[A_shah]

Paul McGown of P S audio offers an interesting prospective on this in his Vlog
https://youtu.be/5SPVlkWhKMg

Asghar

[nickd]

My personal experience is a single, very fast 12” or 15” paper woofer in a well tuned box can be very real sounding from 40-1200 hz. The next issue is Baffle width issues up top with those big drivers unless you use horns of corse.

But if you want natural tone and dynamics, they are hard to beat without going line source, or constant beam width transducer and spending quite a bit more $.

[S Clark]

I see that Nickd is using speakers incorporating servo driven bass, so, yes, I agree that in that instance a large woofer can be as good as multiple smaller ones.  Other than servo however, the lower mass of multiple smaller drivers is an excellent way to cope with the smearing cause by inertia as a bass signal ends or reverses.  It simply requires more force to stop a larger mass and to accelerate it in the opposite direction.  The point of a line source is that a dozen smaller speakers may only need a couple of mm of displacement to create reasonable low bass- less inertia per driver, faster recovery. 

[A_shah]

Well  I am not that technically suave  as you 2 gentleman but I do trust my years , and having listened to many a speakers  at audio shows including the Von Schweirkent  ultra 11 .( they do have two big woofer in the back I believe with separate amps. ) Tidal Akira , Trenner & friedl , Kef Blades it seems the industry standard seems to 6.5 to 8 inches once in a while some 10 " woofers .
To me I seem to prefer two/  8 " woofers   which seem to be faster with more detail  and really vanish , add to that a pair of good subwoofers if you really want to feel that bass ( reverb) not rattle or vibrate .
So the question is why don't we have more manufacturers coming out with 10/12 " woofers ?

Asghar

[timind]

So the question is why don't we have more manufacturers coming out with 10/12 " woofers ?

Asghar

Easy answer, there's no market for speakers with 10/12 inch woofers. Now there are plenty of subwoofers with 10 or 12 inch woofers. Why? There's a huge market for them.

[FullRangeMan]

+1 on 15'' paper cone woofer mainly hi sensitivity woofers plus 98dB as this:
https://www.eminence.com/speakers/speaker-detail/?model=Kappalite_3015
This Kappa 15 will not need a sub if used in a big box well stuffed.

According what I had heard two 12'' woofers are not nicer sound than one 15'' woofer and impedance will drop to nominal 4 ohms and will need a complex xover to mask it to the amp. Too bad Paul not covered the subject with a realistic analysis.

[S Clark]

According what I had heard two 12'' woofers are not nicer sound than one 15'' woofer and impedance will drop to nominal 4 ohms and will need a complex xover to mask it to the amp. Too bad Paul not covered the subject with a realistic analysis.

If the designer wants 8 ohms out of two 12" woofers, he simply orders 16 ohm woofers and puts them in series.  Driver manufacturers are eager to comply at the right volume. And my experience is different and prefer two smaller drivers to one larger. 

[DrJ-10]

No, the woofers would be parallel.  In series they would be 32 ohms.  If you want series connection, use 4 ohm woofers.

[FullRangeMan]

If the designer wants 8 ohms out of two 12" woofers, he simply orders 16 ohm woofers and puts them in series.  Driver manufacturers are eager to comply at the right volume. And my experience is different and prefer two smaller drivers to one larger.

16 ohms woofers loss efficiency, SPL is lower than 8 ohms, special orders are not cheap.

[S Clark]

16 ohms woofers loss efficiency, SPL is lower than 8 ohms, special orders are not cheap.

Let's just say I don't think all of this is correct depending on application.

[Letitroll98]

Ref the video, these clips are Paul's "Dear Abby" spot where he gives a quick answer to complex problems.  So I don't fault him for not giving a more complete answer.  In regards to the question I would note that's there's theory where budgets are unlimited, and actually building a speaker you can sell.  Usually the largest cost factor is the cabinet so if you're bracing an entire speaker cabinet to handle a 12" woofer or more commonly, building a subwoofer inside of a speaker cabinet, it gets expensive very quickly.  There are numerous manufacturers that do this and some are mentioned on this thread, but they are all expensive products.  It's cheaper to get good bass with multiple smaller woofers, and again as previously noted here, it's what the market wants. 

[JLM]

Modern tastes dictate a narrow baffle.  Audiophiles want crowd bigger/fancier/more impressive toys into their smaller homes.  Thus regardless of what good design says the market is for tall floor standing speakers with multiple/smaller woofers. 

This is less than ideal.  Bass and mid/treble frequencies are ideally generated from different locations in the room.  Multiple/smaller woofers just don't have the bass presence of an efficient (or powered) larger woofer.  And a shortened array of woofers do not have the advantages of a true vertical array.  Plus the resulting tweeter height from a shortened array is well above the seated listener's ear.  Few speaker designers consider that below the transition frequency (200-300 Hz in most rooms), the room in combination with the speakers, controls what is heard. 

A better solution is found in use of a multitude of carefully set up subwoofers (refer to swarm at audiokinesis.com) that can help address inherent in-room bass peaks/dips and take into account bass room gain.  This leaves monitors (that can be ideally placed) to cover mid-bass/mid/treble frequencies with hopefully at least one 6 inch mid/woofer to provide mid-bass body.