Getting a warm sound? (with simulations)

So most people seem to do this 'by ear' but basically having the right balance between subs and low-mids and an overall gradual trend downward in SPL as frequency rises. The on top of this, having constant coverage/dispersion pattern as frequency rises. Examples of controlled dispersion/coverage pattern can be found in speakers like the Danely stuff and Void Incubus and other point source systems. 

Visually you can match what you hear on different systems to their directively plots which look similar to this. You want there to be no kinks and outliers both on and off-axis. note this is only for frequencies for which you can 'locate' so doesn't count as much for things under 150hz far as I can tell
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In regard to systems you;ve heard not going very deep my opinion on that is that most people go for SPL over low frequency when it comes to scoops and horns on the low end, the lower they need to go they need to get much bigger in enclosure size.

My preference is direct radiating enclosures tuned between 30 and 40hz. I hear about people running root/reggae/dub systems with savage highpasses even up to 40hz 48db/oct and I'm sure it works for that kind of music but for me if a system doesn't accentuate between 30-40hz as the 'loudest' part of the system (fletcher munson equal loudness contours once more: https://blog.landr.com/fletcher-munson-curves/) then it's missing something. I run only 24db BW highpass from 24hz up depending on the enclosure tuning (for ported cabs). Having said that, the trade off is requiring more subwoofers, high power amps, and more available power to draw from, and using ported enclosures tuned low.

Ideally I want to be hitting the lowest note in this track at full-power without it sounding 'missing' or dipping down in perceived level, and without and anything breaking i.e hitting xmax or enclosure vent velocity limits or popping an amp or circuit breaker .




Bear in mind I'm only ever doing <= 350ppl gigs indoors and I don't need 150db in the low end.

There was a guy on one of the fb groups recently who tuned Freddies in Ibiza and said something (from memory) about them liking a warmer sound which to him ment crossing the subs a little higher. My take on that was with that system in those rooms having the extra gain between 80-160hz may change the balance enough to warm it up a bit - but this is purely based on my speculation of a few comments/posts I could be quite off the mark here and I'm not about to go cross my own subs up at 160-180hz based off that.

Alright, I think I figured out what changing compliance will do, at least in theory.

Somehow I can't post pictures any more. There is an equivalent schematic of a loudspeaker at Randy Bohannon's link.

http://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms//C5612AQEiVLZ4UoytKA/article-inline_-shrink_1000_1488/0/1605531242042?e=1676505600&v=beta&t=pi-KdWJZKQXAHAdlfy1tlOs2lGv5t-Zunob-4DwRLgg - http://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C5612AQEiVLZ4UoytKA/article-inline_image-shrink_1000_1488/0/1605531242042?e=1676505600&v=beta&t=pi-KdWJZKQXAHAdlfy1tlOs2lGv5t-Zunob-4DwRLgg

The inductor on the right is proportional to Cms. It shorts out the speaker at very low frequencies. A smaller inductance will shunt away more power.

So a smaller compliance will protect the driver from too much excursion below cutoff. I hope that our high pass filter will protect us down there if voltage is limited. People seem to agree that hornresp models excursion fairly well.

Increasing compliance will give slightly more output around 40 Hz. I found no influence on the loudspeaker's behaviour at higher frequencies.

Thank you very much for the link. There are some very old posts about compliance from Rog Mogale and Levyte357 that I like but I never understood them. Let's see if I understand them better now.

Next I will put chamber volume and horn throat into my Spice netlist. I don't expect my experiments with netlists to be accurate but I hope they will help me understand things better.

Best wishes
Axel