Tuned low, a TH's delay can be audible which isn't a problem for many folks, but for those like me that are will require a separate digital delay unit since there's not enough built into a typical HT receiver and none in a stereo rig.
That said, properly damped pipe horns have as good or better SQ than an IB unless it's tuned somewhat lower than it using very low Fs, Qts drivers over a two-three octave pass-band and since a TH has an even greater acoustic damping due to it being essentially a 6th order band-pass alignment taken to its logical extreme, it's only one notch down from a humongous reactance annulled back loaded (sub) woofer horn.
All that said, the IB ultimately has more bass extension in a typical room (though it may be moot due to lack of source material) and if the TH doesn't unload before the room's gain curve can protect it, then it must have a high pass filter, further reducing its usable BW. I haven't looked at it in detail, but TD's well aware of all this and I did notice that it was one of the primary performance goals.
For folks who have a real problem with adding a lot of digital signal manipulation a traditional well damped pipe horn (or four
) is probably a safer choice.
So, the short answer is it depends.
GM
That said, properly damped pipe horns have as good or better SQ than an IB unless it's tuned somewhat lower than it using very low Fs, Qts drivers over a two-three octave pass-band and since a TH has an even greater acoustic damping due to it being essentially a 6th order band-pass alignment taken to its logical extreme, it's only one notch down from a humongous reactance annulled back loaded (sub) woofer horn.
All that said, the IB ultimately has more bass extension in a typical room (though it may be moot due to lack of source material) and if the TH doesn't unload before the room's gain curve can protect it, then it must have a high pass filter, further reducing its usable BW. I haven't looked at it in detail, but TD's well aware of all this and I did notice that it was one of the primary performance goals.
For folks who have a real problem with adding a lot of digital signal manipulation a traditional well damped pipe horn (or four
) is probably a safer choice.So, the short answer is it depends.
GM
Hey guys,
Just wanted to drop in and say a couple things about this. First let me say that I'm still learning about the build and design process of horn subwoofers, but I've heard 3 subs from Danley at a subwoofer meet I had at my place in April. I was lucky enough to have Ivan Beaver from Danley bring up their CS-30, TH-SPUD, and TH-50 subwoofers up along with a ton of equipment for measuring and driving the subs. Tom Danley contacted me and another member of AVS and Hometheatershack "Ricci" about this project a little after the meet. He's been playing around with it for months to get it right and it looks like it's pretty much done and close to being shipped. I'm getting one of the prototype units to assemble and test out. Right now I have an Elemental Designs 18" in an LLT enclosure that has served me well, but after hearing the TH-50 made me feel like I was missing out on a lot of things, headroom being the biggest.
E-mailing with Tom the past few months has been great. His level of knowledge is astounding. I wish I had a tenth of his knowledge and experience.
This subwoofer looks to be a very nice well built subwoofer that should really give just about any subwoofer a run for the money. The price for the kit is TBD but we've been given possibilities of under $1000 for the flat packed 13 ply baltic birch and drivers. The kit should assemble pretty easily like a bookshelf or desk bought at a wal-mart or the like. That works well for me because I'm not that great yet at woodworking.
This should be pretty fun and will make me look at building some more capable main loudspeakers, something that will better keep up with this subwoofer.
Here is a link to the thread I have going right now. Danley DTS-10 "Super Spud" DIY kit - AVS Forum
Just wanted to drop in and say a couple things about this. First let me say that I'm still learning about the build and design process of horn subwoofers, but I've heard 3 subs from Danley at a subwoofer meet I had at my place in April. I was lucky enough to have Ivan Beaver from Danley bring up their CS-30, TH-SPUD, and TH-50 subwoofers up along with a ton of equipment for measuring and driving the subs. Tom Danley contacted me and another member of AVS and Hometheatershack "Ricci" about this project a little after the meet. He's been playing around with it for months to get it right and it looks like it's pretty much done and close to being shipped. I'm getting one of the prototype units to assemble and test out. Right now I have an Elemental Designs 18" in an LLT enclosure that has served me well, but after hearing the TH-50 made me feel like I was missing out on a lot of things, headroom being the biggest.
E-mailing with Tom the past few months has been great. His level of knowledge is astounding. I wish I had a tenth of his knowledge and experience.
