Can one frequency distort another?

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[InsideOfMyOwnMind]

The Doppler effect in speakers just hadn't occurred to me. Thanks for splainin it.

[ThinkingBetter]

Another cause of intermodulation distortion happens as a driver isn’t equally good in moving in a linear fashion at all cone positions. For example, if you play music with a powerful bass signal at 30Hz making your woofer cone move to near the extremes where the magnetic field and rubber surround are at the edge of their operating range, other higher frequencies added will experience more distortion as the cone can’t move well relative to all the near peak cone positions of the 30Hz signal.

[brianmoore]

That's probably the best question yet. Good show! I learned something new today.

[shrodingersman]

I’ve been thinking just this question, without knowing how to formulate it into words, excellent, banged the nail on the head with the question and answer. Thank you!

[birgerolofsson]

I'm amazed that you know so much in so many different areas when it comes to stereos. "Thumbs Up"

[gabevee]

The sound of the doppler in a large full range speaker when listening to a voice with a strong deep bass tone is similar sonically to singing into a fan. ;-)

[scotts]

Great explanation Paul. I have visualized this in my minds’ eye, and enjoyed your discussion. Thank you.

[brianfrmovale]

Great video (as always), sounds very confusing to be honest to a basic car audio spl guy such as my self. There is a rebassed version of a song call "my sub" by Big Kritt. This i would think is a perfect example of what "the caller" is describing with the 2 freqs playing over the top of another.

[bonzainews]

Back in the 90s i had 4 10" kicker solobaric subwoofers running over 1000 watts in the hatch of my 1986 corvette...with the windows up and when the bass would hit the smaller drivers would be driven backwards in their baskets. So yes they distorted immensely when there's 140db pushing against them. Lol. That's the sledgehammer type bass that makes your hair dance, and makes you hold your breath even when you dont want to. Quite painful.

[paulm]

I once had a pair of speakers that sounded fantastic when the music was simple, a single horn or voice or piano. The sound deteriorated as more instruments were added. I assumed that this was IM distortion. My current speakers retain the clarity of each instrument even when a whole band or orchestra is playing.

[shaun]

Sod the distortion, play some HAPPY HARDCORE !! lol

[DodgyBrothersEngineering]

I still can't get my head around how a speaker can play two different frequencies at the same time. The speaker cone is been driven by effectively a push pull motor. If one note is asking for 2000Hz and another note is calling for 5000Hz why doesn't it average it and play a 3500Hz frequency? I am envisioning this to be like asking a car engine to do 2000rpm and 5000rpm at the same time. Can someone explain in simple terms how this is possible please.

[Enemji]

I would think the speaker would vibrate on the resulting combined frequency, and not try to play each frequency independently of each other. Does that make sense?

[goobisoft]

Few days back i was purposely playing 30 hz tone on my subwoofer while listings the song the sound was coming from sub was not good

[swinde]

I understand how this IM distortion can occur with a single driver, but would not a 200 Hz tone be passed through the crossover to the woofer and the 5, 000 Hz tone be passed to the upper mid range or tweeter depending on the drivers? Another question is can this occur in amps? I think so because I have an IM distortion analyzer that is used to measure this in the amplifier. How is IM distortion addressed in amplifier design?

[americanpatriot]

I know nothing about this is related but thinking about Doppler and a speaker makes me think of my churches' Leslie rotating speaker.

[pedrottic]

Man, that’s an EKG at the first frame! Maybe it was on purpose... a good heart may exert influence on another heart.... or even distort it... hehe. Music for our hearts...

[coldfingersub]

I just learned a little more about the inter-relationships between the second third or fifth and beyond harmonics in how they affect sound thank you for the analogy and clarification

[JerryRutten]

When Doppler was the cause of the distortion, then the distortion should be at its greatest when crossing zero, when the speed is at its maximum. But, it is not.

The IM distortion is at its greatest at the maxima of the excursion, when the speed is zero! So, it is not the Doppler effect, but change in position of sound source for the higher tone.

Another (and bigger) sources of IM distortion are non linearities in the force factor and the suspension of the driver.

[fookingsog]

Doppler Effect...Compression & Rarefaction...High Frequency Traversing in Relation to a Low Frequency Wavefront.