Hey Bren,
Maybe you should try writing for some of those comedy shows that were still on when I left Canada. "This Hour Has 22 Minutes..." Royal Canadian Air Farce"? Are those still on the CBC? Bean night in Attica!
Back to the woofer thing. The motive force--the voice coil--is at the apex of any cone woofer, so the larger the cone, the greater the tendency of it to flex as it moves rapidly back and forth. It should operate as a perfect piston, but with big cones, they don't. This in turn produces break-up modes of unwanted resonances that color the sound. It's a form of distortion, in effect.
So by keeping woofer cones much smaller, and using lightweight rigid materials like aluminum, as well as several woofers, you largely eliminate breakup and the resulting resonances. Smaller and stiffer, as the actress said to the bishop. . .
Regards,
