Helper Woofer(s) for "punchy" FAST/WWW/SAW/etc. to go w/ Fane 12" full range drivers

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Helper Woofer(s) for "punchy" FAST/WWW/SAW/etc. to go w/ Fane 12" full range drivers

See my unnecessarily long thread on the speaker concept here:
Full Range Build, 12" driver...

Basically a typical build using a full range driver for most of the spectrum, with stereo helper woofers for the lows. Full range drivers selected are Fane 12" 12-250tc. Crossover will be an adjustable electronic unit, so I can futz around with the xo point and see what sounds best, but 150 - 750 hz is the anticipated window, based on what I've heard and read here. FR and Woofers will be bi-amped from some older Yamaha receivers and will each receive ~80w.

Helper Woofer parameters:
1. Punchy! Looking for that "hit you in the chest" feel, ability to be cranked up to 11.
2. Able to be run up to volume = 11 with only 80 watts, so we need some efficiency. Amp can be run at 8 ohms or 4 ohms, so there are some options for woofers and multiples in parallel, etc.
3. Space is of some concern, both footprint and height. The full range cabinets will sit on top of woofer cabinets, so the woofer cabs can only go up so high. A reasonable footprint of less than 24 x 24 would be ideal but not mandatory. Probably not enough room for any fancy horn or TL business.
4. Punchy, not boomy! Primary application is for music in my living room (so things like kick drums hitting hard would be ideal). I know, I know, a properly designed bass reflex isn't necessarily boomy, but I'm pretty sure I want to just go with a simple sealed enclosure here.
5. Secondary function is for HT use, so it would be nice if they dug down to around 40 hz anyway.
6. There will be a dedicated HT SUBwoofer for HT use only, which will cover approx the 20-60 hz range.
7. Living room is approx 25 ft wide x 12ft deep with 8ft ceiling, but there are doorways in both front corners, so speakers are inboard of doorways (so no corner loading currently - though a move is in the near future so this will change).
8. I had my heart set on 1x 18"s for each side originally, but it would seem that 2x 15"s per side has a greater cone area, Sd, and for the same Xmax will move more air (more punch), and perhaps the 15"s having a typically lighter cone mass creates a "faster" sound. I've never dealt with 18s and have limited experience with 15s - most of my experience is with 12"s. If a 12" goes "punch", and a 15" goes "PUNCH!", and a 18" goes "Thud!", then it seems that 15" is the happy medium size (highly technical comparison, for talking points sake mostly).
9. Headroom is a good thing. Ideally the woofers wouldn't be pushed past Xmax for any reasonably sane volume. In fact ideally they wouldn't have to work hard at all.
10. As you may have guessed, there's a budget in play here. There's only about 250 bucks remaining for the helper woofers, though we'll pretend that wood and other little bits are free and just concentrate on the drivers. Budget might be stretched slightly for something awesome, but seems that there's enough there for some entry 18"s, 15"s, etc.
11. Foam surrounds suck, would prefer something with a cloth or accordion surround. Durability and longevity are important. Sound is important. Looks are not important.

I've played around with WinISD a bit now, and have a feel for it. My current favorite for the helper woofer is a pair of 8 ohm 15" drivers in parallel on each channel, 2x 15" for a total of four 15" drivers total. These could either be stacked vertically, 15 on top of 15 with both on the front of the cabinet, or even one 15 on front and one 15 on back configured "push-push".

My top pick so far is 2x 15"s per side, using Pyle PPA-15 drivers, in a sealed 8 ft3 box. I know, I know, Pyle... ugh. but price vs performance is hard to beat, even if they are on the "bottom of the pyle" :)

Thoughts? Opinions/ideas are welcome.

Thanks,
Jesse

Edit:
*I'm open to the possibility that bass reflex could be the answer (my current main speakers are BR and I don't find them to be boomy), if it could be somehow demonstrated that BR would carry the same punch that sealed enclosure would. One thought I had was to make the enclosures BR, but make the tuned port "pluggable" such that it becomes a sealed box. With the right pvc fitting and a thread in plug, or just a heavy chunk of wood with screws and hurricane nuts, this could certainly be workable.
**OB is not an option, though I'd like to try it someday, there isn't room in my living room to pull the speakers out the requisite distance from the walls - rather, they need to be basically up against the walls to maximize living room space.
 
