Sadly, I pretty much have to aim for the ~ $20-30 range. Not to mention that if I got a driver that big I would HAVE to build a new enclosure (which means buying more MDF, thus raising the pricetag even further and requiring quite a lot of time and effort to build, which I have to admit I don't have the patience for atm after this last one.) I could maybe manage more (especially if I can make my current enclosure work) but even as low as $57 (for a driver that's worth so much more) is just too much for me.
I'm sure any audiophiles reading this thread are crying, but my bills make it clear that it's pretty much that or nothing for quite a while. I realize that this is a big problem, but it just can't be helped sadly.
BTW, bear in mind that an upgrade some time down the road is not an impossibility. The goal is just to get it as good as I can for now, but that doesn't mean it can't be better later.
I'm sure any audiophiles reading this thread are crying, but my bills make it clear that it's pretty much that or nothing for quite a while. I realize that this is a big problem, but it just can't be helped sadly.
BTW, bear in mind that an upgrade some time down the road is not an impossibility. The goal is just to get it as good as I can for now, but that doesn't mean it can't be better later.
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Your posts are quite confusing.
What is it that you are trying to achieve ?
Your Dayton DC160S-8 6-1/2" Classic Shielded Woofer | Parts-Express.com
should be in a ported cabinet, not sealed. Sealed response will have very poor bass extension , like 70 hz or so.
What are the internal dimension of your stock cabinet ?
What are the internal dimension of your home made MDF cabinet ?
A larger driver is not necessarily going to give you MASSIVE SLAMMING CHEST POUNDING BASS IN YOUR FACE AT ALL TIMES. The benefit of using a large driver is that when there IS a BIG bass note, it can reproduce it with less effort than a little driver, while the little driver will have to strain to do it. Thus, the music becomes MORE musical, because the bass is effortless and NOT straining.
A larger , higher efficiency driver means that your amp does not have to work as hard for the majority of the time (using less average power) , meaning you can turn the volume knob down, so when there IS a BIG bass note, the amp has MORE power in reserve to allow the bass to be BIG and unstrained.
I understand you have limited funds. By using the driver that you have in one of the boxes you have , you can further optimise performance by using a port.
You will need to provide the internal box dimensions , then we can run the driver and cabinet in a simulator and figure out the proper port size and tuning.
In the mean time, save up some cash and when you have $100 or so, you can build a good, simple sub that you can be happy with , even for future service .
.......................Blake
What is it that you are trying to achieve ?
Your Dayton DC160S-8 6-1/2" Classic Shielded Woofer | Parts-Express.com
should be in a ported cabinet, not sealed. Sealed response will have very poor bass extension , like 70 hz or so.
What are the internal dimension of your stock cabinet ?
What are the internal dimension of your home made MDF cabinet ?
A larger driver is not necessarily going to give you MASSIVE SLAMMING CHEST POUNDING BASS IN YOUR FACE AT ALL TIMES. The benefit of using a large driver is that when there IS a BIG bass note, it can reproduce it with less effort than a little driver, while the little driver will have to strain to do it. Thus, the music becomes MORE musical, because the bass is effortless and NOT straining.
A larger , higher efficiency driver means that your amp does not have to work as hard for the majority of the time (using less average power) , meaning you can turn the volume knob down, so when there IS a BIG bass note, the amp has MORE power in reserve to allow the bass to be BIG and unstrained.
I understand you have limited funds. By using the driver that you have in one of the boxes you have , you can further optimise performance by using a port.
You will need to provide the internal box dimensions , then we can run the driver and cabinet in a simulator and figure out the proper port size and tuning.
In the mean time, save up some cash and when you have $100 or so, you can build a good, simple sub that you can be happy with , even for future service .
.......................Blake
What is your source for music ? CD player, Ipod, DVD player, etc. ?
If it is an Ipod or MP3 player, make sure the built in EQ is set to "Off" or "Flat" , this should help remove any "boomyness" .
Where is your sub located ? Is it in a corner, a "nook" , wedged in between furniture , etc ?
If it is , try moving it to a more open area. This will also help to remove any "boomyness" .
..........................Blake
If it is an Ipod or MP3 player, make sure the built in EQ is set to "Off" or "Flat" , this should help remove any "boomyness" .
Where is your sub located ? Is it in a corner, a "nook" , wedged in between furniture , etc ?
If it is , try moving it to a more open area. This will also help to remove any "boomyness" .
..........................Blake
Always flat. My primary source is my PC running Foobar2000. Currently with an Asus D2 (which I think I like the sound of a bit better than my previous E-MU 0404 PCI) and when I use a player it's the Cowon D2 (running the D2+ firmware since they're the same hardware.) As far as equalizers go, I try to disable them as much as possible (I'd rather they never did the processing at all -- especially since some algorithms actually seem to affect the sound even when set to flat) and when they must be on, I do set them to flat.
As for sub location, it's in about as open of an area as I can do. The sealing makes it such that only the forward direction should matter though atm anyway mind you (which definitely is pretty clear of any nearby obstructions I think.)
My original question essentially was how exactly I should do this. I would just buy a vent pipe such as those available on Parts-Express, but, specifically my biggest problem atm is that I don't know what frequency I need to try to tune it to. I first tried searching around to see if I could figure out how to tell, but the best I could find seemed to be people saying they tuned to below the Fs frequency of their drivers -- I think... If this is the case I think I found a pipe that if set almost to its max might work. Needless to say, I'm not very certain and before I actually start cutting into my enclosure to put such a thing in I really would prefer to be sure I'm doing it right...
