What do you look for in damping factor?

Atmasphere, thanks. That appears clever, but I still think the use of ports come with a price. So much for free lunch?

Unsound, for that you would have to hear them. I know one person that used such speakers to replace a set of Carver Silver Amazing loudspeakers- he likes Duke's speakers better because they are smaller, are easier to drive, sound better overall and of course go deeper in the bass.

Of course those are all good reasons to like a speaker, but, amongst other things, ports can compromise time and phase fidelity. Obviously, some feel the trade off worth it.

" What do you look for in damping factor? "

Nothing. Its almost meaningless number, largely explained by Athmaspere in his 1st post.

Simon

A point about damping factor which is commonly not realized, pertaining to dynamic speakers, is that the ability of the amplifier to "control" and damp the woofer will be limited by the dc resistance of the woofer voicecoil itself (as well as by the resistance of the crossover inductor, the speaker cables, and the amplifier's output impedance).

That voicecoil resistance will typically be several ohms, and with respect to woofer control/damping will have exactly the same effect as if the several ohms were in the form of amplifier output impedance rather than in the speaker, corresponding to an amplifier damping factor in the rough vicinity of 2 or even less.

One more reason why the difference between amplifier damping factors of, for example, 20 and 2000, is in itself insignificant.

Regards,
-- Al