Something I noticed about speaker demo displays

[Coaxial]

I was at Walmart for some light recently, and while there I stopped at their car audio display just to mess around for a few minutes.

First off, I'm one to pay a lot of attention to speaker materials, cones, surrounds and all. Maybe too much.

But anyway, I had a single pair of 6x9's playing whatever was on the radio, and I was casually feeling the cone materials of other speakers nearby that were not currently playing. I noticed that I could feel cone vibrations from every single one of them, even when not powered. I assume this was simply transmitted to them by the pair that was playing on the same board.

I never thought about this before but by process of just being in contact in the same cabinet, even if in separate enclosures, they would still vibrate, and since cone vibrations are what produces sound (powered or not) then whatever frequency they vibrate at will be more amplified than the others. I suspected it would take a lower frequency to produce the vibrations I felt, and it was then that the thought occurred to me, an unsuspecting person would be impressed by the amount of bass the "one single pair" of speakers was putting out, buy them, and be sorely disappointed in their final performance in the car.

Even 6.5's had the same effect, bassy to a fault, and none of it was good sounding. Just pure mud. But audio newbies might think this is good. I was able to play with the bass control and bring it down to a barely tolerable sound, and the more I did, the more I kept thinking how impressed someone with no knowledge of what is happening might be, thinking their own head unit would be plenty for these. In my younger days I've had 6.5's hooked to deck power, bass maxed out, and still didn't get the muddy output that I got yesterday on the store display with bass way down. I suspect it was because I was actually listening to about 8-16 pairs of speakers all resonating the same muddy tone, powered or not.

[DrewJones]

Someone is giving the Wal-Mart speaker display little to much thought.

How high where you?

[Inetba]

First off, How high were you?

Secon​d, google (Or bing, I won't judge. Still works) "Subwoofer passive radiator". You just happened to discover it on your own out in the wild! Cool stuff.

[firebirdude]

Happens with every demo board across America son. The amount of bracing and isolating that it would take to completely stop vibrations from interfering with each other on a demo board is cost prohibitive. Especially when the benefit is in favor of the person would have to foot that cost. As for a misrepresentation to the customer, the whole dang board is. None of those speakers will sound the same when crammed in the cabin of a vehicle, powered off a different deck/amp.

[Polar]

jam up a slowed 28 hz song on the sony explodes there, they love when I do that

[tboorn]

First off, How high were you?

Secon​d, google (Or bing, I won't judge. Still works) "Subwoofer passive radiator". You just happened to discover it on your own out in the wild! Cool stuff.

yup that would be a passive radiator lol. If you have any music playing loudly, and place another speaker next to it, it too will start to move. It doesnt have to be in the same cabinet, just in the same general area. Its just like how bass makes shit shake (rattle), everything is a passive radiator technically!!