dipole woofers for Maggies

[Throwback]

I tried this post in the audio asylum. Got lots of agreement, but not specific plans. Maybe you DIY'ers have tried this and would be willing to share your ideas. I have tried several subwoofers to give more "punch" to my Maggie 20.1 system, but all have been of the closed box design--ported or sealed--and I could never get them to integrate well with my planars. Didn't really get more "punch" either. Right now, I am biamping my Maggies and the sound I am getting now is the best yet. But I would STILL LIKE A MORE DYNAMIC BASS. So, maybe I'm going at it wrong. How about an OB design with six 8" woofers per side to be placed alongside the Maggies. This would make the Maggies act like "wings," thus extending the bass. Also, an OB array should mimic the way the planars launch a wave front, possiby lending more coherence to the overall sound. Has anyone done this? Can you recommend drivers, xover, etc. ?
Thanks,
Chuck

[Calvin]

Hi,

I won´t recommend a plain OB for this usage. Folded Dipole baffles are more promising. Styles could be U, A, N or W. Depending on the drivers parameters and the goal You are aiming at You can choose one of those cabinet styles. They all have the advantage of lesser suck-out at lower freqs than the OB, i.e. less equing needed. A-type and small versions of N- and W-type reduce the freeair resonace frequency of the drivers.
My favourites are the A- and the small N-type. The former if You want an easy to build cabinet and if You like to ´see´ the drivers. The latter with an exceptional small building width and usually the most lowering of Fs. With both types you can use drivers with ~5Hz higher Fs than the proposed Fb.
As drivers You can use longthrow types (>+-4mm) with progressive suspensions. The moving system shouldn´t be heavy (<40gr for a 8" driver). Fs beeing ~30Hz-40Hz. The Qt shouldn´t be low (>0.4 - <0.8)
A nice example is the Peerless SLS8.

jauu
Calvin