Club style bass

[azira]

My sister really likes high energy, dance club kind of music. She's a bit annoyed that her dual-10's in a sealed alignment box, while great for movies, doesn't have the same kind of hit that a club has even when turned up. We're thinking of building another sub for her music, any suggestions on the kind of alignment that would better suit her music tastes? Thanks.
--
Danny

 

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

Does she have an EQ in her system? Clubs do.

 

[simon5]

If she likes boom boom, you need to do a Super Boom Box alignment, SBB4, so a small ported box with a high Q.

 

[Wodgy]

You won't get club style thumping bass with a flat response subwoofer, particularly a low or medium Q sealed alignment. (You might get it on a few recordings depending on mastering, but you won't get it consistently.) The club style sound comes from a prominent mid bass/upper bass hump. Nothing wrong with this if that's the sound you're looking for. You need to increase the Q of your subwoofers. Try putting bricks in the existing boxes to reduce the internal volume to one half or one third of what it is now. That may do the trick. Porting will change the flavor, and you may want to play with that later, but if you just stick with the sealed boxes but reduce the volume, you'll get a nice hump while keeping the superior group delay (perceived "speed") of sealed boxes -- this is a recipe for good club style bass. If you lose too much extension, go ported (you may have to with your 10 inch woofers), but try this out first before doing that.

 

[BassAwdyO]

Before you go making assumptions wodgy you ought to ask this bro how big his boxes are and what his subs specs are. He may already have high Q. If he does then really a low Q is the in the brew. Just my 2 bits...

I dont mean to object to you all, but there wasnt anything he said that would indicate for sure what kind of setup he has(that he doesnt like). Some people say tight bass is high Q (Qtc >.7) and some say tight bass is low Q (.7>Qtc.>.5). Sealed or ported that gets different, but if you have a big sealed box and you do want to go boomy high bass, you could tune to ~40hz and im sure you'd get a nice hump in FR.

 

[tom noise]

i think she rather would like something "kicky". build her a subwoofer with a PA-driver. 15" would do this job successfully.

best greets,

tom

 

[keyser]

yes, to get the clubstyle bass-thump a cheap and large PA-woofer in a too small box would do the trick. Club-style bass isn't very 'musical' bass. an even response is not needed. you could even say you wánt that uneven response for the sub to pump out a lot of energy over a small bandwidth.

so, big PA-woofer with stiff suspension in a small and simple box

 

[Cal Weldon]

Couple of these might work
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=264-346

Or for a little more
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=264-438

I've enjoyed my Seleniums

Cal

 

[azira]

Thanks for the great feedback everyone. Yes, she knows, actually is expecting that she isn't looking for a flat response. But the problem is simply that it doesn't sound the same in her living room as it does when she sees these artists and DJ sets live and that's the sound we're looking for.

The 10's are a a Polk PSW650 URL here They are great for movies, they play pretty low and really get the house rumbling so we're not going to go modifying it. What she wants to do is make is a 2nd sub for her music and she'll switch between them for movies and listening.

Sounds like high Q alignment, smallish box, with a larger woofer is the direction to look at. Maybe a vented alignment. Thanks again.
--
Danny

 

[BillFitzmaurice]

Sadly the equipment used by most DJs is not very good, and that results in a lot of energy from 80 to 160 Hz and very little below that. To my ear it sounds awful, but if that's what Sis likes just get her a parametric EQ so she can dial it in. Another sub isn't what she needs, as the frequencies she craves aren't sub bass.

 

[paulspencer]

I hooked up my two sealed subwoofers to a PA amp and messed around with eq and found I could get a similar sound to many live PA setups with that exaggerated bass sound. To get the sense of power and punch I was looking for took a 450w x 2 PA amp driving very high excursion 12" drivers. I could have actually used more power and excursion!

The same day I heard some PA subs in a bandpass box - a 50 Hz tuned box with a 15" driver. Quite easy with a less powerful amp to get the chest pounding bass, but to my ears it was lacking depth around 40 Hz which to me gives the bass a feeling of power.

I agree with Bill that eq is called for. PA eq units are cheap.

I would not design a sub to be boomy, but rather design one to be flat and that can handle eq being applied. Then use eq to get what you want. If it were me then I'd make a sub that will do both music and HT and get a PA eq unit like Behringer Ultracurve. Then you can store eq settings and make a setting for music and one for HT. Then just switch from one to another setting.

You first want to find out if you sub can handle the kind of volume and eq she wants, so start with eq.

If she wants that sub to compete with DJ sound, then I'd expect she would want more output then she will get. A bass horn is probably the way to go if you can handle the size. Adire have a tempest horn sub worth checking out.