Faitalpro 18XL2000

One of the most extreme loudspeakers Faitalpro has to offer packing in a ridiculous 2000 watt Aes power handling but is the Faitalpro18XL2000 the right speaker for you?

Power handling is a great potential indicator, though it is important to remember we are talking about potential & we should not always look at a product like this and say great more Spl because it handles more power. Oh no my friends sometimes we need to look at long term operational requirements for our applications, the more we stay away from a speakers total power handling the better things not only last but we suffer far less from power compression. Power compression is when we apply loads of power into a speaker and things start to become hot and toasty, this cause's our speaker to increase in resistance which means we actual experience a drop in spl over time. We don't want this to happen generally speaking as now you need an even larger amplifier because we went from 8 ohms to who knows maybe even double that. When used correctly we can stay far away from power compression which is great  for touring and festival applications as we often need speakers to run for extended periods of time, often 2 to 3 days of non stop music which is extremely demanding on any product. Having headroom is key here, our amplifiers in order to do 2000 watts need to be well in the order of 8000 to 16000 watts or greater to take full advantage of a Faitalpro 18XL2000. A side note to consider is the power handling changes drastically in an enclosure, the layout could cause heat to build up faster so design consideration is a big part if you want to exploit the potential power handling. One of the downside of a neodymium is the overall surface area of the motor is smaller vs a large ferrite, though when we talking critical performance having a neodymium driver helps us reach higher levels of Bl that is not achievable with ferrite.

To be honest if you are that guy buying on Watts alone, this might not be the speaker for you as you might not have the experience enough to be responsible with a top shelf product! If you are looking for a speaker that is lightweight and has the potential to handle extreme amounts of power for say a headlining artist over short period of time or require lots of dynamic range over extended periods than the Faitalpro 18XL2000 is a winner.

Cone displacement helps to enforce low frequency reproduction, with a rated 16.32mm of displacement is very healthy and we could actualy class it as extreme levels of Xmax. Regardless of the brand keeping speakers linear and distortion free is very hard near these "extremes". We also need large amounts of motor force to control the cones, naturally a neodymium is the best choice for the application!

Long voice coils have a trade off of having higher levels of inductance which we most certainly don't want in professional Pa applications, to fix this as voice coil windings increase in length the addition of the D modulation ring helps to improve inductance and distortion but raises the cost. Many cheaper brands avoid adding on these components as it becomes much harder to design and can shoot the price skywards. However Faitalpro aim to impress and that is what they have done with a well modeled premium solution. 

So we have an FS below 20hz & more Xmax to reproduce those super lows right?

Hold on captain... 

Just because we have these features does not mean we should use them to these extremes, more Xmax or higher levels of cone displacement still = higher levels of distortion!

To dig really deep into extended low frequency applications is 100% possible here though again consider touring applications, the driver weighs in under 14Kg and if we optimize for a well balanced speaker we keep all that juicy motor force  to maximize our control in a compact enclosure. Clarity and accurate reproduction is the key to qualitive sound reproduction, in professional PA applications we hold this more valuable than trying to hit 20hz or 30Hz.

Lets take a quick look in Winisd and define 2 basic scenarios being a semi compact enclosure vs an extended Shelf response.

Green is our compact enclosure & red being our extended bass response.

Right out of the gate we can the driver is well suited for a slightly higher tuning by nature, it reminds me of the B&C DS115 in this regard as both are high power handling products with large amounts of cone displacement & both are better of tuned slightly higher in compact and medium format enclosures. Our roughly automatic Winisd calculated box volumes are 183.44 for our extended bass response enclosure playing down to 30hz, our compact  enclosure Winisd is hinting at a micro 70 liter enclosure!

This is super tiny enclosure which might sound fantastic which it is to the touring guys but this becomes a problem as we have need to fit both speaker and ports into an enclosure, we really wont be able to use much of the high levels of Xmax & power handling capacity. Our tiny enclosure & port size will 100% hinder us from reaching peak displacement and or power handling as the vent size to box will shoot the vent velocity into audible noise, this is bad and to fix this our enclosure must become slightly larger & our processing settings a little more serious if we want to stay small. I would say neither of these 2 suggested layout our ideal and common ground could be found between them hinting to a medium format enclosure and a little more design time. 

Lets look at our cone displacement using 1000 watts of power

Our extended low frequency is at much higher levels of displacement vs our compact enclosure, this further indicates some design consideration must be taken into optimizing the driver to produce a balance.

With 1000 watts we are producing just over 121dB almost 122dB in the bottom end, with our extended low frequency enclosure dominating 30hz like crazy. Strikingly very similar to the B&C 18DS115, both are not the loudest of 18's around when compared to cheaper models from both brands respectfully but hint at balanced performance and control over sheer output or extensions.

So to conclude my initial thoughts  on the Faitalpro 18XL2000

Faitalpro most definitely have produced a class leading product, it is an impressive speaker which has some great design choice's and excellent parameters.

I don't believe this type of speaker is for most guys looking to blast people away with erotic levels of deep bass at extreme spl levels - Rather I see the 18XL targeting the professional touring guys or installations that demand critical application in small to medium sized enclosures.

If you don't have tons of experience in designing and modeling enclosures the 18XL will challenge you to find that balance in performance and cheaper options from Faitalpro might not only be louder such as the Faitalpro 18HP160 Neo or the 1070 series but also far easier to get right for a "Novice or intermediate builder". The  Faitalpro 18XL2000 is for the professionals offering key features that lend itself to a more demanding application.