not have a dust cap, instead it has an aluminum or brass,copper pole piece. It’s used in place of a dust cap to help disperse heat in non back vented woofer’s and midrange drive units. The pole piece can also affect frequency response if engineered to do so. Many diy builds use them in midrange cover ,to aid xover control patterns. If you look closely you will see it does not move when Paul pressurized the cone with his hands. A dust cap moves with the cone. When you do not see a dust cap it’s called a one piece cone , look at the woofers in the PSAudio FR30.😅
1:25
Some inexpensive driver’s can have a dust cap that looks like a pole piece but performs no function at all they are made from plastic . Some better variants are made from carbon and do affect frequency by design and are vented at the motor.😅😅
Not exactly; in this case that’s called a “phase plug” and it has its advantages that it helps with sound quality. The pole piece is underneath that phase plug.
Also very rare are expensive drive units with neodymium motor in the pole piece mostly for midrange or in wall loudspeaker builds. I have a few of them. They also allow better transmission line work since they are shallow mounts and motor does not affect the chassis.😅😅😅
@@Bassotronics you are correct, I couldn’t think of the name while writing. And even the faux plastic phase plugs that are actually dust caps which move with the cone can affect frequency by design.😅😅😅
The materials sciences behind the suspension parts must be quite complicated. Do the materials go back to their original state if not used for a long time? Do the materials change in terms of flexibility over their lifetimes? Etc!
@@Douglas_Blake very interesting. Thanks.
Oh my, the spider hands of a kung fu master.
"Made in Norway" on the driver. Is it SEAS?
there is also the basket
Paul, your T-shirt says PS Audio what a coincidence....it has same name as your business
what are the odds of that ?...Amir at ASR channel would like it for measurements...ASAP
Nice little SEAS 8" driver
What he holds in his hands is a SEAS speaker from Norway. (P21RF/P) from the year 2003.
You can say a lot of good things about SEAS, but SEAS has a slightly special negative sound type on many speakers which means that it is not as easy to get good sound out of many SEAS speakers.
@@ford1546 "slightly special negative sound" is subjective
@@flebnard Yes and no. If you know what good sound should sound like, you know what kind of frequencies you should NOT have too much of.
If you listen to many seas speakers on youtube, you often hear that they color on some frequencies and have their own seas sound that shouldn't be there on good sounding speakers.
This is a problem with the speaker and not the audio crossover.
Yes, you can remove this with a specially built speaker crossover filter if you know what you're doing.
Often SEAS does not deliver a good, constructed crossover drawing!
@Douglas Blake I own several seas speaker elements and I have made speakers with seas speaker elements. Also someone I know! I know Seas speakers well!!
All you have to do is take the exact same song and listen to it first. Then you know how it should sound!!
I use either good earphones or mine good hi-fi speakers!
You don't know about weaknesses in speakers you own until you've listened to others speakers without these weaknesses!
And an opinion you have built up over many years is difficult to change
This is why Zu audio runs there drivers for 100 hours.
Always considered the term "break in" to be unfortunate (and I'm not referring to the criminal act.) Things age and change. Usually it is a degradation of the material. Of course some electronics age - electrolytic capacitors, tubes, etc. Does it mean they make better audio as they age? Probably not. And mechanical devices deform, such as speaker components. Now some people may prefer the sound of say their Magnepans after 30 years of use, but usually aging of components leads to a lower quality.
All too often I suspect that when someone claims a sonic improvement after some hours of "breaking in" that the real phenomenon is a psychological one. Our hearing is literally all in our head. Our perceptions of stimuli change with our internal, psychological changes.
Does your car have a recommended break in, or is that all just snake oil?
Pretty much all moving parts experience break in and it is most certainly *not* degradation of materials.
Flextures like surrounds and spiders are under forming stress that continuous working removes.
As for electronics, it's funny how performance change can be measured on a computer after a stress test, but it is all your head with audio.
That's a woofer? As I pull the woofer from my JBL............................
*Now, that's a woofer!*
Give the guy a break, will ya? He's explaining things, not lifting weights.
As an owner of a pair of 240 TI's that needed their woofer surrounds replaced,
I know about hefting a 14-inch cast-frame JBL driver --- two, actually.
Holy crap, those things are heavy!
@@spacemissing
Give me a break, will ya?
Do you think I'm serious?
Q factor is a whole other video I guess
Breaking in resistors?? Give me a break, lemme pull out Larry Fredricks bullshit card on that claim!!
