Your basic answer is that HT generally emphasizes SPL over fidelity. This is not to say that a sub designed to compliment higher-end HT components is necessarily crap.
Depending on your budget, I would look at REL and Velodyne. Of course, this is DIY so I'm sure there's some good stuff around here.
I would not discount ported designs. Sealed enclosures can give tighter bass in a smaller volume with a cheaper driver. Do not think a larger driver will sound better. It's about construction of both the driver and the enclosure. Exotic materials in a sub driver are as useful as the teats on a bull unless you want to loosen the nails in your home.
Without getting huge, cabinet volume is important as well as how much headroom the amp has (if you're thinking powered, which I would.) Headroom is not likely provided in most stats.
Avoid woofers with foam surrounds and consider the weight of the magnet structure. I personally would not consider any sub that won't include that in the specs.
Also, before you start, try to get a good idea about how far down your sats will go and make sure the sub will play up that high without a notch. Don't plan on putting a sub closer than 18" from a wall if you can avoid it.
A sub should have line level inputs. Use the speaker level inputs only if necessary.
P
You are looking for the right things.
Proper integration requires an even phase response through the crossover region, bi- amping makes this fairly easy, while good sounding passive crossovers are quite expensive and hard to get right.
An "audiophile" sub should have flat response, good transient behavior, and low distortion. Cost goes up when trying to do those things well down to very low frequencies at high SPL level, especially if a small cabinet volume is desired.
Subs suck for they are ugly and they are not a stereo pair. Except for in-wall and in-ceiling ones, they don't suck, they are good.
Actually a stereo pair is two subs with mid and high range drivers incorporated in the same boxes and crossed over to a common driving signal feed.
Bass is delivered by certain amount of cone area traveling certain distance per cycle. The more the better.
It depends on the interior of your listening space and the building. Some buildings are just not bass friendly, while others are very bass friendly. You should first clarify this and then decide between a stereo pair or subs.
In a bass friendly environment, those: OBL11
Might be all you'll ever need.
You can use Fostex full range and super tweeter and still be in budget.
Here you'll find more easy projects which sound excellent and have lots of bass Quarter Wavelength Loudspeaker Projects
And it depends on how big speakers can you tolerate.
Anyway, a stereo pair is more attractive and more classical, anything beyond it should be considered only in case a stereo pair is not going to work properly for some reason.
Actually a stereo pair is two subs with mid and high range drivers incorporated in the same boxes and crossed over to a common driving signal feed.
Bass is delivered by certain amount of cone area traveling certain distance per cycle. The more the better.
It depends on the interior of your listening space and the building. Some buildings are just not bass friendly, while others are very bass friendly. You should first clarify this and then decide between a stereo pair or subs.
In a bass friendly environment, those: OBL11
Might be all you'll ever need.
You can use Fostex full range and super tweeter and still be in budget.
Here you'll find more easy projects which sound excellent and have lots of bass Quarter Wavelength Loudspeaker Projects
And it depends on how big speakers can you tolerate.
Anyway, a stereo pair is more attractive and more classical, anything beyond it should be considered only in case a stereo pair is not going to work properly for some reason.
It is more important how they are arranged and integrated. Closed box systems are a good choice, the levels you see at a given frequency are more dependent on the room than on the type of box and the other typical concerns. If you use a few, they don't have to be big.
I disagree with this. I wouldn't mind having continuously variable phase in 1/3 octave bands. Passive crossovers needn't be comprehensive or expensive, and I don't see why either one need be any more complex to set up than the other.
REL --> Fidelity
....what? these things compress half the signal. They're an overpriced joke. Try SVS, Rythmik, Funk Audio, and Salk for tight musical subwoofers. But this is a DIY site and we can beat their prices.
Are we talking about commercially? An audiophile sub will be as small as possible. A little 8" woofer squeezed onto a minicube. the typical best buy HT sub will probably be poorly vented with boomy resonant overhanging chuffing bass.
Now a good HT sub will be accurate with flat frequency response, multiples spaced throughout the room. verylow distortion, multiples spaced throughout the room, freedom from dynamic compression, and well damped internally, and EQ'd flat in-room
A good music sub will be accurate with flat frequency response, very low distortion multiples spaced throughout the room, freedom from dynamic compression, and well damped internally, and EQ'd flat in-room.
The main difference is that with HT, you want to be able to hit 115db, as well as hitting 110+db as far down as 10hz. The only real solution to this is to have concrete bunker rooms and multiple massive sealed subs - 15s and 18s with inches of stroke and tons of power. If using a vent or an undercapable driver, you will need to use a high pass filter.
A music sub can normally get away with just extending to 18hz or so at ~105db SPLS, so normally are less power hungry and not as large... CSS Trio 12 sealed and linkwitz transform is probably all we need for music and no high pass filter is necessary - because music wouldn't likely bottom the driver.
Huh?
Can you give examples? I thought those little subs were mainly for cheap HT or "OK" computer systems.Huh?
here's a few examples of what I had in mind.. the offerings of some of the big players:
REL Acoustics : Great Britan's most acclaimed Sub Bass Systems
SUNFIRE: True Sub Super Junior - TS-SJ8
Velodyne MiniVee 8-Inch Powered Subwoofer (Black): Amazon.ca: Electronics
Velodyne MicroVee 6.5-Inch Powered Subwoofer (White): Amazon.ca: Electronics
Experience the B&W ASW610 - Bowers & Wilkins | B&W Speakers
Focal Dôme subwoofer, for Dôme hifi satellites
Seismic? 110 - Welcome to the New Official Paradigm® Website.
