Are there ANY drivers where you have to "turn it up for it to come alive", or is that a myth?
Why do we have pro audio drivers and home audio drivers?
Don't you have professional horns in the high-frequency range yourself?
There may be a real technical basis for the observation that some speakers or drivers sound “livelier” or more confident at higher volumes, but this applies primarily to bass and fundamental frequency systems, because the excursions are large and the moving masses are comparatively high in those systems.
An important parameter here is the mechanical loss value Rms within the TSP, which, in my opinion, is often overlooked. Put simply, it describes the mechanical losses of the system—that is, friction and energy losses caused by, for example, the spider, surround, and friction. A high Rms value therefore means greater mechanical resistance. This can lead to more controlled behavior and less overshoot, but at very low volumes it can also cause a driver to sound somewhat “stiff,” “sluggish,” or less sensitive.
Particularly large bass PA drivers with dual spiders, heavy and large voice coils, and high power handling capacity can therefore sometimes appear somewhat less microdynamic than softly suspended home audio drivers if they are not well optimized or have a motor that is too weak, as this is counterbalanced by the BL value—that is, the strength of the electromagnetic drive.
A high BL value means that the motor can control and accelerate the diaphragm with great force. This partially compensates for some of the effects of high mechanical losses, and such drivers often sound subjective dry, precise, impactful, and have a stable output level. However, the powerful motor does not completely eliminate mechanical losses in poorly designed systems, as small signal components, hysteresis effects, and minor micro-movements continue to be affected.
For this reason, professional audio and home audio drivers often pursue different design objectives. PA drivers MUST prioritize power handling, high dynamics, and low compression at high levels, as they are intended to fill not just a living room, but stadiums and concert halls. Home audio drivers can be optimized for low mechanical losses, microdynamics, and completely linear behavior at both low and high levels, as Purifi and Seas do with the Revelator, for example.
For years now, I’ve relied almost exclusively on products from major PA driver manufacturers such as B&C, Faital, 18 Sound, Sica, Lavoce, RCF, Beyma, JBL, and BMS. I once used P.Audio for an experiment, and the new SB Audience models are likely to be very good as well, even though I haven’t installed them myself yet.
Thanks to FEA analyses, modern simulation methods, and Klippel modeling, there have been enormous advancements over the past 10 to 15 years. That’s why I personally no longer see any fundamental advantages to classic home audio drivers, even when it comes to fine dynamics and low levels. Many modern PA drivers seem much more refined today than in the past and now combine high power handling, low distortion, powerful drivers, and good control at a level that works excellently for me even in a home setting. In my opinion, the major professional manufacturers today simply deliver extremely well-developed products that—and this is extremely important to me—sound clean and transparent at any volume.
And then we have the opposite effect: a driver that is also very good microdynamically but has practically unlimited headroom in the home environment, which means virtually no distortion at very high levels—ideal for ASR, if you will.
However,> Regardless of this, there is often another factor at play > our own hearing. Due to the Fletcher-Munson or equal-loudness curves, we perceive bass and treble much more weakly at low volumes, and as the volume increases, music therefore automatically sounds fuller, more dynamic, and livelier—a quality often attributed to the speaker itself, even though a significant portion of this effect is psychoacoustic in nature. Many of you here know better than I do how best to adjust this using DSP and room correction. I’ve recently been using the WiiM Ultra for this, and sometimes the good old DEQ2496.
However, due to the large headroom of PA systems, this difference is much more pronounced than with, say, small bookshelf speakers—that’s something to keep in mind. In other words, a large speaker with PA drivers that you’ve been listening to at very high volume and then turn down will initially sound quite unspectacular.
