Driver customization

[bonehead848]

Im not terribly experienced with how specific driver parameters specifically influence performance but I am intrigued at how FI is customizing their drivers for certain uses.
I have the ep2500 but have not entirely decided on drivers. The thought of a couple q18's in an IB gets me all giddy but i move fairly often(every couple years) and do not know if I am going to have an ht that is always ib suitable. I am lucky in that my wife is flexible about big beastly subs making their way into the living room but I dont think she would approve of buying a house just because I could build an ib in it. So this leads me to wonder what FI would do to a sub if I ordered a couple IB/ported specific drivers.
Thoughts?

[ISLAND1000]

Excellent question.

[Fi Audio]

We used to do a few tweaks to the Q series drivers as well as the lower SSD line for IB specific apps, including slightly different gaps on the motors as well as a softer suspension. Since we were scrubbing off motor strength to increase the qts, and we were selling quite a few of these, we decided to make the IB specific subs... these use motors that are specifically designed to get the strength we need without simply scrubbing off from the larger Q motors. Why make you pay for something that we simply waste anyway?
As for subs that work well in all things? Not really. Quite a few have purchased the standard Q 18s with only the single coil mod to them as they are the closest to something that would work along those lines, but you are still in a little larger than I would like ported and sealed enclosures and a little low (although some do prefer a lower qtc/s IB alignment) on the IB side of things. Its about as close as I can get to something that would work for all apps.

Hope that helps a little.

Thanks,
Scott

[bonehead848]

Thanks for the detailed response! The IB driver sounds like such a great bargain it makes it really hard to pass up. Looks like for me though the slightly modified standard q might be the best way to go even if it does require a bigger box.