The box I built which was supposed to be about the same as the original (but which probably isn't exactly right on the dot by any means) is approximately 10x10x9 internally (maybe just ever so slightly less than that, but I think not as far off as the larger enclosure was due to how I had to cut the wood for the larger one.)
Both enclosures have 1" Sonic Barrier inside that I'd rather not remove unless I have to. This should decrease internal resonances/etc that might interfere with anything. But I'm not sure if this counts or not as far as internal volume goes. (I'm inclined to say that it should since it's not "breathable" like, say, fiberglass.) The original enclosure didn't have it at first, but I added it later and it helped. Both custom enclosures are currently setup for a sealed design and thus can safely go vented (eg I don't have a bunch of holes in them or anything to deal with.)
Anyway, I still wonder though if a relatively small, but larger driver might still be worth considering at this point (such as that ~$20 8".) I don't think I could do a huge driver since I'd require a new enclosure and everything (which adds to costs, time, and effort required to actually do this) but something in an 8", maybe even 10" could perhaps be accommodated by the enclosure I have now? If what you are saying is true, then a larger driver might still make a lot of sense since it could perhaps be more efficient anyway and better able to handle the bass -- even if I still go to a vented design (which I don't mind doing. I was just trying to get the bass more under control. In particular, the original driver was badly boomy even though the original stock enclosure until I put it in a sealed enclosure. Perhaps they just had it tuned badly so that it would be boomy since, as has been mentioned earlier, this might be less "boring" so to speak, but regardless, going sealed helped a lot.)
As for sub location, it's in about as open of an area as I can do. The sealing makes it such that only the forward direction should matter though atm anyway mind you (which definitely is pretty clear of any nearby obstructions I think.)
Odd. It should be the opposite. That's part of why I'm so thorough with posts that tend to run on too long even. (The other part being that it's just my nature to be thorough when it comes to dealing with any problem really.)
I want the bass to be as controlled and even as it reasonably can be within the extreme limitations of the cheap low quality equipment being used (or my budget where other equipment might be preferable.) In an ideal world I'd want it to sound like my Markl-Modded Denon AH-D2000 headphones, but this is not an ideal world obviously and this equipment probably isn't capable of that no matter how much I modify it (eg I'd need better equipment -- probably the amp in particular -- in other words.) But even though it will never be remotely close to that level of quality and control, I would at least like to get it as good as it's going to get within these limitations.
That's what I thought. I use a lot of bcae1's tools and one of them very much agrees with what you're saying there (and it too said around 70Hz as I recall, though it seems to me like it seems to require the bass to be very loud at that range to actually have problems and I'd swear I'm having more troubles with lower ranges than that,) which is why I was thinking that I needed to make this a vented enclosure.
My original question essentially was how exactly I should do this. I would just buy a vent pipe such as those available on Parts-Express, but, specifically my biggest problem atm is that I don't know what frequency I need to try to tune it to. I first tried searching around to see if I could figure out how to tell, but the best I could find seemed to be people saying they tuned to below the Fs frequency of their drivers -- I think... If this is the case I think I found a pipe that if set almost to its max might work. Needless to say, I'm not very certain and before I actually start cutting into my enclosure to put such a thing in I really would prefer to be sure I'm doing it right...
The bigger one I built (which did seem to help a bit btw,) was intended to be 1 cubic foot (eg exactly 12x12x12.) The saw blade took off just a bit on each cut though, so it's approximately 11.9x11.9x11.9 instead.
The box I built which was supposed to be about the same as the original (but which probably isn't exactly right on the dot by any means) is approximately 10x10x9 internally (maybe just ever so slightly less than that, but I think not as far off as the larger enclosure was due to how I had to cut the wood for the larger one.)
Both enclosures have 1" Sonic Barrier inside that I'd rather not remove unless I have to. This should decrease internal resonances/etc that might interfere with anything. But I'm not sure if this counts or not as far as internal volume goes. (I'm inclined to say that it should since it's not "breathable" like, say, fiberglass.) The original enclosure didn't have it at first, but I added it later and it helped. Both custom enclosures are currently setup for a sealed design and thus can safely go vented (eg I don't have a bunch of holes in them or anything to deal with.)
Anyway, I still wonder though if a relatively small, but larger driver might still be worth considering at this point (such as that ~$20 8".) I don't think I could do a huge driver since I'd require a new enclosure and everything (which adds to costs, time, and effort required to actually do this) but something in an 8", maybe even 10" could perhaps be accommodated by the enclosure I have now? If what you are saying is true, then a larger driver might still make a lot of sense since it could perhaps be more efficient anyway and better able to handle the bass -- even if I still go to a vented design (which I don't mind doing. I was just trying to get the bass more under control. In particular, the original driver was badly boomy even though the original stock enclosure until I put it in a sealed enclosure. Perhaps they just had it tuned badly so that it would be boomy since, as has been mentioned earlier, this might be less "boring" so to speak, but regardless, going sealed helped a lot.)
Well, that's going to be a while. EVENTUALLY, some day down the road, I'll probably build a system from scratch to suit my needs (well, I say scratch, but I'll use some plans such as some of those on Parts-Express or elsewhere on the Internet.) At that time I will do it right. No modified low end system as a starting point or $20 drivers, lol. Sadly, that day is not today, nor any time soon I think.
