DollarBill:

>>My point is that a large woofer will (should?) have more trouble reproducing the higher frequencies. 18s, taken by themselves, will not produce the higher octaves as well as 15s or 10s <<<

I'm sorry, but are dead wrong in your assumption that an 18" driver is somehow not fast enough to reproduce the higher end of the bass range. As I stated in my original post it is all about the size of the magnet / voice coil assembly in relation to the weight of the cone. The diameter of the cone has nothing to do with it - there can be and are 10" cones that are heavier than some 15" ones. The weight is the only determining factor, period. An 18" driver simply needs a larger motor assembly than a speaker with a smaller cone in order to have equal acceleration abilitiy, and therefore the ability to reproduce the higher end of the bass range as well as the smaller speaker. You are simply perpetuating an audiophile myth if you believe that you have to have a smaller woofer in order to have it respond up to 60Hz. That's just plain wrong. At the frequencies that a subwoofer reproduces, beaming is not a factor. Beaming only comes into play when the diameter of the cone becomes a significant ratio of the wavelength of the audio. The wavelength of 60Hz is over 18 feet. This is a small percentage of the 18" diameter of a woofer.

[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited April 07, 2003).]