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Some plots from winISD. Transfer function, SPL, and Cone Excursion. Boxes were sized for flattest curve/best LF extension, but sometimes undersized to keep excursion in check.
purple = PPA15 dual sealed
green = 15W700 dual sealed
blue = 18SW1000 single sealed
aqua = DCS450 single sealed
red = PA460 single sealed

I tried simming a bunch of cheap drivers from MCM, but they all seem to be meant for OB, none simmed well.
 

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Hi Freddi - thanks, the dayton pa460 specs look good but only simmed 'ok'. I looked at the pa380 as well and it was very similar, i'll see if i still have the sim of that to compare.
I actually saw and tried those p audio neodymiums in winisd, and they rolled off wayyyy early, like 70 hz or higher... ? I will try to dig that sim up too.

I was just surprised that the cheap Pyles simmed pretty good, with a slight bump around 55-60 hz that won't hurt anything. And i can get 4 of the buggers for 200 bucks.

Is there a downside to them, other than they say 'PYLE'?
 
I was testing this week some high SPL stuff: FaitalPro 18FH500 and 15PR400, both in OB (dipole) and both with a somewhat limited A14 Rotel amplifier (80wrms)...

I think when you express your need of very punchy bass, you refer on either one of these or most probably both:

1) Impulse response

2) Midbass and even Midrange


Impulse response, the instanteousness, comes best with a dipole or sealed enclosure config. You lose the low-end, though (forget anything below 60hz or so)

Dipole/Open baffle is extremely ''fast'', that instant drum/percussion feeling is probably unbeatable.

Also, point 2), the ''snap'' comes at higher frequencies than most people think. I'd say anywhere from 200hz to 1.5khz, there is a lot of that snap and even downright ''pounding in the chest'' stuff... You'd be surprised how a 800hz pulsated, satured, sound can hit you at 115-120db. When you have the low-end to back it, it feels like Bruce Lee sound-wave-punching you :wave:

So basically, if you really want something terrifying, you need a 2-way bass system: some nasty 12'' or 15'' for the midbass/midrange (say 70-150hz up to 3khz if not more) and... fat subwoofers with massive Vd, xmax, and power.
 
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I'm thinking that punch goes a bit higher than 150hz.
And the phase wrap of a crossover at 150hz doesn't help either.

A time aligned 6db has best transient thunk sound, but least output.

Remember, my dual 15" crossed @750hz pounds you, but using the same 15's crossed at 150hz to the full range 12" at 150hz does not. Don't get me wrong, it does the "full range thing" and goes to 11, and you feel bass through the concrete, it just doesn't hit you in the chest as well.

Maybe a double 12" crossed at 150hz would work better for impactful chest slam.

I don't know what or how you are going to feel or think about that information.
 
I think you could have gotten a bit of that "hit" with K15 and those sale 15cx. (K15 will out-punch some FLH yet keep cone motion almost imperceptible) I'm not hell bent on FR.

Hey Norm - are you getting pretty good results from your B102/CAT378 combo?
 
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.



Picture i took yesterday. The RTA show a single 15PR400 playing some electronic music (Gui Boratto) with the 80w amp. Did a 117db @ 250hz, i had to go outside of the room it was just unbearable inside. Things were shaking inside, it was physical...

On the picture you can see the 18FH500 which is an awesome driver but can't replace a true subwoofer and falls behind a good 15'' for the mid region, but that thing is a monster for 70-1000hz...
 
