They spin anti-clockwise when going down the drain I think.
Like the OP, I have read a lot at both the speakerforums and speakerplans forums. I have come to the conclusion that everyone there is a DJ. Specifically a Reggaeton style DJ. All they want is scoops and "kick bins". If you can get a Turbo-style top box to go on that and paint it some hideous neon color you are "in there like swimwear".
HAHA
as a regular poster on Speakerplans, probably even more than here, I can confirm while this is a nice stereotype its not actually true!
What
is true is that it was started originally by Rog Mogale and a group of people who were mostly based in the dance music and free party scene and who wanted a place discuss and understand the details of bass horn design primarily, and horn loaded speaker design in general. The much higher sensitivity and volume of horn designs, and much "quicker" more accurate sound sound, meant that they were their main speaker of choice for pushing out the extra volume of bass needed for the music they liked.
There were also, as you say, a fair group of people who are also involved in the roots/reggae/dub scene and who preferred scoops as their sub of choice.
However as someone pointed out this extra sensitivity comes at a price of reduced frequency response and so they have to be quite big and bulky to get down to the frequencies reached by the types of double 18" reflex speakers that US sound men/women will be a bit more familiar with.
(have a look at the EM quake sub or Void psyco sub for good examples of horns that play very low and very loud, or even obviously the Lab sub!)
As with all speaker designs its a compromise between the various design criteria, and you choose the ones that best suit you.
Double 18" sound great, are much much better for near(er) throw applications and provide a simple one box solution to bass that runs from high 30s or low 40s right up to meet your tops.
Where as horns are much more sensitive (meaning transporting less boxes, amps and less power draw to get the same SPL), much better for long throw and outdoor applications and sound much punchier and quicker, but the trade off is bigger bulkier boxes and depending on the design of the tops your using and how low they play, sometimes having to use a combination of lower bass and upper bass (kick) cabs to cover the full frequency range.
Or you can try one of the many tapped, bandpassed or ported horn variants that try and bridge the gap between the two and get some of the horn sensitivity and punch while keeping most of the wide response of reflex.
However horns and scoops are not the ONLY thing they discuss or design, and these days the site is far more mixed than it used to be. I myself have been a member for nearly 8 years (2005) and have never played dubstep, raggae or used a skoop in my life, being occasionally a DJ for some spare pocket money but primarily a live engineer and system tech working with both unsigned local bands and touring acts.
Its definitely true that on SP they don't have the same wealth of knowledge and experience on high level touring and live work that is available on here, but in counter-balance the average SP'er will have noticeably more knowledge about speaker and system design, topologies of different speaker types and loading methods etc etc. (though obviously there is still a good collection of people here with a wealth of experience in that area too
)
Its also a little more relaxed than on here, which does occasionally lead to flair-ups and disagreements but usually just leads to some good banter and micky-taking.
As Malcolm says while its main focus is a little different than this forum, there is still a wealth of knowledge there that people are happy to share if your interested in the kind of things in their wheelhouse.
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