Always flat. My source is my PC. Currently with an Asus D2 (which I think I like the sound of a bit better than my previous E-MU 0404 PCI) and when I use a player it's the Cowon D2 (running the D2+ firmware since they're the same hardware.) As far as equalizers go, I try to disable them as much as possible and when they must be on, I do set them to flat.
As for sub location, it's in about as open of an area as I can do. The sealing makes it such that only the forward direction should matter though atm anyway mind you (which definitely is pretty clear of any nearby obstructions I think.)
My original question essentially was how exactly I should do this. I would just buy a vent pipe such as those available on Parts-Express, but, specifically my biggest problem atm is that I don't know what frequency I need to try to tune it to. I first tried searching around to see if I could figure out how to tell, but the best I could find seemed to be people saying they tuned to below the Fs frequency of their drivers -- I think... If this is the case I think I found a pipe that if set almost to its max might work. Needless to say, I'm not very certain and before I actually start cutting into my enclosure to put such a thing in I really would prefer to be sure I'm doing it right...
The box I built which was supposed to be about the same as the original (but which probably isn't exactly right on the dot by any means) is approximately 10x10x9 internally (maybe just ever so slightly less than that, but I think not as far off as the larger enclosure was due to how I had to cut the wood for the larger one.) I don't have the original enclosure anymore, but this cheap 6.5" driver does seem to be better than the generic stock driver, so I think this is no big loss. I still have this smaller enclosure around just in case though (if nothing else I plan to eventually get a cheap amp and put a sub in my car.)
Both enclosures have 1" Sonic Barrier inside that I'd rather not remove unless I have to. This should decrease internal resonances/etc that might interfere with anything. But I'm not sure if this counts or not as far as internal volume goes. (I'm inclined to say that it should since it's not "breathable" like, say, fiberglass.) The original enclosure didn't have it at first, but I added it later and it helped. Both custom enclosures are currently setup for a sealed design and thus can safely go vented (eg I don't have a bunch of holes in them or anything to deal with.)
Anyway, I still wonder though if a relatively small, but larger driver might still be worth considering at this point (such as that ~$20 8".) I don't think I could do a huge driver since I'd require a new enclosure and everything (which adds to costs, time, and effort required to actually do this) but something in an 8", maybe even 10" could perhaps be accommodated by the enclosure I have now? If what you are saying is true, then a larger driver might still make a lot of sense since it could perhaps be more efficient anyway and better able to handle the bass -- even if I still go to a vented design (which I don't mind doing. I was just trying to get the bass more under control. In particular, the original driver was badly boomy even though the original stock enclosure until I put it in a sealed enclosure. Perhaps they just had it tuned badly so that it would be boomy since, as has been mentioned earlier, this might be less "boring" so to speak, but regardless, going sealed helped a lot.)
As for sub location, it's in about as open of an area as I can do. The sealing makes it such that only the forward direction should matter though atm anyway mind you (which definitely is pretty clear of any nearby obstructions I think.)
Odd. It should be the opposite. That's part of why I'm so thorough with posts that tend to run on too long even. (The other part being that it's just my nature to be thorough when it comes to dealing with any problem really.)
I want the bass to be as controlled and even as it reasonably can be within the extreme limitations of the cheap low quality equipment being used (or my budget where other equipment might be preferable.) In an ideal world I'd want it to sound like my Markl-Modded Denon AH-D2000 headphones (yeah, I had money enough for stuff like that once, but had to spend on headphones instead of speakers at the time,) but this is not an ideal world obviously and this equipment probably isn't capable of that no matter how much I modify it (eg I'd need better equipment -- probably the amp in particular -- in other words.) But even though it will never be remotely close to that level of quality and control, I would at least like to get it as good as it's going to get within these limitations.
That's what I thought. I use a lot of bcae1's tools and one of them very much agrees with what you're saying there (and it too said around 70Hz as I recall, though it seems to me like it seems to require the bass to be very loud at that range to actually have problems and I'd swear I'm having more troubles with lower ranges than that,) which is why I was thinking that I needed to make this a vented enclosure.
My original question essentially was how exactly I should do this. I would just buy a vent pipe such as those available on Parts-Express, but, specifically my biggest problem atm is that I don't know what frequency I need to try to tune it to. I first tried searching around to see if I could figure out how to tell, but the best I could find seemed to be people saying they tuned to below the Fs frequency of their drivers -- I think... If this is the case I think I found a pipe that if set almost to its max might work. Needless to say, I'm not very certain and before I actually start cutting into my enclosure to put such a thing in I really would prefer to be sure I'm doing it right...
The bigger one I built (which did seem to help a bit btw,) was intended to be 1 cubic foot (eg exactly 12x12x12.) The saw blade took off just a bit on each cut though, so it's approximately 11.9x11.9x11.9 instead.
The box I built which was supposed to be about the same as the original (but which probably isn't exactly right on the dot by any means) is approximately 10x10x9 internally (maybe just ever so slightly less than that, but I think not as far off as the larger enclosure was due to how I had to cut the wood for the larger one.) I don't have the original enclosure anymore, but this cheap 6.5" driver does seem to be better than the generic stock driver, so I think this is no big loss. I still have this smaller enclosure around just in case though (if nothing else I plan to eventually get a cheap amp and put a sub in my car.)
Both enclosures have 1" Sonic Barrier inside that I'd rather not remove unless I have to. This should decrease internal resonances/etc that might interfere with anything. But I'm not sure if this counts or not as far as internal volume goes. (I'm inclined to say that it should since it's not "breathable" like, say, fiberglass.) The original enclosure didn't have it at first, but I added it later and it helped. Both custom enclosures are currently setup for a sealed design and thus can safely go vented (eg I don't have a bunch of holes in them or anything to deal with.)
