What should i tune my tempest to for rock music?

[clipper10]

Hey guys. I have been playing around with winisd and looking at the recommended boxes from adire for the tempest. I was wondering if 7cf tuned to 20 hz would be bad sounding for rock. It seems like something i would want to have for movies. I can build a box from 2cf all the way to 8, but i don't know if i should go sealed or ported and what a good tuning freguency would be. I have axiom m80's as towers because i didn't think i was capable of making good towers, but i am builing the temppest box because it will be hidden. I listen to bands like metallica, disturbed, and godsmack if that helps.

[leadbelly]

For the bands you are describing, the Adire reference design for sealed, high Q=0.9 sounds best.

I actually have a Tempest, sealed, Q < 0.7, and a lot of Metallica. Is there some specific track you want me to play to comment on?

[clipper10]

i like the old metallica. Stuff like one and sanitarium. I think that i am either doing the box sealed with the adire alignment with a q of .7 or doing vented with the adire alignment q of .7. I think that this will benefit me because it will allow me to play some movies on it as well. I think i am going to build the ported, but does any one know what three in ports kits with 11 inch long center tubes means? I understand the 3 inch ports, but does the 11 mean that it should be 11 inches long?

[leadbelly]

Well, I did listen to a few tracks on Master of Puppets, including Sanitarium, and it did sound very overdamped to me, like the sub was simply not able to keep up with the fast drum beats and was dropping a bunch of them. It did sound clean, like it wasn't a source problem.

Anyone care to comment on how to improve transient response?

[Nathan]

I got a set of M50 Ti's and they are phenominal! What do yours sound like and what are they loaded with? Axiom is a good company...made just up the road from me in Dwight.

[navin]

beofre i start a flame war i must clairfy that these comments are general.

normally a sealed box with a low Q (0.6 or so) sounds tight. However with proper room placement i have made my sealed boxes (Q 0.8) sound tight too. ANother problem comes from the recordings.

the same speaker sounds wonderful on certain tracks and booms on others then again sounds thin on others. I have conducted long term exprements with a few speakers I have built. Almost all of them suffer this syndrome. One way to compensate fo some of this is by going active.

by going active i dont mean simply using 2 amps but a parametric EQ for the bass. I have found the Audio Control C101 (this is a very old model) works fine for this purpose. It is not as transparent as i'd like but given the choices i'd rather loose some tranparency than have boom, over hang, etc...

[thylantyr]

Originally posted by leadbelly
Well, I did listen to a few tracks on Master of Puppets, including Sanitarium, and it did sound very overdamped to me, like the sub was simply not able to keep up with the fast drum beats and was dropping a bunch of them. It did sound clean, like it wasn't a source problem.

Anyone care to comment on how to improve transient response?

Old school thrash music rules!

Subwoofers and thrash music don't
mix well, you lose the cool bass guitar jams, you lose the cool drum solos, the only thing you gain is low frequency rumble generated by the
Tempest or any other high xmax woofer- hehe.....

Obviously, there is a problem because you heard the music lacking, most people don't have the ear to notice
such details...

Perhaps what you seek is a bass
subsystem consisting of dual woofers for this type of music. Use the Tempest low pass 60hz for rumble
as a seperate subwoofer somewhere in the corner of the room, get a
Lambda TD15 in a sealed box and integrate this into the main cabinet design, perhaps operating in the
range between 60hz to 300hz.

The Lambda has great sonics for
bass guitar jams and drum solos
in this frequency range.

If two woofers are not an option,
then plan B would be to sacrifice
some rumble of the Tempest and
concentrate on sound quality perhaps
porting the Lambda to 35hz with
dual 4" flared ports and getting rid
of the Tempest....

To me, the Lambda sonics were very
good in a ported box, oddly enough I
did prefer it over the sealed design,
the dual rear ports minimzed the port noise, power handling increased, and
cone excursion was less near tuning, it worked better than expected, typically sealed boxes are stereotyped as having the best sound.

hehe

Pretty crazy idea...

I'm gonna use six TD15's in my
cabinet design... designed for
thrash/rock music specifically......

[clipper10]

hey i want to thank you for the responses.

The Lambda has great sonics for
bass guitar jams and drum solos
in this frequency range.

I can't find anything about the Lambda TD15 though. Would it be better for me than the tempest?
my m80 ti's are running off an adcom 5500. I want to have something to keep up with them so my original idea was to port. Would it be possible to build a ported box with a high q that can be sealed to then become a lower q when i want it? I don't know if i can do the dual lambda/tempest design simply because the room may not fit all that. I don't know if i want to 15s seperate from one another in my room. That could be a little to much bass, but if i can manage it maybe i will give it a try. Since my box building skills are not fantastic i don't want two ugly boxes sitting ugly in the corners of my room.

Also, am i maybe doing the wrong thing by going for 15s, would a shiva or another 12 be better for my music? Maybe i could get two shivas or something.

[leadbelly]

Thanks for the tips. Your new rig sounds like it'll be wicked for thrash!

Actually, the Tempest is in my HT setup, so I won't be considering major additions there. That's why I was listening to Metallica for the 1st time on it. Playing with stuffing is about the most I could do.

For my music rig, I'm planning to build a pair of super-cheap dipoles from 4 12" $14 woofers with a Qts of 2.1 and Xmax of 3mm, and I'll cross them over much higher. Hopefully, they'll do a much better job.

[thylantyr]

http://www.lambdacoustics.com/

It's a "one-man" part-time business...

TD15H is what I chose, Apollo version..
http://www.lambdacoustics.com/drivers/TDdrivers.html

LE motor, no faraday ring. $179
"Regular" motor, single faraday ring. $279
Apollo motor, triple faraday ring. $479

Lambda stripped of it's "magic" = LE version,
which is the same as any other woofer on the
market.

I wouldn't get anything less than "regular" motor
*if* you plan to crossover much higher, ie, perhaps
300hz - 500hz. For low pass 100hz, LE = good since
not much midrange exits the woofer. The higher you
crossover the woofer, the more of the "magic" sound
you get from the faraday motor versions, Apollo being the
best one.

Whether these woofers work in your application
depends on how you would integrate them with
the rest of the system. If you need a subwoofer low
pass 60hz - 100hz, then any woofer can do this job.
If you are making an exotic 3 way where the woofer
needs to meet the midrange at a higher crossover frequency,
then the Lambda's shine in performance. If you were
building 2 ways, the Apollo's would beat any other driver
hands down, especially if you ran the crossover up to 1.5khz....

If you ever listened to an Apollo full range, you'll be shocked
at the clarity of the vocals, normal 15" woofers just can
do what this woofer does with midrange, plus the midbass
and bass guitar sonics are awesome. Most people
don't run 15's full range, but it shows what it's capable of...