Agree, there is zero science behind breaking in electronics or cables. Still the myth exist. Breaking in is about softening some mechanical part like a spider in a speaker. Burn in is common in electronics as a method for detecting failures such as a bad soldering. PS audio disappoints me when Paul makes a point about breaking in electronics. Worse is the cable company Nordost promoting that burn in of their cables makes them sound better.
Paul knows a lot, but there are also many things I disagree. If it cannot be measured with a calibrated microphone, it simply cannot be heard. There is no audible difference between for example speakercables if they have sufficient thickness and normal quality. Expectation bias is a big thing and costs a lot of money if you suffer from it.
@@FairyNL Well, I almost agree except our hearing is quite sophisticated in terms of interpreting tiny nuances in e.g. the phase of the sound waves to interpret a sound stage. You can use a calibrated microphone (I have one btw) and measure details our hearing can't even hear on parameters such as distortion, decay, frequency response, noise etc. but our hearing beats any such simple metric on psychoacoustics on soundstage interpretation. Much of the audiophile industry is using such argument for a lot of snake oil business unfortunately.
There is no breaking in of cables or electronic components. Breaking in is about causing mechanical stiffness to soften up and that’s why we call it breaking in.
@@Douglas_Blake And Paul even said in this video: "We talked about breaking in capacitors and resistors; and those are important things". I like to see some correlation between such statement and the underlying science of how the current flows. I could see a correlation if it involved battery chemistry and manufacturing dust on a potentiometer internal resistor track. When electronic companies do "burn in" they do it to screen out any faults such as a bad soldering. I wish PS Audio's engineering staff would review these videos and let Paul know when he made wrong statements.
If resistors need break in, they are very bad resistors 😄
@Douglas Blake Electrolytic capacitors need to 'form' when first used, but, after that, it's academic.
@@FairyNL LOL, yes, indeed. Same goes for capacitors and semiconductors. This topic made me think about how you could engineer an electronic component intentionally that needs break in. In case of a resistor, you could have some chemical in it that needs to dry out by the heat for the resistance to get right. A donut used as resistor is probably initially with lower resistance due to the liquids in it and if you keep heating it, the resistance will stabilize. But you are right, any such resistor would be a very bad one LOL. Paul is promoting bad components, it seems 🤔
@@dhpbear2 Really? What does "form" mean? Do you have some credible science paper or reference that documents this phenomenon? I wouldn't discard that some specific chemistry in an electrolytic capacitor would change due to initial usage, but without a proper scientific grade reference there is nothing to trust about it. Try again with a proper reference.
The whole " break in" thing is a total peeve of mine. Imo it is a misunderstood misconstrued misinformed thing. Is break in real absolutely, is it a separate proceedures no.... unless you want it broke in before installation so optimal sound is instantaneous. A quality driver doesn't need any "break in" for function it needs break in to reproduce it's intended sound characteristics. Do you need to perform a break in no it happens from using it, it takes a certain amount of play time to achieve proper break in. How long does it take there's no answer it depends on many variables like the amount of power it's played on the compliance of the spider and surround, the type of music ect. It will naturally happen and the SQ will gradually lowering FS will lower allowing to play deeper frequencies. The thing that irks me is people saying you must "break in" your subwoofer before use... Nope that's a total myth. The suspension will be damaged or sperate because it's stiff nope not on any remotely quality driver if it did that's bad craftsmanship or defected or poor quality parts of it was the case you wouldn't be able to crank up a sub with 5 spiders for example you can barely push those in and they don't blow apart. Also unlike an internal combustion engine the coil(or as some call it a piston) does not touch anything so nothing to be done there, Where the term is misunderstood is thinking it's a needed procedure with a new driver when it's a thing drivers reach for optimal sound. "It needs break in" .. no. "It's broken in"... Yes. It would be like saying you need to break in a sofa by pushing it in and out before you sit on it because it may break., No it breaks in and gets softer eventually from just sitting on it or any other nefarious activity lol. Sorry about the rant I build subwoofers as a hobby and that term bugs me.
I definitely notice break-in on a pair of headphones. Normal loudspeakers not much if at all. Physics be physics and the more something moves the more flexible it becomes. Subs specifically? Build a tank box so it hits its best vs being hollow and muddying the sound.
Love to see Norwegian woofers in your hands.
Seas for the win!