Anyway, I still wonder though if a relatively small, but larger driver might still be worth considering at this point (such as that ~$20 8".) I don't think I could do a huge driver since I'd require a new enclosure and everything (which adds to costs, time, and effort required to actually do this) but something in an 8", maybe even 10" could perhaps be accommodated by the enclosure I have now? If what you are saying is true, then a larger driver might still make a lot of sense since it could perhaps be more efficient anyway and better able to handle the bass -- even if I still go to a vented design (which I don't mind doing. I was just trying to get the bass more under control. In particular, the original driver was badly boomy even though the original stock enclosure until I put it in a sealed enclosure. Perhaps they just had it tuned badly so that it would be boomy since, as has been mentioned earlier, this might be less "boring" so to speak, but regardless, going sealed helped a lot.)
Well, that's going to be a while. EVENTUALLY, some day down the road, I'll probably build a system from scratch to suit my needs (well, I say scratch, but I'll use some plans such as some of those on Parts-Express or elsewhere on the Internet.) At that time I will do it right. No modified low end system as a starting point or $20 drivers, lol. Sadly, that day is not today, nor any time soon I think.
what's the difference between the 0608posting and the 0611posting?
did you check which was wrong ready to delete the erroneous post?
did you check which was wrong ready to delete the erroneous post?
Sorry, hit the back button in lieu of a proper edit. The second one would be the one to remain in place.
I'm new, not improved but have an idea
You are running slightly under a cubic foot of space which is perfect for the 6.5" dayton you already have..you need to port that box. Since sound is what YOU want and that box needs to be ported...you need to use something that is adjustable at low cost.
If you have the old Klipsch 6.5 woofer laying around, you can remove the magnet and add weight to the cone voice coil for a passive radiator. This will give you the ported boost you desire, it costs nothing and can be tuned to the driver, the box, the room and your tastes by adding or removing weights. If you have an old 8" woofer laying around, that can be made into a passive radiator also.
Give converting the old driver into a passive radiator and see if you like the sound. Mess around with it and get the tuning for smooth output. If not, it don't cost anything and shows you'll have to go with a larger driver.
I converted an old 15" PA speaker set I had laying around to a isobarik setup, didn't sound low enough so I added a 18" passive radiator. NOW it hits much harder, I get that 20 to 32 Hz I was missing and had to turn down the subwoofer out volume adjustment.
You are running slightly under a cubic foot of space which is perfect for the 6.5" dayton you already have..you need to port that box. Since sound is what YOU want and that box needs to be ported...you need to use something that is adjustable at low cost.
If you have the old Klipsch 6.5 woofer laying around, you can remove the magnet and add weight to the cone voice coil for a passive radiator. This will give you the ported boost you desire, it costs nothing and can be tuned to the driver, the box, the room and your tastes by adding or removing weights. If you have an old 8" woofer laying around, that can be made into a passive radiator also.
Give converting the old driver into a passive radiator and see if you like the sound. Mess around with it and get the tuning for smooth output. If not, it don't cost anything and shows you'll have to go with a larger driver.
I converted an old 15" PA speaker set I had laying around to a isobarik setup, didn't sound low enough so I added a 18" passive radiator. NOW it hits much harder, I get that 20 to 32 Hz I was missing and had to turn down the subwoofer out volume adjustment.
A passive radiator is certainly an interesting solution. Still, I think I might want to try to start from a better point. I got curious to see what I could find in a larger driver and found the Dayton SD270-88 10" subwoofer driver for a mere $20 + S/H atm. It's within the range of how much I can afford to spend atm and seems to be a not too indecent driver for such a pricerange, so might be a good starting point (which is not to say I might not ever try such an idea -- after all, I do need to add a subwoofer to my car's system someday and this would leave me with two extra drivers, one of which never seemed so great anyway, so might just be perfect for what you're talking about given how small I really need the enclosure to be in the car system if I have to have one -- which I probably will.) I plugged the numbers into the calculator on bcae1 and it shows the resonance frequencies as being pretty low whether sealed or vented. I think I need to just bite the bullet and go ahead and build a larger enclosure though anyway. I don't want to go nuts though and do a huge driver. I am more interested in quality than looks, so I don't mind it being a bit large and probably ugly when I'm done, but as it is I'm looking at making something a bit on the huge size already even with just a 10" driver in mind and anything bigger is probably going to be too much. I do have limited room to work with. Perhaps I should be clear that while my room isn't tiny at all, it's no home theater setup, so as long as I'm reasonable it's fine and I don't need any of those really tiny subs (like this Klipsch system was trying so hard to provide,) but there's a definite limit to how big it can get.
Anyone have any thoughts on how well this might work and, assuming it does, how big the internal volume of the enclosure really needs to be if I go sealed (given that I will be stuffing it with fiberglass, which is supposed to make it act as if the enclosure were bigger still)? It says about 2.5ft^3, but that's just air. Could I get away with smaller with fiberglass without it resulting in bad boominess still? (Well, I'm not sure whether or not 2.5ft^3 is really any sort of problem until I visualize it, but I would like to at least double check first.) I don't mind going vented either I suppose, but if that calculator is correct I really need a gigantic enclosure for a vented design to work (it looks like it's much better at being sealed I guess.) If I were to go vented, what frequency should I try to tune the port to? Also, I'm still kind of wondering if I should just do something like put a capacitor on there to reduce the input at the resonance frequency? (Eg just a little bit, but maybe enough to keep it from having problems with anything normal?)