This subwoofer looks to be a very nice well built subwoofer that should really give just about any subwoofer a run for the money. The price for the kit is TBD but we've been given possibilities of under $1000 for the flat packed 13 ply baltic birch and drivers. The kit should assemble pretty easily like a bookshelf or desk bought at a wal-mart or the like. That works well for me because I'm not that great yet at woodworking.
This should be pretty fun and will make me look at building some more capable main loudspeakers, something that will better keep up with this subwoofer.
Here is a link to the thread I have going right now. Danley DTS-10 "Super Spud" DIY kit - AVS Forum
Thanks for the information and links you guy's, this has been a really interesting read.. Some people are truly innovators, and Tom is certainly one of the best out there... This quote as answered by a employee at Danley Sound Labs really says it all for me
"What's the midbass performance like on these units? Does a bass guitar sound like a bass guitar? How's the integration to the mains?"
"As Brandon has already stated, you have to hear it to believe it. I've had Lucas Film folks tell me our system is so accurate they heard things missed in the mastering process on a clip I'd played in a trade show demo room. I've been told by the then head of Dolby Labs that he'd never heard audio as good as ours. On the IMAX project up in Chicago, the contractor who installed the system, Media Merge had personnel spend hours relistening to music and video clips because they were hearing details they'd never heard before. On a recent tour of Turner Field with some extremely influential audio professionals (you see one's initials all the time) someone said, "here we are in an empty 50,000 seat MLB stadium, listening to audio that sounds better than most of the Cedia show demos!
By background before having a 25 year career in audio I made a living as a professional musician after which I apprenticed and became a registered piano technician. I have a very good set of ears and I can tell you, every time I hear one of our systems it it makes me smile. I have the coolest job on earth, hanging with Tom and Ivan and helping folks remember why they love audio!"
"What's the midbass performance like on these units? Does a bass guitar sound like a bass guitar? How's the integration to the mains?"
"As Brandon has already stated, you have to hear it to believe it. I've had Lucas Film folks tell me our system is so accurate they heard things missed in the mastering process on a clip I'd played in a trade show demo room. I've been told by the then head of Dolby Labs that he'd never heard audio as good as ours. On the IMAX project up in Chicago, the contractor who installed the system, Media Merge had personnel spend hours relistening to music and video clips because they were hearing details they'd never heard before. On a recent tour of Turner Field with some extremely influential audio professionals (you see one's initials all the time) someone said, "here we are in an empty 50,000 seat MLB stadium, listening to audio that sounds better than most of the Cedia show demos!
By background before having a 25 year career in audio I made a living as a professional musician after which I apprenticed and became a registered piano technician. I have a very good set of ears and I can tell you, every time I hear one of our systems it it makes me smile. I have the coolest job on earth, hanging with Tom and Ivan and helping folks remember why they love audio!"
Had a thought that it would be neat to see a collaboration between Tom Danley and John from Acoustic Elegance... Perhaps John could offer a better driver as an upgrade to the modded Lab12???, and perhaps even some other designs by Tom etc...
I believe Danley's supplier for drivers is one they have been dealing with for a while. John was going to send some subwoofer(s) down to my subwoofer meet in April but he was so backed up on orders after a meet that he attended in WI that I think he ended up not having any to spare. I've had some conversations with John on PM a couple times and he really knows his stuff. He's another one of those types that has just been in the audio industry for so long that it's just second nature to him. His products show that quality too. I've still yet to hear his stuff, but I can't think of a single user review of his products that had anything bad to say about them.
I'm expecting my kit in the next day or so. It shipped freight (it is rather large
)from Danley in GA yesterday. Everything except the drivers shipped. They had a large order go through right as the info was released about the kit and it wiped them out. Tom Danley is sending me two drivers he has at his house and hopefully I can be building by the weekend. I will upload pics as I take them and will try to answer questions regarding the build as much as I can. I'm very excited about this and a bit weary at the same time. Weary because I know what this thing will be able to do and I know my small bookshelf mains won't be able to keep up. I don't listen at extreme volumes so for normal listening I won't have a problem, but on days I'm feeling like cranking my system the mains will be running no a go cart engine and this thing will be more like a drag racer. Guess I may jump over and start looking at the various speaker builds to try and find something that will keep up and stay on a decent budget.For those of you who didn't see the update to the avs thread yesterday, the enclosure package arrived. It's HUGE. See pics...
