Eminence Speaker News

Eminence offers coaxial woofers in 8", 10", and 12", called the Beta-8CX, Beta-10CX and Beta-12CX, respectively. These woofers have a threaded pole-piece so that a screw-on, 1" exit high frequency driver can be attached to form a coaxial set up. The woofer has a screen type dust cap, which allows the output of the high frequency driver to pass through the center. A small, 60 degree conical horn is attached to the top of the pole-piece beneath the dust cap. In my experience, it seems that our coaxial products are misunderstood and do not have enough exposure. In this article, I hope to raise awareness by sharing my own experiences and show how you can use them to create a great monitor or home hi-fi speaker.

Speaker power handling must be the most misunderstood specification in our industry. Knowing the power handling of a speaker is rather useless without considering other specs and details. It"s like knowing the what" without the when" or where." Eminence uses an industry standard method (EIA 426A) for establishing power ratings. A speaker is tested in free-air with a continuous noise signal with a 6dB crest factor. This continuous average power rating (or watts" rating) is basically a thermal limit. Eminence does not associate a watts rating with RMS." RMS pertains to voltage or current, but RMS watts" is an erroneous term. The music program rating is always twice the continuous rating. It is a higher rating because music has many peaks and dips and is not as abusive as a continuous signal. This is a good rating to select amplifier power for proper headroom in a pro audio application. Eminence does not publish a peak rating, but we accept it as four times the continuous rating. Peak is higher because the shorter duration of a burst of sound is less abusive than a music signal or a continuous signal.

You may need less power handling from your high frequency driver than you might expect! High frequency drivers will only see a small percentage of system power, if a proper crossover network is used. The woofer section sees the brunt of the power in a system, because lower frequencies are more abusive....

Here's a question I get quite often: "How much amplifier do I need to properly power an Eminence pro audio woofer?" This can be a rather ambiguous topic because there is really no right" answer. You can damage speakers from over or under powering them.

When Eminence released the 12" Red Fang in 2004, we were concerned the industry was not ready to accept a higher power Alnico speaker. The Eminence Red Fang is a very detailed and efficient speaker, so it's a great compliment for lower power applications. There are a lot of misconceptions about power ratings, and we did not want anyone to overlook it for their lower wattage applications.

Eminence is often asked to provide cabinet plans for our woofers. We do not provide drawings with specific cabinet dimensions and details, but we do offer cabinet recommendations in the form of specifications. The reason for doing it this way is because we do not know what size or shape cabinet you need or want to build. For example, if we specify a rectangular box of A" width x B" height x C" depth, someone may not be able to fit the B" height where the cabinet needs to be installed. Our approach allows the designer/builder the flexibility to build any shape. We provide multiple recommendations for all of our pro audio and bass woofers within their respective pdf files.

Here's a question I get often: "You recommend a 150 watt speaker for my 40 watt amp? Will my amp have enough power to push it? I have heard that under powering a speaker can do harm." Guitar speakers are typically very efficient (high in SPL) and therefore do not require an abundance of power to push them effectively or to make them loud. The SPL on most of our guitar speakers is 98-103dB at 1 watt, 1 meter from a microphone. A 3dB gain can be achieved by doubling the amp power. A 5 watt amplifier, for example, could potentially give you 109+dB of output on a 103dB speaker. Sure, some speakers sound “better” with more power, but adequate sound quality can be achieved at lower volumes as well.

SPL stands for sound pressure level and is also commonly referred to as efficiency and sensitivity. This parameter represents how loud a speaker is. A higher SPL equates to a louder speaker. SPL ratings are very useful and well represent speaker output when comparing one manufacturer’s speaker to another model of the same manufacturer. It can be misleading, however, when comparing two different manufacturer’s ratings.