I currently have a pair of Whispers and asked these same questions. Here is what I was told. The woofer has a resistor so it can better function as a rear absorber of rear unwanted bass energy outside of the speaker. The resistor puts a load on the woofer when it absorbs rear waves around the outside of the speaker, allowing it to dynamically "brake" better than if it was otherwise not connected to a resistor. (If you recall, one of the unique attributes of the Legacy Whisper is that it is much less sensitive to room boundary placement than most other speaker designs). As far as the shield on the woofer, this allows the woofer's magnetics to have less electrical interactivity with the inside of speaker's crossover guts (which are in close proximity to this particular woofer's rear side). IMHO these are all great design concepts that were well thought out. Way to go Bill D. !!
Attention all Legacy Whisper owners ??
Hello there,
Have any of you took a real good look inside of the midsection of the speaker where the crossovers are? If not, I found something pretty interesting. The passive woofer is actually a complete woofer...magnet,binding posts,vented pole,and it is shielded.It also has a 20ohm resistor soldered between the +/- on the woofer itself. If anyone has noticed this has any one thought of powering this woofer. And using it as a LFE? or a transiton driver kind of like the flagship speaker Helix? After all it is in its own sealed structure. Both the tweeter and mid. are sealed backs and the four mid/woof's are sealed by PVC. I plan on doing some experimenting..I will see what happens, Matt.
Have any of you took a real good look inside of the midsection of the speaker where the crossovers are? If not, I found something pretty interesting. The passive woofer is actually a complete woofer...magnet,binding posts,vented pole,and it is shielded.It also has a 20ohm resistor soldered between the +/- on the woofer itself. If anyone has noticed this has any one thought of powering this woofer. And using it as a LFE? or a transiton driver kind of like the flagship speaker Helix? After all it is in its own sealed structure. Both the tweeter and mid. are sealed backs and the four mid/woof's are sealed by PVC. I plan on doing some experimenting..I will see what happens, Matt.