I was testing this week some high SPL stuff: FaitalPro 18FH500 and 15PR400, both in OB (dipole) and both with a somewhat limited A14 Rotel amplifier (80wrms)...
I think when you express your need of very punchy bass, you refer on either one of these or most probably both:
1) Impulse response
2) Midbass and even Midrange
Impulse response, the instanteousness, comes best with a dipole or sealed enclosure config. You lose the low-end, though (forget anything below 60hz or so)
Dipole/Open baffle is extremely ''fast'', that instant drum/percussion feeling is probably unbeatable.
Also, point 2), the ''snap'' comes at higher frequencies than most people think. I'd say anywhere from 200hz to 1.5khz, there is a lot of that snap and even downright ''pounding in the chest'' stuff... You'd be surprised how a 800hz pulsated, satured, sound can hit you at 115-120db. When you have the low-end to back it, it feels like Bruce Lee sound-wave-punching you :wave:
So basically, if you really want something terrifying, you need a 2-way bass system: some nasty 12'' or 15'' for the midbass/midrange (say 70-150hz up to 3khz if not more) and... fat subwoofers with massive Vd, xmax, and power.

(that instant drum/percussion feeling is probably unbeatable - lol)

I'm thinking that punch goes a bit higher than 150hz.
And the phase wrap of a crossover at 150hz doesn't help either.

A time aligned 6db has best transient thunk sound, but least output.

Remember, my dual 15" crossed @750hz pounds you, but using the same 15's crossed at 150hz to the full range 12" at 150hz does not. Don't get me wrong, it does the "full range thing" and goes to 11, and you feel bass through the concrete, it just doesn't hit you in the chest as well.

Maybe a double 12" crossed at 150hz would work better for impactful chest slam.

I don't know what or how you are going to feel or think about that information.

I'm not sure what to do... (Fane also has that 15" full range that is either out soon or just released which would have even more cone area for midbass "punch", though i think it had worse peaks on the freq plots than the 12" 250tc) 2x 12" Fanes per channel? My wife is going to lose her mind, haha. I'm also not sure how I'd wire 2x per channel, since the fanes are 8 ohm and my 2nd amp isn't rated for a 4 ohm load (though without realizing it, I've ran it that way plenty of times using the A and B main speakers together).

Jon, it sounds like you're saying what Norman Bates has been saying in my other thread - that "punch" extends much higher than I would have thought. My current speakers are cheapy 3-ways with 12" woofers crossed at 1600 hz, so that one driver per channel handles all the "punch", and actually sounds pretty decent for what it is.

So now... I guess I'm stuck trying to pick which compromises to use. I'm using the Fane 12" full range for mid-bass on up to the highs - so there should be some punch there, given the size of it.
More punch the higher I cross over from the woofers (ie the woofers will handle more of the sound), But then the worse male vocals will likely sound coming out of the woofers rather than the full range.
I listen to a wide range of music, but most of it is rock/pop stuff. I really don't want to fiddle with the crossover all the time once it's set.

When you have the low-end to back it
This is also important... That "punch" seems to require more than just one note - rather it's large band from 30 or 40 hz all the way up to 750 or maybe even 1500 hz. I'm not entirely sure still how much of it is carried by the lower stuff vs the higher stuff in that band.. only that most speakers I hear definitely lack both low end extension and "punch".
 
that nice neo 18 would probably be fun in a Karlson. PA460 has a lot of inductance - mass a bit high - it would not "go low" in a regular K - here's a rough estimate in a 1.2X 115bk (making it about 24.5" wide, 32.5" high, 16" deep - I mis-labeled the graph -think its 400w input
The P audio Neo certainly does look nice, it just didn't sim well sealed or vented. Perhaps a better question is whether it would be better than the dual pyle 15s for low end extension, punch, and spl even in a Karlson?

I guess that's really the question in play here-
What would be better than the dual pyle 15s for low end extension, punch, and spl?

Is there a budget driver that everyone uses for sealed woofers that is common knowledge that I'm missing?

Thanks! :)
 
Jon, it sounds like you're saying what Norman Bates has been saying in my other thread - that "punch" extends much higher than I would have thought.

Might sound a bit crazy but even the tweeter is having a part in that ''punch, snap'' feeling.

Since we all listen to music/film and not pure tones, it's kind of complex and should be considered alltogether. If you ever have the chance to listen a driver (anyone) which is lowpass brickwalled at 150hz, you'll hear not much of anything punchy or snappy, not even remotely. Good clean distortionless, yeah, possible, but snappy, no.

