What's the difference between a woofer and a subwoofer?

Question

Please explain details.

Answer 1

Let's add up some answers. The subwoofer is supposed to handle the lowest freq. Subwoofer became popular because of space. To get good bass from a normal pair of stereo speakers required fairly large cabinets. Since the loewer freq. are non-directional ( has to do with wavelength ) you can use smaller speakers to handle most of the sound and a subwoofer, which is less critical about placement for the bass. This give more options for placement. The higher the freq. though the more directional the sound. So a subwoofer really should be used to suplement the bass on smaller speakers. Many systems though have subwoofers that go up to 250 Hz and even higher. This is high enough to be slightly directional and can affect the stereo image.

You can email me for a more in depth discusssion if you want. Probably more in depth than you want even.  I have been an audio enthusiast for almost 40 yr. Used to build speakers as a hobby

Answer 2

Generally, a woofer is in a tower speaker, but put the same driver in a separate cabinet and it becomes a sub-woofer.

If you have a "3-way" speaker, it contains 3 drivers. They each produce a different set of sounds  and are called:

- Tweeter

- Midrange

- Woofer

They have found that the L/R position for the speakers that are good for the tweeter and midrange is not the best place for the woofer so they started putting the woofer in it's own cabinet and often with it's own amplifier and they call it a subwoofer.

Answer 3

Typically a woofer will make higher range bass frequencies while a subwoofer will produce lower frequencies going as far down as 16 Hz which we can't even hear.....but we can sure as h**l feel it hehe.

The difference is that higher range bass is like a bass-drum while lower range bass has more of a deep rumbling sound like an explosion or earthquake. Woofers can sometimes produce low-frequency rumbling bass....but not as effectively as a subwoofer....unless you paid like 10,000$ for your tower speakers.

Answer 4

A Woofer is the low frequency driver of a three way speaker system (bass ,mid-range, treble.). In a two way system the bass and midrange are reproduced by a single mid/bass driver.

A Subwoofer is a speaker that supplements the main bass speaker and only plays the lowest frequencies(,the lowest two octaves below 80 HZ.)