small musical subwoofer?

[Dave Jones]

I'd like to build or buy a smallish powered subwoofer. I don't need much SPL, just tight, fast bass from (insert small number here) up to about 45-50 Hz. I want low IM distortion and excellent transient response. I will not be playing it at levels that annoy the neighbors.

I've looked at the 10" Titanic II kit from Parts Express. But I wonder if I'd be satisfied with its transient response. It's in a 1 ft^3 box and uses a 6dB boost at 30 Hz. How good can the transients be? Anyone know?

Any other suggestions of something not too difficult?

 

[Dave Jones]

TTT

No one has an opinion on this?

 

[needtubes]

IN a 2.5 cu.ft sealed box, the Adire DPL-12 has a group delay of only 9ms MAX all the way down to 20Hz and below. F3 is somewhere around 29Hz as well. It works VERY well for me. Sounds great, shakes the floors and beats my ported sub in low-bass SPL.

 

[Dave Jones]

IN a 2.5 cu.ft sealed box, the Adire DPL-12 has a group delay of only 9ms MAX all the way down to 20Hz and below. F3 is somewhere around 29Hz as well. It works VERY well for me. Sounds great, shakes the floors and beats my ported sub in low-bass SPL.

It has two voice coils, and they call it a "dipole." What's up with that? I know what a dipole system is with two drivers.

Are you using a separate amp (plate amp or whatever), or a crossover? How do you connect it?

 

[RHosch]

It's called a "dipole" driver because it has certain attributes that make it suitable for free air or baffle mounted applications... Fs, Qts, low noise basket and pole vent...

 

[Erik]

If purchase is an option

Check out the Hsu Research VTF-2 sub. I have used one with very musical Sonus Faber speakers and it had no trouble keeping up. The transients were excellent. I did, however, use my own 2nd order crossover rather than the built-in 4th order low-pass.

Nice compact size. Mediocre esthetics (hide it behind the sofa). Cost is about $500, but you can find them on Audiogon from time to time.

 

[sfdoddsy]

The DPL12 works the same as any other driver. But some of the things that make it ideal for dipole use also make it very good as a regular sub driver, especially in smaller sealed boxes.

I also highly recommend it.

Steve

 

[Aud_Mot]

If you want to try something different, look into a compound (or isobarik) design. 8 to 10 inch drivers would work well.

A friend built a pair of 10 compound woofers using average drivers, cardboard tubes (see passdiy.com - the el pipe-o article) and driven by a 50 watt per channel Marantz integrated amp.

Sounded amazing. I would have compared it to expensive, servo controlled subwoofers.

Have fun,

Aud_Mot

 

[Timn8ter]

I second the DPL12 setup. IIRC, Dr. Jim Griffin will demo one at CES in a ~1 cu. ft. enclosure with a 500 watt amp just to show what it can do.