Why don't speakers incorporate a subwoofer into their cabinet?

mep

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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0
True especially if onboard subs have plate amps which use your main amplifier via high level as their input stage. They will take on the characteristics to a great degree of the main amps. That said there are fast and extended tube amps down below. More circuit dependent than on tube type IME, given an appropriate loudspeaker or succeeding stage to drive of course.

Jack-You hit the nail on the head. My speakers are exactly as you described and you hear the difference in the bass with every amp you hook up to the system. After hearing nothing but tube amps driving my speakers for years, hearing the first SS amp was an ‘ah-ha’ moment. That is when I learned my speakers love power and that there is another world of bass that exists outside of tube amp bass.
 

garylkoh

WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
Sep 6, 2010
5,599
225
1,190
Seattle, WA
www.genesisloudspeakers.com
True especially if onboard subs have plate amps which use your main amplifier via high level as their input stage. They will take on the characteristics to a great degree of the main amps. That said there are fast and extended tube amps down below. More circuit dependent than on tube type IME, given an appropriate loudspeaker or succeeding stage to drive of course.

Jack-You hit the nail on the head. My speakers are exactly as you described and you hear the difference in the bass with every amp you hook up to the system. After hearing nothing but tube amps driving my speakers for years, hearing the first SS amp was an ‘ah-ha’ moment. That is when I learned my speakers love power and that there is another world of bass that exists outside of tube amp bass.

Absolutely! The reason that the speaker incorporates an active subwoofer is so that the speaker designer can control the coherence between the bass, the mid-bass and the mid-range. The speaker designer should already ensure that whatever group delay there is in the amplification perfectly matches the group delay in the crossover network of the rest of the loudspeaker. The Class D amplifier is perfect for this because it can have extremely high input impedance (important so that it tracks the sonic input characteristics of the signal) and extremely high damping (important so that the woofers track the movement designated by the input signal).

Well designed, it will take on whatever characteristics of the main amps - without the possibility that there is a phase/group delay difference between the woofers and the sub-woofer if two different amplifiers are used.
 

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