Like i said previously, i think impulse response (OB or sealed) and high-impact midbass/mid are the keys. Already got your 12'' mid/wideband so your best bet would be something like a 18FH500 in my opinion. At least you have a chance to get some decent low-end. Any other 15's PA option will lead to some overlap with your 12' Fane, which would be a waste. Unless you just want some high-output mid system (unbalanced)
 
FYI: if i had to build a home system that is capable or enormous impact/snap etc.. for moderate SPL, i'd personnaly opt for that recipe:

- RAAL 210-10D
- Radian 950PB hornless
- 18FH500
- some high xmax subwoofers 12W6's or 12W7's or Ultimax or else

So, yeah, very expensive and 4-way. But otherwise it's gonna be unbalanced and unlistenable (at least for me)
 
How do you mean? In what context? Are you worried about the power response at the crossover frequency?
Hi Scott, you're referring to the xo time delay? I assume it muddies up the sound having one side of the crossover delayed 360 deg. I also assume it screws up the impact of a punchy sound like a kickdrum in that the sound is not all produced and does not reach you at the same time. GM mentioned offsetting the woofer and fullrange by many feet to account for the time difference.. I don't want to drag this part out too much here since it's already being discussed in the other thread (full range) - no sense having 2 separate conversations, my fault for mentioning it over here, was just mulling it over and putting thoughts to text. A whole lot of assuming on my part until I read a bit more.

Was just looking at this for more info, but will do more digging later
It’s impossible to build a good loudspeaker. Part 1: Crossovers – earfluff and eyecandy
 
FYI: if i had to build a home system that is capable or enormous impact/snap etc.. for moderate SPL, i'd personnaly opt for that recipe:

- RAAL 210-10D
- Radian 950PB hornless
- 18FH500
- some high xmax subwoofers 12W6's or 12W7's or Ultimax or else

So, yeah, very expensive and 4-way. But otherwise it's gonna be unbalanced and unlistenable (at least for me)
I'm sure it would be a killer combo... but yes, that's on a whole 'nother playing field both in price and performance for what I'm trying to achieve here :)
Right now, its looking like the total system will be:
1x per side Fane 12-250tc full range in a _____ box, powered by main l/r receiver channels, 80w
2x per side Pyle PPA15 15" woofers in a sealed box, powered by 2nd main l/r receiver channels, 85w
+ (for HT only, not music)
1x mono horn loaded 15" subwoofer (a la lilmike F20 or lilwrecker), powered by an iNuke1000dsp
CX2310 or similar for electronic crossover duties

Unfortunately this is more of a case of what's best we can do with the allotted budget, more or less... Hence those ugly Pyles of woofer I mentioned. ;)
impulse response (OB or sealed) and high-impact midbass/mid are the keys
This makes sense and I will agree with. OB is off the table at this point, looks like sealed is the way to go.
Any other woofers stand out of the crowd for a sealed application that are also inexpensive?
I'd like to try simming a few more - both dual 15"s per side, and single 18"s per side. I mentioned 4x 12" woofers to my wife but that was not well received... ha!
 
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Gotcha, what's referred to as a delay in a crossover is a phase shift, a shift of 360 deg is the same as 0 deg. At the xover frequency the LR4 can exhibit a small power dip this explains the LR xovers Linkwitz-Riley Crossovers: A Primer. The null is small and only really has much if any effect when the distance between driver centres is greater that 1/4 of the wavelength at the xover frequency
 
yes you have to have a good tweeter for bass. Ever sit at a drumkit with crappy heavy plastic heads? - bass will sound thuddy by itself, give it some cymbal action and subjective speed will be better. I suspect similar subjective effect can happen with tape hiss and perhaps surface "ticks" on 78 rpm records.

that brings an issue - do old school horns with their long expanding necks, beam too much for enjoyable presentation of music? I use that type generally only up to ~3 or 4K, bringing in a horn tweeter.

the old Karlson K15 prototyped in the summer of 1951 and debuted in 1953 is still king of punch for its size - assuming a decent coax & xover - or topped with K-tube and good compression driver (I have used horns on top - oddly, a big radial horn mated better than an Edgarhorn LE5/250 tractrix) Its like a cosmic juke box which plays vocals, cello, percussion, sax, Sgt, Peppers, rap, etc. with ease and can deliver jaw dropping clean bass "transients"
 
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