Ascendo 50" subwoofer

Ron Resnick

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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jIyUmpz9dII

A photo at Munich from User211:


image.jpg

What do you suppose they're thinking with a driver of this diameter?

How can a driver of this size have a remotely acceptable distortion spec?
 

marty

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Apr 20, 2010
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"What do you suppose they're thinking with a driver of this diameter?"

It appears they are aiming to replace Ked's "jump factor" with a new property called "launch factor"
 

bonzo75

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Feb 26, 2014
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"What do you suppose they're thinking with a driver of this diameter?"

It appears they are aiming to replace Ked's "jump factor" with a new property called "launch factor"

Lol. We have a new term I bet people will start using it with their own interpretation of the term and over time no one will know the real meaning.
 

Robh3606

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Aug 24, 2010
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Looks a bit familiar

Rob:)
 

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GaryProtein

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The truth is that if the cone is stiff, a woofer that diameter does not have to move very far in excursions to move a lot of air.
 

RogerD

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The truth is that if the cone is stiff, a woofer that diameter does not have to move very far in excursions to move a lot of air.

You are right. I wonder how much is this behemoth? I have 2 16's and 1 18 inch driver and it can be almost too much if I don't throttle them down. It would be a gas to hear this sub.:D
 

GaryProtein

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I was going to say something ridiculous like,

"Mark Seaton, eat your heart out!" but I decided not to! ;) ;) ;)


At 50" it has ten times the area of a 16" woofer.
 

Folsom

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Well an acceptable distortion specification on this would probably be like 20% before anything was audible, maybe higher. But it would be hard to believe that it could achieve that even... it would need some extreme active DSP since the box is obviously way too small. The diameter is the same as a wavelength of 267hz, so anything above that will be very beamish... not that it probably can produce much of anything worth a damn that's above 50hz, or 30hz... hard to say.

The simple answer is it's for nothing more than a "because we could" factor.
 

jdza

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May 3, 2010
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From another forum & someone seemingly involved

From what I understand this sub will be more used as a pistonic tactile transducer for chest-hitting bass than actual sound and will be crossed very low. For the 'normal' bass there are six 15" subs spread across the cinema.
 

Mark Seaton

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From another forum & someone seemingly involved

From what I understand this sub will be more used as a pistonic tactile transducer for chest-hitting bass than actual sound and will be crossed very low. For the 'normal' bass there are six 15" subs spread across the cinema.

It's a common misunderstanding that deep bass creates the subjective "Chest-hitting bass." This effect does not exist down low. This region is almost entirely above 50Hz on up to 150Hz, with the 70-150Hz range most often being tied to chest cavity resonance. The really deep stuff is what makes your pant legs flap and your hair quiver. :cool:
 

Ron Resnick

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Dear Mark,

What do you make of this product?
 

Mark Seaton

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May 21, 2010
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jIyUmpz9dII

A photo at Munich from User211:


View attachment 32596

What do you suppose they're thinking with a driver of this diameter?

How can a driver of this size have a remotely acceptable distortion spec?

There's been a ton of discussion of this behemoth on various fb groups and other forums. There are some interesting assembly images here on their fb page. I gave some serious kudos to them for the way they managed to segment up the cone assembly into manageable size arc segments which are the same carbon fiber form used all around and glued up in a large jig show in the pictures. If you look at the woofer frame and trim ring holding down the surround, you can also see how these were segmented into pieces and assembled to create the large shape. I expect the box is 60" x 60" on the face and 20-24" deep, as a full size sheet of Baltic Birch plywood typically comes in 60" square sheets. I suspect that was also one of the reasons they landed at 50" rather than even larger.

I've seen one mention of 2,500W, and another from Munich of 25,000W, which makes more sense to me.

For a quick sanity check, by my guesstimate the woofer has the surface area of 8-10 18" woofers. The driver area and box volume work out just a little smaller than a 3x3 block of my F18 subwoofers (9 total) which I power with 12,000W. We haven't seen anything yet suggesting what sort of excursion the driver has nor if they have enough power to get it moving all that much. Given the assembly of arc segments with the vertical parts which were epoxied together, these will make for some very strong ribbing in the cone structure. I wouldn't worry about flexing within the likely intended range of a driver this large. The physical dimensions actually create some interesting behavior of beaming where it will narrow to ~90 deg radiation horizontally around 135Hz where it's 1/2 wavelength across, and it will hit the similar beaming point around 55Hz in the vertical due to the mirror effect of the floor.

In the context of a big home theater, this might not end up being as ridiculous in performance as it might look. I have more than a few theaters with 8x F18s, and I doubt this has the any more total displacement, if even as much.
 

RogerD

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It's a common misunderstanding that deep bass creates the subjective "Chest-hitting bass." This effect does not exist down low. This region is almost entirely above 50Hz on up to 150Hz, with the 70-150Hz range most often being tied to chest cavity resonance. The really deep stuff is what makes your pant legs flap and your hair quiver. :cool:

https://www.facebook.com/audioandcinemasystems/videos/1875627592686335/

https://www.facebook.com/audioandcinemasystems/videos/1870714593177635/

This sounds like this sub would be great for large pipe organs,earthquakes, and MOAB bombs;)

Even though my subs produce a lot of concussion, my satellites produce the "sock" right in the center of the soundstage. I never thought they could do that.

This enclosure looks to small to me. My dual 16 is almost as large or larger.
 

RogerD

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Reportedly 59 large for this baby....for those audiophiles that are still young @ heart and love their toys...go for it!;)
 

Mark Seaton

WBF Technical Expert (Speaker & Acoustics)
May 21, 2010
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Reportedly 59 large for this baby....for those audiophiles that are still young @ heart and love their toys...go for it!;)

That response on fb is the first I've seen of the MSRP. Not all that surprising given what it takes to produce and a healthy dealer markup. Even if sold at $50k, that's squarely in the "I want that" realm. I hope they put a serious size copper or aluminum demodulation ring or sleeve in the motor with that 13.6" diameter VC. While 13.6" sounds like a massive VC, that's similar or less power handling than 4-5 separate 3" VC drivers. Having moved some huge custom subwoofers and knowing how important location of a subwoofer really is, I'll stick with the modular approach and pieces that are reasonable to get down a flight of stairs or to a 2nd level of a home. I've played with a few 21" and 24" woofers and you really have to go to some highly unconventional motor designs to make a driver larger than 24" worthwhile. There is a 32" frame on the market that is a scaled up version of the 24" frame, and again, unless you are designing it for an infinite baffle or walled off volume in the room, there really isn't anything gained from multiple woofers of the same cone area. As you start going below 18" and 15" diameter woofers there are some limitations with very high excursion designs where the much larger diameter surround can more easily support large excursions without deformation.

My biggest question remaining is how far can the driver move, and how much power are they using?
 

RogerD

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