In regards to subwoofers, what's the difference between a motor and a voice coil?

[eveares]

I have seen a number of videos on YouTube of people talking about their car subwoofers and the respective "motors"; what from what I can tell, the motor is the round big bit at the back of the subwoofer what contains what I would call the voice coil.

Is "motor" just another name for the voice coil or is their a difference between a voice coil and a motor in the scope of a Subwoofer.

I am slightly confused as I have never heard of the term motor in the scope of normal Hi-Fi speakers!

Regards: Elliott.

 

[Lucid]

Hi Elliot,

"motor" refers to the magnet.

With any speaker, if you increase the size of the voice coil too much then the extra weight outpaces the gain realised from the additional coils of wire. So, if the voice coil can't be made bigger without losing performance, what you can do is to change the strength of the magnetic field it sits in. You'll have probably heard of Neodymium magnets in headphones I'm guessing. That's their whole trick. They're more powerful motors for the same size and weight as traditional magnets.




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[bernardgreen]

I wonder if the "motor" in a sub-woofer has a static coil and a moving magnet. The opposite of a normal speaker where the coil moves and the magnet is static.

 

[Lucid]

There is a speaker motor like that; a moving magnet rather than a moving coil. The catch is cost, and the cost is because of the complexity. But, if you want or need to drive a 30" cone, and you have a spare £10K lying around, then the Powersoft M-Force motors and drivers are available.
LINK: https://www.powersoft-audio.com/en/oem-solutions/m-force#M-Force 301P01


There are some vids on Youtube of the applications such as outdoor concerts.
LINK:

I think it's going to be awhile though before your average car audio bass-head will have linear motor subs to play around with for a couple of hundred quid.