Anyone have any thoughts on how well this might work and, assuming it does, how big the internal volume of the enclosure really needs to be if I go sealed (given that I will be stuffing it with fiberglass, which is supposed to make it act as if the enclosure were bigger still)? It says about 2.5ft^3, but that's just air. Could I get away with smaller with fiberglass without it resulting in bad boominess still? (Well, I'm not sure whether or not 2.5ft^3 is really any sort of problem until I visualize it, but I would like to at least double check first.) I don't mind going vented either I suppose, but if that calculator is correct I really need a gigantic enclosure for a vented design to work (it looks like it's much better at being sealed I guess.) If I were to go vented, what frequency should I try to tune the port to? Also, I'm still kind of wondering if I should just do something like put a capacitor on there to reduce the input at the resonance frequency? (Eg just a little bit, but maybe enough to keep it from having problems with anything normal?)
IMO,A T-TQWT would provide sufficient SQ.
IME,If a box is well cross braced and filled with stuffings, all extrapolated passive enclosure volume gain from fillings for a box of the mentioned size is often reduced to a minimum.
Fiberglass stuffings is to dense if applied in the center of a box but is a good choice if applied on the internal walls if a ported box where the volume reduction factor would be small.
For a closed box the fillings should be evenly distributed in the volume and if using fiberglass there is a risk for counteractive gain (volume loss) if overdoing.
b 🙂
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Gotcha. Well, I have a large ruler which let me visualize a bit better. The size I would need is a bit big, but I can do it without it really being that much of a problem. One question though. Fiberglass tends to make it as if the enclosure were larger, but what about Sonic Barrier? I think it doesn't really breathe very well if at all, so should I count on it effectively reducing the internal volume then? Should I even add Sonic Barrier? Certainly if I'm going to, it won't be right away and I'll have to actually add it later on rather than right away due to how much it costs just to fill a small enclosure. (I'm thinking that, by the look of things I will need three sheets this time around even...
If I were to get that particular sub driver, I can do sealed, so I think I definitely will really. In the end, a sealed enclosure is just plain easier to deal with when you still just aren't the best at building such things. It's a lot harder to just completely mess up, lol.
If I were to get that particular sub driver, I can do sealed, so I think I definitely will really. In the end, a sealed enclosure is just plain easier to deal with when you still just aren't the best at building such things. It's a lot harder to just completely mess up, lol.
I had a look into those. I've never heard of such a thing before. By the look of it, a design like that is WAY beyond me right now... By the look of it, it must be very carefully designed for the specific driver and I'm having troubles even just making a decent basic sealed cube design as well as it ideally should be.
Buy one of these , build an "H-Frame" style enclosure, be happy.
MCM Audio Select 12'' Treated Cone Woofer | 55-1950 (551950) | MCM Audio Select
Simple, will sound VERY clean , and meets your budget.
You don't wanna use that DVC Parts Express woofer , the impedence will be wrong.
.....................................Blake
MCM Audio Select 12'' Treated Cone Woofer | 55-1950 (551950) | MCM Audio Select
Simple, will sound VERY clean , and meets your budget.
You don't wanna use that DVC Parts Express woofer , the impedence will be wrong.
.....................................Blake
Hi,
A little late to the party, but here's something to try (it's free!).
Using the crossover plugin on Foobar2000, add a steep high pass filter ~35Hz... 3rd or 4th order should be enough. A 6.5" driver has little hope of reproducing those frequencies, so taking that strain off the driver and amplifier should improve headroom on the frequencies it can play.
Chris
A little late to the party, but here's something to try (it's free!).
Using the crossover plugin on Foobar2000, add a steep high pass filter ~35Hz... 3rd or 4th order should be enough. A 6.5" driver has little hope of reproducing those frequencies, so taking that strain off the driver and amplifier should improve headroom on the frequencies it can play.
Chris
I'm so used to disabling equalizers that I forgot to use one to test... If I simulate (as well as I can) a first order high-pass filter on roughly 45Hz, it greatly decreases the distortions to the point that only the absolute worst things can get it to distort (such as me playing that music game with the bass guitar turned up.) There are just three problems with this. First, I have to always set the equalizer to do this (and the soundcard application doesn't have the most accurate settings -- you don't even see decibels listed so have to guess at it, though on the up side the first octave in the filter is 30Hz so it's easy enough to simulate a decent curve that doesn't hurt other frequencies as much) and rely on that. Second, as far as inputs go, I'd have to run through the soundcard, which requires that the computer be always on and booted into the OS and logged in (because the drivers must have fully loaded the user-specific settings.) Third, the line input is ridiculously quiet and a pre-amp would be required to utilize it on a regular basis I guess since I have everything set as high as it goes. (Though, on the up side, if I record something with a high bit-depth, the noise floor is extremely low even once I normalize the volume level.)
I actually found a digital crossover component for Foobar2000, so I was able to test one or two things more directly using what is presumably (hopefully!) a very accurate simulation of a first order high-pass filter. When set to 45Hz and first order (it can do more, but my purpose here is to test,) it seemed to work quite well with only a bit of distortion from something bad such as the aforementioned game and only when turned up to about the loudest volume I'd normally use anyway.
