well....the 12 should give a slight advantage in spl because of more surface area...shouldnt be to noticable though...just my opinion...idk that mucha bout it
Actually with today's subs I don't think you'd notice a diff. in sq either. Maybe the 10's would be punchier, but the 12's will go lower. Good subs today are made with high-quality light-weight cone material, so the moving mass isn't as big a deal going from a 10" to a 12". The 12 should respond just as good as the 10.
Like Joe said, the main difference in the debate of 10s vs 12s is simply an issue of moving mass. A 12, 15, or 18" sub is NOT slower than a 10" sub. The reason that larger subs got the reputation for being "looser" than smaller (10") subs was because the motor designs and suspension designs back then weren't as intricate as they are now. Transient response by definition is the ability of a speaker to respond to any sudden change in the signal without blurring the sound. That being said, there are 2 ways to look at transient response, how fast a sub reacts, and how fast a sub stops. Larger subs have more problems stopping, they will react just as quickly as a 10" sub. A poorly designed sub will be boomy and have degraded SQ simply due to suspension design and the motor design. A 12" sub being heavier, it requires more suspension and motor to bring it to a halt. Motor strength is very important in a subwoofer's design. Too little and you'll have a driver that is uncontrolled, too much and you'll overdamp the driver. A well designed 12" sub will offer SQ just as good as a 10". The main audible difference you'll hear is it's upper frequency response characteristics, which is determined mainly by the inductance of the voice coil and cone resonances. The subwoofer size debate is similar to the "more ways is better" argument of the 80s, people thought that a larger, heavier 6.5" speaker wasn't capable of producing upper midrange as accurately as a 3 or 4" dedicated midrange would. That myth was dispelled, and you'll see more 2 way setups winning comps out there than 3 ways. It's a compelling argument that you'd think was true, but in reality it isn't. The fact is that if you had a speaker with 0.001mH inductance and extremely low moving mass, and low resonance, and the excursion capabilities to produce lower bass frequencies, that driver would produce the full audio spectrum very accurately. Electrostatic loudspeakers are a fine example, as the surface area is huge, but the mass is lighter than air and it's inductance is low. The reason they can't produce those super low frequencies are simply due to excursion limitations. With electromagnetic drivers (speakers), once you add excursion, you increase voice coil size, which increases inductance, reducing it's upper frequency capabilities. Adire Audio's XBL^2 driver design is a fine example of a low inductance assembly that produces a very wide frequency range accurately. Once you find a balance of both, then you can create a midbass (or subwoofer) that serves it's purpose.
that was complete babble to me lol...about half way through i zoned out....wow just jonathon obviously has no idea what he is talking about lol...yea ruh
With that being said jonathan will the new 12 alpine Type R be able to stop and not smear the sound. I currently have a 12 kicker comp vr in a 1.5 cu/ft box. It has a hard time stopping with quick kick drums. The reason for considering the ten was the idea that reproduction of "quick" kick drums will sound more accurate. im dying for accuracy and my current sub does not provide that. If i can hear a clear quick kick I will be happy.
You could hear a small difference, especially with very fast drum beats, but I still don't think it would be that noticable. If your that insistant on sq than I would try to get something different that a Type R. Look into Shiva's or IDQ's, their in the same price range.