MSW-10 | M Series | Monitor Audio
etc...and of course as you probably know, it's a common audiophile myth that smaller = "faster" bass
Of course there's some fantastic audiophile subs too, like this PMC:
PMC Ltd
but at that price, we could buy the same or even better driver and build like... eight of them for distrubted bass with more headroom and deeper extension.
Thanks for the examples! I guess I just didn't know about stuff like that - since to me a 10" is a midrange driver.
These things happen when "fast" bass is whisked away from the back of pickup trucks.
Of course, you may be talking about amphitheater sound. That's the best part of this place: everybody's here.
P
here's a few examples of what I had in mind.. the offerings of some of the big players:
REL Acoustics : Great Britan's most acclaimed Sub Bass Systems
SUNFIRE: True Sub Super Junior - TS-SJ8
Velodyne MiniVee 8-Inch Powered Subwoofer (Black): Amazon.ca: Electronics
Velodyne MicroVee 6.5-Inch Powered Subwoofer (White): Amazon.ca: Electronics
Experience the B&W ASW610 - Bowers & Wilkins | B&W Speakers
Focal Dôme subwoofer, for Dôme hifi satellites
Seismic? 110 - Welcome to the New Official Paradigm® Website.
MSW-10 | M Series | Monitor Audio
etc...and of course as you probably know, it's a common audiophile myth that smaller = "faster" bass
Of course there's some fantastic audiophile subs too, like this PMC:
PMC Ltd
but at that price, we could buy the same or even better driver and build like... eight of them for distrubted bass with more headroom and deeper extension.
+1 except that home made is tool-time-skill dependent. There are plenty of affordable self-powered subs for most folks' room size.
Except that most listening places and woofer placement make a HUGH difference in how the system sounds. Read your sub's instructions about how far away from the walls.
If they are home made, do this: play music and put one hand on the sub and the other on the nearest wall. Adjust the distance to that wall until the vibration seems the same. Then put your hand on the sub and the OTHER wall and do the same.
Repeat until both walls/sub feel the same. The distance can be as little as 1/8" and the speakers can move back and forth in both directions when you are doing this.
Sit back and see if the bass is too much. If there's too much bass, you can then adjust the sub volume knowing the frequency of the sub will be OK with the wall so long as the test volume was OK.
P
Tuning the xover point and volumes is sometimes a challenge.
Thanks for the examples! I guess I just didn't know about stuff like that - since to me a 10" is a midrange driver.
There is no substitute for cubic inch's , those small subs work OK, but nothing like a big un. Biggest issue is their close proximity to the floor and multiple subs do work best when done in a specific spread, room and seat location is important..
For best subwoofer coverage best to go up .....
Extends to "just" 18Hz.....and at 105dB?
What genre of music regularly requires that kind of performance?
Extends to "just" 18Hz.....and at 105dB?
What genre of music regularly requires that kind of performance?
You would be surprised to find out just how much information there is in the bottom octave in a fair amount of music and I still don't understand the logic people use to justify not being able to reproduce it. It's part of the spectrum.
What percentage of music or sound sources would have to contain information from 18-25 hz before you'd consider it beneficial to be able to reproduce it?
10%? 20%?
This isn't rhetorical, I'm looking for the answer from someone who says: "there's not enough information down there to warrant reproduction." Please tell me what your personal threshold is in percent, that recorded media would have to contain before you yourself would consider it necessary to reproduce.
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For me that's not a valid question. There are always trade-offs. The trade-offs I would have to make to have clean, strong output down to 18Hz are not worth it. It would be nice to have it (tho a lot of old recordings just have junk down there) but I'm not willing to go to the lengths needed to get it. I want my limited resources to go other places.
It may be much more important to other folks.
Yeah, the tradeoff argument is a valid one, so I understand that some folks say it's because they can't have subs that size or powerful or what have you, but I'm asking about people who say they don't care about performance down there just because they don't think there's any musical information down there, no other things considered.
"I'd love to have subs that went down to 15hz but my (room size / budget / waf) ..." is a valid discussion, I just think "I don't want / need subs that go down to 15hz because there's nothing worth reproducing down there." isn't.
Bach Organ Works, Passacaglia and Fugue, Toccata and Fugue, Pastorale and etc. Listen to them on three different systems, let's say 1. F6=34 Hz; 2. F3=26-28 Hz and 3. F3= under 20 Hz.
Well, if you have first listened to 3 and then listen to the same tracks on system 1, there is a great possibility you won't be able to tell if it is the same track.
There are allot of differences on other types of music, but it's not that dramatic.
DC to infinity system response should be the desired one.
There are allot of great sounding F3=40 Hz systems, no doubt in that, but since we hear 20-20 this should be the desired response.
Multi subs, maybe I'm wrong, but I am orthodox stereo fan. The question to answer is "Why go multiple subs if you can have 15-18-21 inch woofered main speakers which look scary?".
Well, if you have first listened to 3 and then listen to the same tracks on system 1, there is a great possibility you won't be able to tell if it is the same track.
There are allot of differences on other types of music, but it's not that dramatic.
DC to infinity system response should be the desired one.
There are allot of great sounding F3=40 Hz systems, no doubt in that, but since we hear 20-20 this should be the desired response.
Multi subs, maybe I'm wrong, but I am orthodox stereo fan. The question to answer is "Why go multiple subs if you can have 15-18-21 inch woofered main speakers which look scary?".
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