Once again I wonder: would a capacitor on the subwoofer driver be a good idea? Or would it just mess with whatever the amplifier already uses for the crossovers? (Such as if it already had a capacitor to keep the stock driver from getting too ridiculously low -- though if it does I guess it's set way too low to do much good...) I'd far rather a proper hardware solution to this so my speakers will work with any line input directly rather than running through software solutions (especially given how quiet the line level is.) I can't tell from just looking at that "amp repair" page, but it seems like it's saying that it doesn't really do anything there?
If I were to go sealed, can anyone recommend any cheap driver suitable for a relatively small enclosure (eg ideally 2.5 ft^3 or less if at all possible or not too much more than that if it must be more)?
I actually found a digital crossover component for Foobar2000, so I was able to test one or two things more directly using what is presumably (hopefully!) a very accurate simulation of a first order high-pass filter. When set to 45Hz and first order (it can do more, but my purpose here is to test,) it seemed to work quite well with only a bit of distortion from something bad such as the aforementioned game and only when turned up to about the loudest volume I'd normally use anyway.
Once again I wonder: would a capacitor on the subwoofer driver be a good idea? Or would it just mess with whatever the amplifier already uses for the crossovers? (Such as if it already had a capacitor to keep the stock driver from getting too ridiculously low -- though if it does I guess it's set way too low to do much good...) I'd far rather a proper hardware solution to this so my speakers will work with any line input directly rather than running through software solutions (especially given how quiet the line level is.) I can't tell from just looking at that "amp repair" page, but it seems like it's saying that it doesn't really do anything there?
It seems that they have a lot of drivers there that meet my budget. I wonder though. How complicated would it be to build a single driver H-frame? From my google searching at least, it seems like open baffle designs are deceptively harder than they might appear -- at least, single driver-based designs. Specifically, since I can't have it sitting the right distance from the wall, I presume this means the frame needs to be built just right to work correctly? It just wouldn't do if it made things worse with more distortion or if it didn't do enough and the driver effectively just ran completely on open air. Given the inaccuracy of my cuts so far I wonder how feasible this is for me? I must admit that I really like the idea of an open baffle design and I'm going to have to do one someday just out of intellectual curiosity, but I wonder if I can do it today? I'm still thinking that with the tools and knowledge I have now I'm better off sticking to very plain sealed enclosures if I can and still very plain vented enclosures at the worst. (In fact, some of the sealed or vented designs get too complicated still, such as that T-TQWT design mentioned earlier which, when I looked it up, definitely looked to be beyond my current carpentry and acoustics calculations skills.)
Well, it seems from looking at the specs that it uses two voice coils at four ohms each and is officially rated eight ohms impedance (so they must be in series then?) Surely that's still effectively the same thing as far as the amp is concerned? Actually, I wonder though: would even four ohms be that bad for this amp? Oh, if I were driving it at full power, no doubt it would max that poor little amp out and blow it in no time, but given how low I end up setting the subwoofer level, would it really hurt it? EDIT: Nevermind, I misread it the wrong way around. Dual eight ohms, but four ohms impedance, so that means they must be parallel and, as you say, it's effectively four ohms rather than eight...
If I were to go sealed, can anyone recommend any cheap driver suitable for a relatively small enclosure (eg ideally 2.5 ft^3 or less if at all possible or not too much more than that if it must be more)?
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read Linkwitz for details of the bass boost that is required for lowering the F-3dB by half an octave compared to lowering F-3dB a full octave and finally trying to get 1.5octaves of bass extension into your sealed box/driver.
Er, I looked through the site, but if it says it on there somewhere I don't understand it enough to recognize it. For that matter, I'm not 100% sure what you mean. Do you mean something along the lines of doing effectively half of what a first order filter would do? If so, I was actually considering a second order filter even (then I could shoot for 40Hz or something lower perhaps) but unless I'm doing the math wrong I'd need an inductor with a REALLY high inductance to do it. A steeper curve is probably better here than a flatter one (albeit at the lowest position possible.) That said, I think a first order filter is sufficient.
if you have a driver with Fs~35Hz and fit it to a sealed box of volume ~ =Vas then the F-3dB ~ 70Hz. That means no deep bass.
Linkwitz shows how to add EQ to lower that 70HzF-3dB by as much as you want and he also allows you to set the Q of the EQ to correct for a Qbox that you might not like.
The more you extend the bass, the more bass boost is required.
Lets say your mid range is 90dB/W and you want 100dB from the mid range, then you need 10W for your 100dB of SPL.
Now you merge the mid with the upper bass coming from the sealed bass only speaker. the upperbass is also 90dB/W and you would need the same 10W for 100dB of SPL.
The bass boost required to extend the F-3dB frequency from 70Hz down to 35Hz might be +15dB. That would require 31 times the power to be fed to the driver, i.e ~310W to get the same 100dB of SPL.
If you choose a bass driver with a sensitivity of 87dB/W then you need ~620W to match the SPL from the 10W available to drive the upper bass and midrange. Select an 86dB/W driver and you need ~1k2W to match that 10W SPL. If you decide that 100dB from the upper bass and midrange is too quiet and decide to go for 106dB of SPL that (not quite) worst case of +15dB EQ and 84dB driver requires 5kW to match the rest of the frequency range.
That is the problem with small box sealed bass speakers. Getting a driver that can survive with enormous power being fed to them. If you're a BassHead then that equals destroyed driver.
Linkwitz shows how to add EQ to lower that 70HzF-3dB by as much as you want and he also allows you to set the Q of the EQ to correct for a Qbox that you might not like.
The more you extend the bass, the more bass boost is required.
