In article ,
All Ears wrote:
DEFINE "self-damping speaker" please.

I would assume, for the most part, stiff suspension of the woofers.

Nope, stiff suspension, in other words, low mechanical
compliance, is not damping. Damping is energy dissipation,
conversion of electrical or mechanical energy into heat so that
it no longer contrinutes to the total stored energy in the
system.

Indeed, all other things being equal, increasing the stiffness
DECREASES the total damping on a loudspeaker system

This can be readily observed by examining what happens to the Q
of the system when the total system compliance is reduced, say,
by reducing the enclosed volume of a system. "Q", a term that is
a specific measure of the ratio of the total amount of energy
storeed to the total amount of energy dissipated, is essentially
the reciprocal of damping: the lower the Q the higher the
damping. When the total system stiffness is increased, the total
Q of the system increases as a direct function.

No, implicit in the claim of a "self damped" loudspeaker is that
ALL the damping must be mechanical, since the inference was made
that changing the amplifier has no effect on system dampinbg.
Once again, if you were to explore how loudspaekers work, the
inveitable conclusion form this is that the electromagnetic
portion of the speaker must have no influence, and that's
absurd: if it has no influence, it cannot make sound when hooked
to an amplifier.

The existance of a totally "self-damped" loudspeaker is simply
not possible.
--
| Dick Pierce |
| Professional Audio Development |
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