I love how Chris is blowing Paul off regarding doing any sort of speaker questions. It says something about their relationship
You are compressing when the piston is going inwards, not outwards. This is probably the biggest misconception in the loudspeaker industry. The sound pressure is in phase with the acceleration, and in anti phase with the displacement. At least for free field radiation and steady state conditions. Your view only holds for a piston playing into a cavity, such as the enclosure.
When he said compression, he was talking about the displaced of air molecules.
@Douglas Blake Your intuition may tell you that, but any analytical expressions, modeling, or simulation approach will show that you are wrong. Look up the videos I did with ErinsAudioCorner.
@Douglas Blake Great. You can for example look at the Rayleigh integral. Certain books mention this. But it goes against intuition for several reason. One is the polarity test with a battery, which does hold, because there is pi radian phase shift from DC to above the characteristic frequency of the speaker, where we clearly see the outward movement. And the other being that for a positive voltage phase we do get a positive pressure phase, but that is a case of two wrongs making a right, since above f0 the cone moves inwards, not outwards, for a positive voltage, and that this inwards displacement in fact creates a positive pressure, not a negative pressure. For loudspeakers, people get away with this thinking, but in the hearing aid industry this can be detrimental for the stability of the device.
@Douglas Blake He is just telling (us all) how it is, there is nothing else to it. It's science most people do not know and that is fair enough that they don't.
@@Quickmcj Exactly. People argue until a point, and when they see the light, the get angry, instead of being annoyed that Paul and so many others keep pushing this wrong information. If Paul said it the right way, he would get the same push back.
You're not really compressing the air what you're doing is you're stretching and squashing the oxygen molecule
You are trying to be funny right?
So it's like saying I'm not really breathing the air around me. I'm really taking in oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide. 🤔🤓
@@OneRoomShed no it's not the same, the only thing that carry sound is oxygen air is a mixture of other gases
@@waynepark no educational
@@hoobsgroove Mr. Uneducated, Molecules don’t compress and stretch.
I don’t believe in breaking in in general. Is there any scientific paper that you can refer to?
literally the electrical values, the specifications changes over time, especially in the first while you use the woofer.
its not like we argue religions and belief here.
@@sudd3660 electrical values change? Can you be more precise? In my opinion, elec properties actually wouldn’t change over time. What could change over time is the suspension stiffness if you use it for a long period of time. But this simply means the speakers degrade over time. Unless its related to glue properties.
@@waynepark Capacitors with mobile molecules will change. Look up electrolytic capacitor degradation. Additionally, most products used in audio will oxidize (gold and teflon being exceptions.) "Break in" is an unfortunate term. Better term is to simply say "age".
@@TheDanEdwards there is no cap in a “speaker unit”. I’m assuming you are talking about the cap in xover circuit. Oxidizing has nothing to do with aging. You read bs articles too much. Read real papers.
@@waynepark
Yes, there are caps in a "speaker unit" No, there aren't any caps in the drivers.
You're welcome.
Are super tweeters just a marketing ploy, considering the upper range of human hearing is supposedly 20khz, which most regular tweeters can reach?
Есть два рода дураков: одни не понимают того, что
обязаны понимать все; другие понимают то, чего
не должен понимать никто
such a polite and intelligent gentleman... America please stop losing such people and turning into leftist jungle
Lols, Paul is a very proud leftie mate.
@@SpyderTracks but he is a businessman, capitalst. How do u know?
@@Art.von.Thiessen because he says so very publicly very often. What does being a businessman have to with leaning left? You know all of us work, no matter if we're conservative or liberal? My god that's funny, do you actually believe leftists sponge off handouts? It's amazing how conservatives have no idea about social or political realities.
@@SpyderTracks listen, do not change the real meaning of "leftism" onto "liberalism". Originally liberalism is the idea which was declared by the French revolution and than maintaned by Napoleon. Liberalism is about freedom and equality of all citizens between each other and in relation to a state they live in. But THEY had borders! And they stayed divided with barbarians. Leftism is different. Leftism is about taking away wealth from talented and passing it to barbarians. You know who today's barbarians in the US are. I am Russian, born in Moscow. And I know how the USSR was launched. It was arranged exactly by the leftits who desieved stupid plebs with kinda liberal slogans. This process led Russia to repressions, organised by Stalin wchich killed more civilians than th ww2. Do u want the same in the US? BLM is today's proletariat. So I am a liberal in its original meaning. I am an atheist. But I am not left
@@Art.von.Thiessen oh dear, you're one of those that believes in everything OAN and Fox News tell you. TLDR it's not true!