Correct. My post was mostly for the benefit of anyone that had the impression that making a low Fs driver was difficult OR for anyone who figured that it was as simple as just adding mass, without creating other problems.
I didn't mean to completely kill the idea, however --'Just examining the tradeoffs. It's a completely valid approach, in conjunction with other ways to lower Fs, such as making an extremely compliant (looose) suspension and spider. In the end, The engineering and costs required to address the tradeoffs just get to be impractical and costly.
No harm in dreaming and improving on existing technologies. I just know that drivers have really only improved in relatively tiny ways in the past 50 years, and very few new ideas come up that Harry Olson hadn't wrote about many years ago.
Keep looking, though!
Wonderful comment about Olson. I share your outlook... to a degree.
Long time since, but did Olson address multiple subs directly? Toole has quite a bit of coverage. Many of us are delighted by the benefits we find.
Footnote: the real progress yet to be made, in my view, and aside from ESL speakers, is Olson's colleague at the RCA Camden lab, Werner, who worked on motional feedback. He said almost all that needs to be said on the subject in 1957.
Long time since, but did Olson address multiple subs directly? Toole has quite a bit of coverage. Many of us are delighted by the benefits we find.
Footnote: the real progress yet to be made, in my view, and aside from ESL speakers, is Olson's colleague at the RCA Camden lab, Werner, who worked on motional feedback. He said almost all that needs to be said on the subject in 1957.
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What to choose?
I am in Shanghai China and I have 1 factory that can make custom cabinets and another factory that makes high quality drivers. My room is 15x17x8.
I will be watching movies and I want low, thump in the chest bass.
Assuming equal cost, what is a better bet??
A large fridgerator sized TH, FLH (THT/F20 etc) or multiple smaller subs?
I am in Shanghai China and I have 1 factory that can make custom cabinets and another factory that makes high quality drivers. My room is 15x17x8.
I will be watching movies and I want low, thump in the chest bass.
Assuming equal cost, what is a better bet??
A large fridgerator sized TH, FLH (THT/F20 etc) or multiple smaller subs?
Joking aside, a few months ago, I asked about chest resonance and was told is was none too low.
First, we need to distinguish the quality smooth bass Earl alludes to and what passes for big chest thumping bass in movies. And I bet home movie DVD recordings have cheesy bass that is different than real movie theatre bass.
This distinction in purposes and sources leads to different designs. Big cheesy thump is achievable with a resonant box tuned for 50 Hz.
Not for me to pass moral judgment on the tastes of others.
First, we need to distinguish the quality smooth bass Earl alludes to and what passes for big chest thumping bass in movies. And I bet home movie DVD recordings have cheesy bass that is different than real movie theatre bass.
This distinction in purposes and sources leads to different designs. Big cheesy thump is achievable with a resonant box tuned for 50 Hz.
Not for me to pass moral judgment on the tastes of others.
Chest resonance will of course vary from person to person, but frequencies well above 100 Hz at loud enough level will be felt in the chest.
My particular chest has a lower resonance at 47 hz, and an upper harmonic centered around 125 Hz.
Movies are often remixed for DVD from the theatrical release, usually reflecting the difference between mixing for a large room vs a small room, not generally restricting LF bandwidth.
The difference between the small theaters in multiplexes and a large home theater is not much, so the differences in mixes are not huge.
Of course, different engineers will take different approaches, just as with music mixes, some will use more HP than others.
The DVD soundtrack for the movie “Inception” takes advantage of resonant sounds at multiple cascading frequencies, almost looking like pink noise in spectrum from below 25 Hz up to around 4K, but managing to sound far louder.
Whether a system went to down to 10 Hz or only 100 Hz, the way it was mixed would give a feel of oppressive bass during many of the effect sequences.
I had read that the “War of the Worlds” remake had a lot of LF material, having seen it a few days after watching the “Inception” DVD, it seemed anemic by comparison.
Frankly, my intuition is that sound for movies for home use are as badly mangled and exaggerated for "lowest common denominator" playback systems as is the norm for pop music recordings.
I see no reason to expect the producers of these sound tracks to show any more taste and good judgment than they show in developing their nonsense movie content for the consumption of teens.
I see no reason to expect the producers of these sound tracks to show any more taste and good judgment than they show in developing their nonsense movie content for the consumption of teens.
Nice use of the word "some" because, in line with the topic of this thread, heterogeneity is the key. I know the very thought of mixing-and-matching causes some persons of an amateur engineering persuasion to have upset tummy, but it is the way to go.
Not suggesting I set a perfect example, but I have a corner horn joined by a mid-wall giant OB. The Klipsch shakes the walls and wafts bass around the room. But it is the OB that plays the lowest notes. Nice smooth bass in my room between them.
Not suggesting I set a perfect example, but I have a corner horn joined by a mid-wall giant OB. The Klipsch shakes the walls and wafts bass around the room. But it is the OB that plays the lowest notes. Nice smooth bass in my room between them.
That does not change the fact that people can have the best HT playback system possible.
For me that is displacement without distortion down to 10Hz. This allows me to have a great experience with a movie like Tron, Legacy that Im pretty sure someone like yourself will argue is simply a crap movie.
One thing I have observed about movies is that the clean high dynamics still exist. They have not been compressed like music recording have due to Loudness wars, etc.
yeah, chest thumping is really from 40Hz to 200Hz. Most people think they need only great subwoofers but then forget about the mains. They have wimpy 6.5" drivers in mains so what they end up with is great performance from 40Hz to 80Hz then a complete mismatch/drop off in performance above that.
Chest thumping is just the start once people experience the bottom octave and the "bodu compression/hair raising" experience of that they will then never enjoy going out to the movies again because it will just feel limited.
Hi All, I;ve been playing around with multiple subs for a while now. I like the results enough to get serious about it. I have two good subs and two junk CL subs. The other day I bought two speakers just because I like the cabs and think they would be good to replace the CL subs. Here are pix of the cabs. After I gut them and brace them and install the plate amps, I will have about 1 cu ft of of box volume. So, what would be a good driver to use? More importantly, will these work for what I'm thinking?
One cube is pretty small, you will need EQ. For what driver to use, these seem ideally suited to the apex jr. "Super 8".
Speaker Stuff 2/3 down.
BTW: those woofers look quality, I'd be sure to give 'em a listen before chucking.
Speaker Stuff 2/3 down.
BTW: those woofers look quality, I'd be sure to give 'em a listen before chucking.
I looked at the plate amps I have and I am not sure they will work. I used them with my Alpha 15s in "H" frames but the Alphas are fairly effiencent. THe amps are CRU (with the R facing backward) and only put out 70wpc. I can't find any data on them and I ASSUME, they don't have any way to adjust the bass boost. I did order the Super 8 subwoofers though. THey look like hell on wheels although being called a "subwoofer" I was surprised the Fs was only 47hz Seems like more of a woofer to me.
I was just looking on PE for another pair of amps and I found the ones I have. Very entry level. might be 100wpc into 2.6ohms.
So, how do I go about setting up a room with mutipl subs? When I set my room up with the junk subs, I just placed them on 4 walls and dialed them in by ear. I'd like to take a more purposeful approach this time.
So, how do I go about setting up a room with mutipl subs? When I set my room up with the junk subs, I just placed them on 4 walls and dialed them in by ear. I'd like to take a more purposeful approach this time.