Hopefully the drivers will come in today. I don't want to start building till they come in because I want to be able to play it as shortly after building as possible. Looks like I will have to wait for glue and silicon to dry.
Hopefully the drivers will come in today. I don't want to start building till they come in because I want to be able to play it as shortly after building as possible. Looks like I will have to wait for glue and silicon to dry.
Here's some pics and tips of my build for those thinking of getting this subwoofer. I've got it completely done now and have been listening to it for an hour or so a day for the past 3 or 4 days. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get more listening time since I have a 3 day weekend and the kids will be in school. So far it's pretty amazing what this thing can do. Since I've had an LLT I've enjoyed really low extension and the DTS 10 matches or exceeds it. The thing that jumps out at me is the headroom it has. It just seems like you can keep turning it up and it never runs out of gas. I'll put up some more pics here in a bit.
This is the base panel. Notice everything is very precision cut so all you really have to do is glue and screw.
Both pieces of pre-assembly done.
Driver baffles.
One fold of the horn.
Getting the sides of the box on.
Closeup of the baffles.
Interior done
A little acoustic padding to take the higher frequencies
Add a can of soda on top to give better size reference
------------------------------------------------------------
Some assembly notes I wrote during the build.
First and foremost---READ THE INSTRUCTIONS AND READ THEM AGAIN. You could seriously make a huge mistake if you are not familiar with the instructions. You could potentially glue and screw an incorrect piece oriented incorrectly and mess up the whole thing.
Ask a friend over to help you. I did this on my own but realize that it would've gone a lot quicker if I would have had an extra set of hands and just more manpower in general. I'm a big guy at 6'3 or 6'4 and 275 lbs. I can lift a lot, but repeated lifts of this thing especially getting towards the end when you're already tired can make it difficult to lift. The extra set of eyes on your friend to double check your interpretation of the instructions also helps.
Don't set a time limit. DO THIS RIGHT THE FIRST TIME!!! Don't rush it. You may risk messing this up if you hurry. Start in the early afternoon so that you can have into the night if you need to.
When you open the shipping package and are ready to assemble you should take your parts list and double check that everything is there. If any pieces are missing you also risk messing up the design. These are made this way for a reason.
Lay out your pieces letter side up for faster access. I didn't do this and wish that I had done it. It would have saved me a few minutes worth of time.
Have plenty of the glue of your choice. You will need a lot of it. I used a lot on this build and I am now out of glue. Also you want to take your parts list to a hardware store and pick up the extra screws/bolts needed that aren't included. You don't want to get late in the build and run out of anything. Buy extra of everything just in case.
One other very important note. I mistakenly assembled the base panel along with all the folds the first time. You're not suppose to do this. I was lucky in that everything did fit, but it was tight in 1 or 2 places. Essentially you're making the baffles and folds, gluing and screwing them together then putting the large panels on last. This ensures that you can fit everthing quickly and correctly.
This really was a fun build. A kit like this takes the guesswork out of making your own. If someone was to ask me to do this again I would in a heartbeat.
This is the base panel. Notice everything is very precision cut so all you really have to do is glue and screw.
Both pieces of pre-assembly done.
Driver baffles.
One fold of the horn.
Getting the sides of the box on.
Closeup of the baffles.
Interior done
A little acoustic padding to take the higher frequencies
Add a can of soda on top to give better size reference
------------------------------------------------------------
Some assembly notes I wrote during the build.
First and foremost---READ THE INSTRUCTIONS AND READ THEM AGAIN. You could seriously make a huge mistake if you are not familiar with the instructions. You could potentially glue and screw an incorrect piece oriented incorrectly and mess up the whole thing.
Ask a friend over to help you. I did this on my own but realize that it would've gone a lot quicker if I would have had an extra set of hands and just more manpower in general. I'm a big guy at 6'3 or 6'4 and 275 lbs. I can lift a lot, but repeated lifts of this thing especially getting towards the end when you're already tired can make it difficult to lift. The extra set of eyes on your friend to double check your interpretation of the instructions also helps.
Don't set a time limit. DO THIS RIGHT THE FIRST TIME!!! Don't rush it. You may risk messing this up if you hurry. Start in the early afternoon so that you can have into the night if you need to.
When you open the shipping package and are ready to assemble you should take your parts list and double check that everything is there. If any pieces are missing you also risk messing up the design. These are made this way for a reason.
