Hi all
I am thinking of building a pair of speakers that are capable of high SPL. My goal is to achieve a bass-slam and dynamic which is comparable to something I hear in my car.
I remember reading from somewhere that to achieve this I should go with a critically damped design, and some recommended to go for horns, and some said closed box is better.
Anyone else like the sound of your car-audio? It's very fast and detailed, and the bass quality is really good - fast and plenty. I want to have that sound at home.
Thanks
Doug
I am thinking of building a pair of speakers that are capable of high SPL. My goal is to achieve a bass-slam and dynamic which is comparable to something I hear in my car.
I remember reading from somewhere that to achieve this I should go with a critically damped design, and some recommended to go for horns, and some said closed box is better.
Anyone else like the sound of your car-audio? It's very fast and detailed, and the bass quality is really good - fast and plenty. I want to have that sound at home.
Thanks
Doug
Doug Kim said:So is there no way I can keep my room as-is?
Will it be helpful to achieve my goal if I put 4 speakers at each corner, just like a car's cabin?
Doug
I think you can do it, depending on the size of the room. If four 21" speakers fail, you can always have four arrays of 21" speakers. Not sure how high your electricity bill will get though.
Find a car that satisfies you desires. Calculate the woofer displacement in that car. Divide by actual cabin volume.
Determine your room volume. Now calculate woofer displacement needed to achieve the same ratio.
Now be prepared to add substantial EQ (like a +12db shelf starting at maybe 150 Hz until room gain kicks in) to simulate the Cabin-gain that a car adds.
Without careful placement, it will just be loud garbage.
To make it "fast and clean" consult the Harman/JBL/Floyd o'Toole articles on multiple sub placement.
May God help your neighbors if you achieve that level of pressure in a decent sized room . . .
Determine your room volume. Now calculate woofer displacement needed to achieve the same ratio.
Now be prepared to add substantial EQ (like a +12db shelf starting at maybe 150 Hz until room gain kicks in) to simulate the Cabin-gain that a car adds.
Without careful placement, it will just be loud garbage.
To make it "fast and clean" consult the Harman/JBL/Floyd o'Toole articles on multiple sub placement.
May God help your neighbors if you achieve that level of pressure in a decent sized room . . .
i say go with lots of cone area. so lots of subs, the larger the better and lots of power, preferably in ported enclosures, tuned low for a fuller bass.
if you want to keep them out of view. install them in the attic facing down in the room, cut out enough ceiling for the port and sub face to freely play in to the room and use grill cloth that matches the room color to cover the speaker and port.
if you want to keep them out of view. install them in the attic facing down in the room, cut out enough ceiling for the port and sub face to freely play in to the room and use grill cloth that matches the room color to cover the speaker and port.
Thanks all for great (and funny too) suggestions.
I don't quite listen to music very loud all the time, but sometimes I just feel like doing so. My car with Mark Levinson audio stuff serves well for that purpose, clean and loud and fast sound without any distortion.
But you know I only do that for a short period time, and seldomly.
Then why did I ask this question when I can just go for a driving for short time?
Not only the car audio gives very high SPL, but even at a lower volume, the sound quality is something I really like. I think (I might be wrong) it is related to the shape (no parallel walls) and the material (mostly sound absorbing yet some reflection from windows) of the cabin, also proximity of speaker units to my ears.
Thus I'm thinking of imitating the cabin in my room.
What about near field monitors with decent subwoofer(s)?
Thanks
Doug
I don't quite listen to music very loud all the time, but sometimes I just feel like doing so. My car with Mark Levinson audio stuff serves well for that purpose, clean and loud and fast sound without any distortion.
But you know I only do that for a short period time, and seldomly.
Then why did I ask this question when I can just go for a driving for short time?
Not only the car audio gives very high SPL, but even at a lower volume, the sound quality is something I really like. I think (I might be wrong) it is related to the shape (no parallel walls) and the material (mostly sound absorbing yet some reflection from windows) of the cabin, also proximity of speaker units to my ears.
Thus I'm thinking of imitating the cabin in my room.
What about near field monitors with decent subwoofer(s)?
Thanks
Doug
bastek said:
Yes, the biggest shortcomings of car audio is the lack of imaging and sound stage.
But also the last thing I care about is imaging and sound stage. I really don't care where the violins coming from Beethoven symphony 5, or how forward or backward of stage Nora Jones is singing.
I sometimes go to live music. Yes imaging and sound stage matters (and they are there, of course) for the live performance because I see where the violin is and where Nora Jones is, with my eyes.
I only care about imaging and soundstage of reproduced music when it is from music DVD with screen.
I have a nice headphone system but it lacks those sound pressure I can feel.
thanks
Doug
i may oversimplify a little with this, but it should work:
bass in car audio is so smooth because of the absence of room modes, since the car is too small and leaky to have severe modes. it is strong, because the sub only has to work in a small volume.
to get this feeling in a real room you have to do two things.
1) scale up the woofer, since it has to work in a bigger room. usually, 12 inch woofers should make enough spl for most needs.
