Best pa subwoofer. (Technically)

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I want some opinions, on a specific subject mind not just on anything. Pa subwoofers come in many shapes and sizes costing Anything from £50 to thousands. And have different frequemcy Responses and spl etc. I'm going to build some subs for a small pa (sound teinforcement system) I'm making for myself and am not sure what's best. I have build a 12 inch scoop And by jingo its insane In my living room! But then so is my bass guitar
Amp and my 5.1 PC surround sound sub.
So say I'm making 8 Inch mains and want 12 inch subs, storage is
An issue. And this isn't going in tour or anything,
Mayb house parties if that. I know a 12 inch sounds insane in a scoop or a car
But one is way to big and one is in a car so what is the best design for me? I know won't get as low as bigger subs but that's ok for me, is a folded horn going to be better or just a big ported box, I can build easily so no worries there.

Thanks

Hugh
 
Still in planning stages so Budget and power All depends on sub. Just to clarify this isn't for pro use as such, just for me. So I literally want to know what design could realistically go lowest, sound best, make best use of any power available. Just want an idea of what design is most efficient in the most respects.
Insane in terms of small one bed flat with 3 foot tall sub which can't use because vibrates
To much and is slightly unnecessaey! so in my endless wisdom I decided to build an entire system to not use either!

But for arguments sake lets say £40 for driver and 200wpc power
Amp, see where we go from there.
Thinking about 2 subs and two 2 way cabs above as a start and see where end up.
 
Ex-Moderator R.I.P.
Joined 2005
not enough Xmax
thats how much its able to move
and still keeping the voice coil inside the magnet gap
also called linear Xmax
in this case it appears to be +/-2.5mm
which is the same as 5mm P-P(peak to peak)

literally it means the woofer can move 2.5mm in and 2.5mm out

if it moves more it will result loss of cone control, and distortion
 
Ok so there is no definite answer? Just more than 2.5 or whatever it was? So if I look into high end subwoofers and see what they are and head that way? As for depends how being used, that's where my initial question comes from want to know best type of sub ad get driver to match that!
 
Ex-Moderator R.I.P.
Joined 2005
best bang for the money might be a 'tapped horn'
Tangband have a good reputation making small affordable woofers

but even the smallest of the TH designs are still bigger than a small BR (bass reflex/vented/ported)

basicly, the Xmax can be determined by how low you want it, and how loud
also room size and music style matters
 
I'd save up some money and get a JBL GTO1214.
Moves rather a lot of air quite cheaply.

I have one that's sat in a ~75L ported enclosure tuned to 18Hz. The result is a frequency response that slopes downwards toward the lower cutoff, so I applied EQ above the port tuning to get a theoretical -3dB point of 18Hz.

In-room you can feel the floor moving at 14Hz, and even ~300w won't bottom out the driver - the JBL seems rather good for those "oops" moments.

Chris

Edit - its not exactly a PA subwoofer, but more than adequate for house parties and big movie nights.
 
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