Lay out your pieces letter side up for faster access. I didn't do this and wish that I had done it. It would have saved me a few minutes worth of time.
Have plenty of the glue of your choice. You will need a lot of it. I used a lot on this build and I am now out of glue. Also you want to take your parts list to a hardware store and pick up the extra screws/bolts needed that aren't included. You don't want to get late in the build and run out of anything. Buy extra of everything just in case.
One other very important note. I mistakenly assembled the base panel along with all the folds the first time. You're not suppose to do this. I was lucky in that everything did fit, but it was tight in 1 or 2 places. Essentially you're making the baffles and folds, gluing and screwing them together then putting the large panels on last. This ensures that you can fit everthing quickly and correctly.
This really was a fun build. A kit like this takes the guesswork out of making your own. If someone was to ask me to do this again I would in a heartbeat.
Wow nice job Brandonnash, and very informative advice.. Totally makes sense to get a good understanding of the project before setting forth, and also having enough supplies on hand, such as way more than enough glue (the big bottle) etc...
Will be interesting to hear about your impressions after some time spent getting to know this sub and adjusting things etc..
Way cool!!!
Will be interesting to hear about your impressions after some time spent getting to know this sub and adjusting things etc..
Way cool!!!
Sorry for the lack of updates. Been busy moving this thing around my room some more. I still haven't decided on where its final location will be but it sounds good where it is now. I have it corner loaded in a space that's between two closets and behind my TV. I had been running just the Danley by itself but I was missing my couch shaking from ultra low effects in movies so I decided to move my LLT back into place directly behind my couch. The lack of shaking is not the Danley's fault, but more so my room. I have a carpet over concrete floor and it just has no give to it. My LLT shakes the couch not because of better and more sound but because of my poor first large build. Its a large 16 cubic foot external enclosure that has no internal bracing. Yeah the box shakes like crazy. I like that effect so I am keeping it where its at.
Back to the Danley the first thing that jumped out at me was how efficient it is. As soon as I plugged it in to the same channel as the LLT was plugged in the Danley was about 10 dB over what I had given the same power. I listened with it hot for a while then had to change it. It was just too much bass for my tastes. I like running my subwoofer(s) completely level with the rest of my speakers.
The quality of sound is very good but I believe its most optimal ppeformance will be with a 60-80 hz lowpass from your receiver/processor. I have an older receiver that has a 100 hz crossover for its lowest setting. Time for an upgreade there. From what I have noticed so far is it has a very clean sound that's very punchy yet can shake your pants legs at the lower frequencies. Unfortunately my real critical listening can only be done when my kids are in bed and that's usually well after 8 PM. That only gives me a little bit to listen to it the way I want.
After my wife "cleaned up" my equipment closet yesterday I have to set my levels on my amp again after she turned them somehow.
All together this sub is a real performer and is great for a beginner like myself in the tapped horn world. This sub has got me wanting to build my own now design and all. It will take time to learn but its something I want to do.
Everyone should check out Ricci's posts in the avs forums threads. He has outdoor and indoor frequency response and has done a bit more critical listening than I have.
Back to the Danley the first thing that jumped out at me was how efficient it is. As soon as I plugged it in to the same channel as the LLT was plugged in the Danley was about 10 dB over what I had given the same power. I listened with it hot for a while then had to change it. It was just too much bass for my tastes. I like running my subwoofer(s) completely level with the rest of my speakers.
The quality of sound is very good but I believe its most optimal ppeformance will be with a 60-80 hz lowpass from your receiver/processor. I have an older receiver that has a 100 hz crossover for its lowest setting. Time for an upgreade there. From what I have noticed so far is it has a very clean sound that's very punchy yet can shake your pants legs at the lower frequencies. Unfortunately my real critical listening can only be done when my kids are in bed and that's usually well after 8 PM. That only gives me a little bit to listen to it the way I want.
After my wife "cleaned up" my equipment closet yesterday I have to set my levels on my amp again after she turned them somehow.
All together this sub is a real performer and is great for a beginner like myself in the tapped horn world. This sub has got me wanting to build my own now design and all. It will take time to learn but its something I want to do.
Everyone should check out Ricci's posts in the avs forums threads. He has outdoor and indoor frequency response and has done a bit more critical listening than I have.
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