My first Speaker Project :)

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Hey everyone, Im about to tackle my first subwoofer. or first speaker for that matter.

I bought one of the tempests from creativesounds that they had on the pre-order sale, and im not entirely sure what to do with it lol.

Well, I kinda wanna do a nice sonosub. I love the look of the SVS sonosubs. I dont want to go this route because its easy, as I have a mighty nice woodshop in my basement, but rather, those SVS subs look so sexy to me, and they seem to have a relativly small foot print.

Anyways. I guess Id like some advice or input. I want the tub to be small in diamiter, or as small as i can get away with, and no taller then 4 feet. Overall output is pretty important to me, I love to crank my movies, and when a good bassy song comes on, the volume knob always seems to find itself a few notches up.

Ill use it pretty much 75/25 music/movies.

anythoughts ? ported, sealed, dimensions, etc etc
 
for sonotube starters, .. dowload WINISD and look into modelling something with an EBS alignment tuned below 20 Hz. Or look at maufacturer suggested low bass alignments.

With a 15" , this will give you
1. maximum low down extended bass, after accounting for room gain.

at the very expense of
1. size (EBS enclosures tend to be a bit larger but they're worth it In any case , a sonotube doesn't occupy
2. a slight loss of ultimate bass "punch" which is traded off for extension(you probably won't notice it, so don't worry)
3. slight loss in ultimate power handling (traded off for extension), but what you have should be plenty.


There should be sonotube volume calculators on the www that will tell you how big to cut your tube.

My other suggestion would be to brace the port (somehow couple it to the sonotube) so it doesn't vibrate. The sonotube enclosure itself doesn't need bracing.

I run a 12" shiva in a 134 litre EBS aligned sonotube and couldn't be happier, even running off a measly 100W .
 
theyre expensive in that you need very high excursion drivers, and ltos of amplifier power, for them to work well. also theyre nt very sensitive. But if you are not looking for the MOST bass possable, and need it to fit to be tiny, and still sound good enough for music, an LT couldbe a very good choice!

i like EBS alignments more however, becuase they accomplish virtually everything that an LTed sub would do, with less power, and less cost(at the expense of space! hoffmans iron law doesnt break(bends a bit though)). And alot of peoel will scream claims about hwo ported boxes are bad for music, boomy, group delay, etc. Aot of these claims are not very correct. A properly deisgned ported box can have GD jsut as low(or inaudibly) close to a sealed box, and if designed properly, taking into account your rooms dimensions will be VERY deep and musical.

also keep in mind cone excursion, in home audio, especially subwoofers, is very high and you will very VERY rarely need the thermal RMS limit to get full performace from your sub.

also dont remmeber to have fun and get a bit carried away, but always keep in mind your original set of goals.
 
if anything itll have LESS trouble, becuase excursion reduces at 20hz, and is stilla ta reduced level untill a couple hz below, where you should place your rumble filter. Also who said anything about 20hz? try some big boxes withthe tempest, like 12 cubic feet tuned to 13 or 14 hz. that will match room gain well, have good protectiona t lower frequencies, and low GD.
 
Robertburchell said:
unfortuantly, I dont have space for a big box :(

Well, even a large sonotube ported sub is only going to occupy a relatively small footprint, .. say 3 sq. ft . Since they are so easy to build (and cheap), I suggest you build one first. If nothing else, it will at least give you a benchmark to compare other designs with.
And no, it's not boomy in the sense of typical "HT" subwoofers.

If you want to build a more complex high performance sub, look at horn loaded subwoofers (something using the cheap MCM or tangband drivers would work amazingly well), .. though you might need to invest in a bit of EQ to get flat response from a domestically acceptable size.

Cheers
 
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