Lets say your mid range is 90dB/W and you want 100dB from the mid range, then you need 10W for your 100dB of SPL.
Now you merge the mid with the upper bass coming from the sealed bass only speaker. the upperbass is also 90dB/W and you would need the same 10W for 100dB of SPL.
The bass boost required to extend the F-3dB frequency from 70Hz down to 35Hz might be +15dB. That would require 31 times the power to be fed to the driver, i.e ~310W to get the same 100dB of SPL.
If you choose a bass driver with a sensitivity of 87dB/W then you need ~620W to match the SPL from the 10W available to drive the upper bass and midrange. Select an 86dB/W driver and you need ~1k2W to match that 10W SPL. If you decide that 100dB from the upper bass and midrange is too quiet and decide to go for 106dB of SPL that (not quite) worst case of +15dB EQ and 84dB driver requires 5kW to match the rest of the frequency range.
That is the problem with small box sealed bass speakers. Getting a driver that can survive with enormous power being fed to them. If you're a BassHead then that equals destroyed driver.
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Some of this is a little bit beyond me. As far as being a bass-head goes, I'm definitely not. I like a little bass and even sometimes a bit above neutral, but, just that: a bit. My systems all are set to produce less bass than those of anyone else I know in fact.
Truth be told, a subwoofer really probably isn't ideal for me. I'm almost satisfied with the bass produced by my portable speaker with its mere 3" driver. What I need is a true 2.0 system, but at the time I was upgrading from a 5.1 system and didn't realize that a 2.0 might suit me better still (but then again, at that time I'm not sure I would have been able to pick out a good 2.0 system anyway.) Since I can't do that right now, I just want to get this subwoofer to handle as well as possible. To this end, it doesn't actually need to do really low frequencies all that well (I guess to be clearer, I'm more interested in hearing the bass than feeling it.) A bit of rolloff is just fine. As such, rather than adding more power, I still like the idea of using less power via simple filters. (Also, I think building what you're talking about is beyond me right now.) Already a mere first order filter on a relatively low frequency is ALMOST enough on its own to solve my problem even just with this 6.5" driver that wasn't meant to be sealed in the first place. I still get a bit of distortion in a worst case scenario, but it's greatly reduced even then. (In fact, I'm thinking that if I do the filter at 50Hz instead of 40Hz -- eg a 400uF instead of 500uF capacitor -- it might be just about perfect based on the testing I've done so far via that plugin.) Outside of those scenarios I really don't get any distortion out of it and it seems to be doing lower frequency instruments pretty well otherwise.
This digital filter simulating a first order high pass really seems to work well -- especially once I set it as high as 50Hz (bearing in mind that this is just first order, so the curve is still not that terribly steep.) I really do wonder if it would hurt anything to put a capacitor in? Because even if I do all of that other stuff it still seems like this works surprisingly nicely (plus there's that much less the amp has to actually do, right?) If a passive filter would work, I see no reason it should have to get terribly complicated anyway.
Truth be told, a subwoofer really probably isn't ideal for me. I'm almost satisfied with the bass produced by my portable speaker with its mere 3" driver. What I need is a true 2.0 system, but at the time I was upgrading from a 5.1 system and didn't realize that a 2.0 might suit me better still (but then again, at that time I'm not sure I would have been able to pick out a good 2.0 system anyway.) Since I can't do that right now, I just want to get this subwoofer to handle as well as possible. To this end, it doesn't actually need to do really low frequencies all that well (I guess to be clearer, I'm more interested in hearing the bass than feeling it.) A bit of rolloff is just fine. As such, rather than adding more power, I still like the idea of using less power via simple filters. (Also, I think building what you're talking about is beyond me right now.) Already a mere first order filter on a relatively low frequency is ALMOST enough on its own to solve my problem even just with this 6.5" driver that wasn't meant to be sealed in the first place. I still get a bit of distortion in a worst case scenario, but it's greatly reduced even then. (In fact, I'm thinking that if I do the filter at 50Hz instead of 40Hz -- eg a 400uF instead of 500uF capacitor -- it might be just about perfect based on the testing I've done so far via that plugin.) Outside of those scenarios I really don't get any distortion out of it and it seems to be doing lower frequency instruments pretty well otherwise.
This digital filter simulating a first order high pass really seems to work well -- especially once I set it as high as 50Hz (bearing in mind that this is just first order, so the curve is still not that terribly steep.) I really do wonder if it would hurt anything to put a capacitor in? Because even if I do all of that other stuff it still seems like this works surprisingly nicely (plus there's that much less the amp has to actually do, right?) If a passive filter would work, I see no reason it should have to get terribly complicated anyway.
Guess no one has any thoughts on that. Well, I decided to get something else that they had on sale (they have a nice soldering iron that I could really use right now,) so I threw in the 400uF capacitor as an extra since it wasn't that horribly expensive once I no longer had to consider shipping as part of the cost. I'll use it as a temporary solution until I can get around to getting a new driver and building a new enclosure.
