Most Musical DIY sub?

[phillfyspoon]

looking at the diy sub scene there seems to be alot of large woofers put into large ported cabinets. great fantastic for home theater but what about a real hifi system.

In a hifi you need a sub that intergrates well with the mains and under pins them with tunefull bass and should not make itself heard.

not many acoustic instruments produces bass under 30hz.


in the UK REL are well known for good hifi subs

there are many drivers out there suitible for large ported boxes but what about a driver for pure music???

[leadbelly]

It's true that a large part of sub DIY, if not the majority, is geared towards HT.

But if you are willing to search, there are threads on this forum about things a musicphile would be interested in: lowest distortion drivers, alignments with lowest group delay (e.g. sealed), soundstage and imaging (e.g. stereo subs), LP crossover type, etc.

In terms of what DIY driver got rave reviews, for a long time the NHT1259 in a sealed alignment was a sure fire bet. There are a few JBL fans on the forum too.

[Destroyer OS.]

What range of music are you missing? How big is your room? How big is your budget?

[phillfyspoon]

My mains go to about 45hz only 6" bookshelfs.

my room is about 24 foot long not very big

budget around £450 ($800)

[rabbitz]

Have a look at the Thor.

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/thor-intro.htm

[boogs]

I recently completed building a pair of sealed subs using Oaudio's TC2+ 15" svc's. While i needed the pair to achieve HT levels of bass, i am VERY impressed with how well they deal with music (about 25% of my listening is music based). Prior to building these subs i did a great deal of research and many people pointed me in the TC2+ direction. It's very articulate and notably free from distortion even when driven hard.

Scott

[jimbo1968]

philly, (this is becoming my standard reply).

You want an active crossover between your pre and power amp if that is possible( ie pre-outs and power in on an integrated). Cross anywhere from 100 to 250Hz.

Then stereo sealed subs with their own power amps (in the cabinet or in a case). Linkwitz transform to get real low.

Maybe design your subs so that the bookshelves look good sitting on top of them.

[ScottG]

Originally posted by phillfyspoon
looking at the diy sub scene there seems to be alot of large woofers put into large ported cabinets. great fantastic for home theater but what about a real hifi system.

In a hifi you need a sub that intergrates well with the mains and under pins them with tunefull bass and should not make itself heard.

not many acoustic instruments produces bass under 30hz.


in the UK REL are well known for good hifi subs

there are many drivers out there suitible for large ported boxes but what about a driver for pure music???

considering cost, ease of construction, etc.. I think it likely that it would be difficult to better these (in a sealed enclosure):

http://www.rythmikaudio.com/servo_product.htm

sonically a good sub for music will provide:

1. a better sonic "balance" (between high freq.s and low freq.s)

2. give you "hall sound" (esentially the dimensions of the recording space - real or "virtual")

3. better "slam" (tactile sensation)

4. possibly better performance for your speakers with a high pass filter

5. possibly better freq. performance if you utilize a high pass filter AND a digital eq. (i.e. run the subwoofer higher in freq. and "cut-off" the speakers higher up - say circa 80 Hz) See Velodyne's eq.:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/john.mu...meq/index.html
(with the appropriate behringer product), or this:
http://www.velodyne.com/velodyne/pro...5&sid=626g116u

[quickshift]

Before I look at the links, here is the in room FR both with and without the sub on.

Measured from the middle of the room with an Audigy 2 and Vikash's mic and preamp kit

Not the best speaker only FR I have...

[quickshift]

And...

With the sub on