Phase Plugs

Hi Eddie,

Thanks for the inquiry.

The phase plug on our speaker does several things. Most common woofers use a dust cap which attaches to the woofer cone and covers an exposed area of the motor assembly of the woofer. As you know, a woofer moves back and forth, thus generating air pressure on both sides of the cone. Air pressure gets trapped underneath the dust cap and this can have some nasty effects. By using a phase plug, air can freely travel within the woofer's motor assembly which allows for more natural movement of the cone, far greater cooling of the voice coil which increases power handling and better controls impedance changes, and ever so slightly increases the woofer's overall efficiency.

Another benefit of the phase plug is due to the carefully controlled shape, it aids in spreading out and smoothing the off-axis frequency response. Sound waves will be reflected off of it in a controlled pattern.

And finally, by using a phase plug, we don't have to use a dust cap which adds additional weight to the woofer cone. These Aerogel woofer cones were designed to be extremely light weight, which offers the benefit of being really "fast", which is easy to measure in the time domain (an impulse response).. All of this being translated as a very "detailed" sound...

hope this helps!

Good Sound To You!

David Fabrikant
www.ascendacoustics.com