2) make the room response smooth, just like in the car. this one is tricky, since you cant make the room as small as a car. the easiest (only works in a rectangle room) way is to use two identical subwoofers. put the first in the middle of one wall. put the second on the opposing wall, also in the middle. feed the same signal to both woofers, so that they work not in stereo but in mono. this should give quite a smooth response. if it isnt satisfying, you could try to put the woofers into diagonally opposing room corners.
crossover at around 80hz with 24db/oct active sub amp. depending on the kind of music you hear a lower frequency limit of about 40hz may be enough. most kinds of dance oriented music have no important content below 40hz.
bass in car audio is so smooth because of the absence of room modes, since the car is too small and leaky to have severe modes. it is strong, because the sub only has to work in a small volume.
to get this feeling in a real room you have to do two things.
1) scale up the woofer, since it has to work in a bigger room. usually, 12 inch woofers should make enough spl for most needs.
2) make the room response smooth, just like in the car. this one is tricky, since you cant make the room as small as a car. the easiest (only works in a rectangle room) way is to use two identical subwoofers. put the first in the middle of one wall. put the second on the opposing wall, also in the middle. feed the same signal to both woofers, so that they work not in stereo but in mono. this should give quite a smooth response. if it isnt satisfying, you could try to put the woofers into diagonally opposing room corners.
crossover at around 80hz with 24db/oct active sub amp. depending on the kind of music you hear a lower frequency limit of about 40hz may be enough. most kinds of dance oriented music have no important content below 40hz.
Mavo
Thanks 100x for the nice info. That's very practical something I can try (not shrinking down my rooms or listening to the music mostly in the bathrooms
)
I got one question. I don't remember pretty well (it was before I learned how to use del.icio.us and save bookmarks from any computer), but I read from somewhere that bass that matters most for the "slam" to the body is somewhere in 100 - 200 Hz range. So not only the subwoofers but also the main speakers themselves play important role here.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Doug
Thanks 100x for the nice info. That's very practical something I can try (not shrinking down my rooms or listening to the music mostly in the bathrooms
)I got one question. I don't remember pretty well (it was before I learned how to use del.icio.us and save bookmarks from any computer), but I read from somewhere that bass that matters most for the "slam" to the body is somewhere in 100 - 200 Hz range. So not only the subwoofers but also the main speakers themselves play important role here.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Doug
Hi,
Bass Slam needs 3 things :
high volume, good bass extension, good transient response.
I have heard this sort of bass in a car system I tuned, the bass was
visceral and smooth, but unfortunately the sort of levels where you
would need to be considerably larger than any of your neighbours ....
Bass in rooms is a different kettle of fish, natural sounding
deep bass at modest levels I'd suggest is more satisfying
than an occasional dip into unnatural disco level madness.
The above has nothing to do with high SPL speakers, it does relate
to high volume displacement in the deep bass. The deeper you want
to go the more displacement you need. Further up it could be very
loud but that is not the point, the displacement is used for extension.
/sreten.
Bass Slam needs 3 things :
high volume, good bass extension, good transient response.
I have heard this sort of bass in a car system I tuned, the bass was
visceral and smooth, but unfortunately the sort of levels where you
would need to be considerably larger than any of your neighbours ....
Bass in rooms is a different kettle of fish, natural sounding
deep bass at modest levels I'd suggest is more satisfying
than an occasional dip into unnatural disco level madness.
The above has nothing to do with high SPL speakers, it does relate
to high volume displacement in the deep bass. The deeper you want
to go the more displacement you need. Further up it could be very
loud but that is not the point, the displacement is used for extension.
/sreten.
sreten said:Hi,
Bass Slam needs 3 things :
high volume, good bass extension, good transient response.
I have heard this sort of bass in a car system I tuned, the bass was
visceral and smooth, but unfortunately the sort of levels where you
would need to be considerably larger than any of your neighbours ....
Bass in rooms is a different kettle of fish, natural sounding
deep bass at modest levels I'd suggest is more satisfying
than an occasional dip into unnatural disco level madness.
The above has nothing to do with high SPL speakers, it does relate
to high volume displacement in the deep bass. The deeper you want
to go the more displacement you need. Further up it could be very
loud but that is not the point, the displacement is used for extension.
Sreten,
Thanks a lot for the informative reply.
So if we go back to my original question, is there any one type of speaker that are (generally, statistically, whatever) accepted to be good for that purpose? I'm just wondering my knowledge I got from somewhere (probably wrong) that closed box 3-way design with 12" or 15" woofer is good for this (think about Cello Stradivari Legend).
Doug
The slam in the chest is around 80hz i think, maybe 70 if you are a big guy. You could google the resonance frequencies of your body parts and see for yourself. As the frequency goes down, quite funny places can be in resonance. Basslines lie around 40-80hz for typical dance music like techno, dnb, house etc. Below this are mostly special effects in movies or experimental music.
But like Sreten says, chances are, that your neighbours will complain before you really feel body resonances. Still, bass from speakers is alot more satisfying than bass from headphones, even at moderate levels.
But like Sreten says, chances are, that your neighbours will complain before you really feel body resonances. Still, bass from speakers is alot more satisfying than bass from headphones, even at moderate levels.
wg_ski said:
The latest live music attendance for me was "Progressive Nation" featuring Dream Theatre and bunch of death metal bands, and imaging and sound staging couldn't be even thought of since I blocked my ears with tissues not to damage them.
The other time when I was at some kind of modern opera performance, at the back seat, it sounded like a mono Gramophone.
I know there are people whose ears are so sensitive so they can even pinpoint where the 1st violin and 2nd violin are from NY Phil, not me. I just don't care and I mostly don't face toward speakers while the music is playing.
Doug
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