I still can't figure out what driver I should be looking at though. I've looked at a few and most seem to want large enclosures if I can judge anything by this calculator (but then I'm not entirely sure?) So far the only one with any real promise I found was this one which could use a fairly small enclosure relatively speaking, but the calculator says the resonant frequency in an enclosure is 61.2733 Hz? If that's right, it seems like that could be a pretty big problem unless I misunderstand something? (Of course, this still begs the question of how realistically anything could come close enough to that frequency to turn it into a serious problem?) It's a bit higher than I wanted, but it's one of the very few that seems to be able to reasonably go in an enclosure that isn't positively huge. Would it just have to be vented? The calculator says it's good for sealed enclosures as well, but of course that resonant frequency makes me wonder. For vented the resonant frequency is all the way down at 35.2013Hz, but the enclosure needs to be a fair bit larger (still within a size range I think I could deal with.) The problem then is that I still don't know how to properly vent an enclosure (in particular, I still don't know what frequency you're supposed to try to tune it to.) Any thoughts on that and whether or not that driver would be any good? If it would, I notice it has a higher sensitivity and efficiency than what I'm using now, so presumably it would be relatively easy on my amp?
Unfortunately I'm still relatively new at all of this, so still need input on such things. (And yeah, sadly, things like H-frames are beyond me.)
I still can't figure out what driver I should be looking at though. I've looked at a few and most seem to want large enclosures if I can judge anything by this calculator (but then I'm not entirely sure?) So far the only one with any real promise I found was this one which could use a fairly small enclosure relatively speaking, but the calculator says the resonant frequency in an enclosure is 61.2733 Hz? If that's right, it seems like that could be a pretty big problem unless I misunderstand something? (Of course, this still begs the question of how realistically anything could come close enough to that frequency to turn it into a serious problem?) It's a bit higher than I wanted, but it's one of the very few that seems to be able to reasonably go in an enclosure that isn't positively huge. Would it just have to be vented? The calculator says it's good for sealed enclosures as well, but of course that resonant frequency makes me wonder. For vented the resonant frequency is all the way down at 35.2013Hz, but the enclosure needs to be a fair bit larger (still within a size range I think I could deal with.) The problem then is that I still don't know how to properly vent an enclosure (in particular, I still don't know what frequency you're supposed to try to tune it to.) Any thoughts on that and whether or not that driver would be any good? If it would, I notice it has a higher sensitivity and efficiency than what I'm using now, so presumably it would be relatively easy on my amp?
Unfortunately I'm still relatively new at all of this, so still need input on such things. (And yeah, sadly, things like H-frames are beyond me.)
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From your description, it sounds as though you are having a problem with your amplifier distorting, not the woofer.
Your amp is rated down to only 40 hz. So if you add a 45hz hi pass, you are effectively rolling out the bass range that it doesn't like to do. Hence, cleaner sound.
A 45hz 6db hi pass filter means that the signal is -6db one octave below the "crossover frequency" of 45hz, which would be about 22.5hz.
So with the 45hz crossover your amp is delivering 1/4 of the power it normally would at 22.5 hz (equivalent to -6db) , and only 1/2 the power it normally would at 33.75hz (-3db) , and full power at 45hz and higher. You can easily see why this would reduce the distortion you are experiencing.
By using the crossover in the preamp level , before the amplifier , you are much better off than a passive crossover after the amp (capacitor on the speaker).
The reason is this. The crossover in the preamp level filters out the deep bass , then the signal is sent to the amplifier where the signal is amplified to a sufficient level for the speakers. By filtering out the deep bass BEFORE it reaches the amplifier , you have greatly lightened it's workload AND increased it's efficiency.
If you used a crossover after the amplifier ( your 400ufd cap , for example) , the amplifier is trying to amplify the deep bass, then you are filtering it out of the amplified signal before it gets to the woofer.
The crossover after the amplifier will lighten the load on the amp to a certain degree , but nowhere near as much as the preamp level crossover.
Use both and see how that works. I imagine it will only help.
Did you ever port your 6 1/2" Dayton cabinets ?
The 12" you linked to is designed for ported cabinet use.
The 12" I previously linked to will work well in a sealed cabinet or open baffle (H-frame, U-frame, etc.) An open baffle is very easy to build.
What is the ABSOLUTE largest cabinet that you can REALLY live with ?
........................Blake
Your amp is rated down to only 40 hz. So if you add a 45hz hi pass, you are effectively rolling out the bass range that it doesn't like to do. Hence, cleaner sound.
A 45hz 6db hi pass filter means that the signal is -6db one octave below the "crossover frequency" of 45hz, which would be about 22.5hz.
So with the 45hz crossover your amp is delivering 1/4 of the power it normally would at 22.5 hz (equivalent to -6db) , and only 1/2 the power it normally would at 33.75hz (-3db) , and full power at 45hz and higher. You can easily see why this would reduce the distortion you are experiencing.
By using the crossover in the preamp level , before the amplifier , you are much better off than a passive crossover after the amp (capacitor on the speaker).
The reason is this. The crossover in the preamp level filters out the deep bass , then the signal is sent to the amplifier where the signal is amplified to a sufficient level for the speakers. By filtering out the deep bass BEFORE it reaches the amplifier , you have greatly lightened it's workload AND increased it's efficiency.
If you used a crossover after the amplifier ( your 400ufd cap , for example) , the amplifier is trying to amplify the deep bass, then you are filtering it out of the amplified signal before it gets to the woofer.
The crossover after the amplifier will lighten the load on the amp to a certain degree , but nowhere near as much as the preamp level crossover.
Use both and see how that works. I imagine it will only help.
Did you ever port your 6 1/2" Dayton cabinets ?
The 12" you linked to is designed for ported cabinet use.
The 12" I previously linked to will work well in a sealed cabinet or open baffle (H-frame, U-frame, etc.) An open baffle is very easy to build.
What is the ABSOLUTE largest cabinet that you can REALLY live with ?
........................Blake
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