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A rotary woofer is a subwoofer-style loudspeaker which reproduces very-low-frequency content by using a conventional speaker voice coil's motion to change the pitch (angle) of the blades of an impeller rotating at a constant speed. The pitch of the fan blades is controlled by the audio signal presented to the voice coil, and is able to swing both positive and negative, with respect to a zero-pitch blade position. Since the audio amplifier only changes the pitch of the blades, it takes much less power for a given sound level to drive a rotary woofer than a conventional subwoofer, which uses a moving electromagnet (voice coil) placed within the field of a stationary permanent magnet to move a diaphragm to displace air. Rotary woofers excel at producing sounds below 20 Hz, below the normal hearing range; when installed in a wall of a sealed room, they can produce arbitrarily low frequencies, down to a static pressure differential, by simply compressing or decompressing the air in the sealed room.
To help people to perceive the very-low-frequency content available in recorded material, Bruce Thigpen of Eminent Technology experimented with new methods of producing the required SPL. The rotary woofer displaces far more air than is possible using moving cones, which makes very-low-frequency reproduction possible.
Instead of using a moving electromagnet (voice coil) placed within the field of a stationary permanent magnet to drive a cone, like a conventional subwoofer, on a rotary woofer, the voice coil's motion is used to change the angle of a fixed-rotation-speed set of fan blades in order to generate sound pressure waves. The pitch of the blades changes according to the signal the amplifier supplies, producing a modulated sound wave due to the air moved by the spinning blades. If there is no signal applied, the blades simply rotate "flat" at zero pitch, producing no sound. Since the audio amplifier only changes the pitch of the blades, it takes much less power to drive a rotary woofer, although a secondary power source is required to drive the fan motor.B. J. Bedard and T. M. Georges, "Atmospheric infrasound," Phys. Today 53(3), 32–37 (2000).
As an analogy, the hub of the rotary woofer's fan is somewhat like a helicopter's swashplate which allows a stationary source of reciprocating motion—the voice coil of the subwoofer—to change the angle of the spinning set of blades. Many DIY rotary woofers use swashplates of remote-control helicopters connected to modified conventional subwoofer drivers acting as linear actuators in order to modulate the pitch of the blades.
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