Adding Bass to monitor speakers (not a subbass)

You seem determined. Of course you can add a 10” to this existing speaker. Depending on your requirements any cab from 30 (closed) to 70 (vented) will do. Just set your goals on low frequency reproduction and required max SPL.

The issue I see is the crossover to the monitors. At 200 to 300Hz I would not try that without measurements. If you decide to keep the subs: same thing. I’d even consider low frequency reproduction optimization with multiple subs and adequate DSP on the system. But it’s all about your goals.

If you’re happy with adjustment by ears, by all means go ahead. Since any decent long throw woofer will perform the duty more than adequate, you wouldn’t even need advice, but SB and Dayton have nice and affordable drivers.
 
I'm not determined. I just try to be realistic as to what can be done. I don't pretend to have skill to improve on $4.5k (which would cost almost double if it was made today) monitor regarding integration of drivers. I think it is as good as it can possibly be within the realm of used drivers , topology and purpose. The usual route is to use subs to fill in but I'm not fond of such solution in a bigger space. It may work in small room to some extent. I would use subs with floor standers with adequate bass performance. 100 Hz from 10-12" and 100 Hz from 6" level matched does not sound the same. I started the thread with hope that there are people who tried something like that with some success and can offer some hints. I'm not unhappy with playback in the room. It is quite good and IMHO quite a bit better than average judging by the systems I heard in peoples houses over the years. Since my hearing is taking a radical dive I will probably have to simply account for it by relaying more on the ear than a measurements although low frequency is not a trouble region with my ears.
Thanks for engaging.
 
Unfortunately yes . It is an immediately arresting quality of the playback non existent in reality. I have fixation on effortless articulate midbass without artificial ,rubbery pumping "punch " that's why I'm romping about it.
 
100 Hz from 10-12" and 100 Hz from 6" level matched does not sound the same.
Are you sure and willing to do the ABX-test on that one? To me, it’s more like you need more headroom (if you have your levels right…) and for that a 12” long throw (as you don’t need the effectivity) woofer in a preferably closed enclosure delivering the 60Hz and upwards would fill the bill. But again, I wouldn’t endeavor this without measuring acoustic output, because otherwise one ends up in an endless loop of confusion.
 
"I see the eternal discussion on ‘fast bass’ coming up.
We surely don't want that🙂 I prefer to displace volume with a big surface of woofers and minimal movement but it's probably not a suitable solution for a system in question. I will do some poking around with measurements . take a pair of scan 25W/8565-00 out of the bass towers to put them close to monitor in mock up enclosure to check a concept , re-arrange the position of monitors and report back. Another option is to look for a pair of MBL 300E from a bored phile in need of "change of direction "
All my DIY effort over the years was handicapped by tons of perfectly adequate gear laying around to pick up for close to nothing. Curse of living in the land of plenty 🙂
All the best and have a nice weekend!!
 
Gm
I have only 10 ft width of the room . I can accommodate 12" as a base for monitor or max 10" or 2x10" as a tower next to the monitor.
As is the monitors image like a gangbusters.
I guess I only have a few years left in the hobby so I' d like to enjoy that artificial effects I never cared for before like a cruise trip for octogenarians🙂
Understood, I was 'working' based on the woofer cum base, so 12" - 15" till you just now said the 15" is too wide, ergo the 12" makes the best overall blend as it will be in line vertically and well within the ideal < ~1/4 WL of the XO point c-t-c.

That said, the other consideration is that at 80 - 100 Hz 4th order XO = -24 dB an octave higher at 160 - 200 Hz = ~13543/pi/Hz = 27" - 22" dia. sound 'bubble', ergo if the main's woofer, dual 10" jammed together vertically and centered horizontally with a 'close enough' horizontal c-t-c will ~fit inside either one is close enough you're in theory good to go, otherwise stick with the 12" monitor base.
 
How about light ,stiff woofer with relatively high fs shelved with a big coil to efficiency of 84-86 db ?
Great with transients, poor with output level and non-linear distortion as freq.s lower.

IF it’s active with a HIGH-current amplifier AND it’s either sealed-aperiodic OR Impedance-corrected (flat), then you can get a more similar result with what I suggested previously while having good output and low non-linear distortion.

Note: regardless of the basic design, a very stiff baffle (steel plate, cement, high compression plywood and resin, carbon fiber plate, etc.) will help a LOT.
 
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Why would a light, stiff woofer with relatively high Fs shelved with a big coil (as in around 10mH?) be great with transients? As in: better than any other well-designed low end? All I see is a resonance not that well damped because of a big inductance in the electrical branch of the system. Boooom Bass... of course if adequately designed and response tailored no problem, but as so often resulting in complete disaster when one doesn't know how and resists to measure acoustic output.
 
What would be a well designed low end according to you? You know the basic parameters of the stand mount , it's 17 cm woofer and the size of a space, 50m2 plus 20% more of volume due to opening to second floor. How measured response of the speakers in the space is going to help you with choosing the solution to bass restrictions on 17 cm woofer? I don't have to compromise on impulse response on quality vs quantity because I will still use those subs in corner. If I'd chose to follow manufacturers solution in bigger model 300e I would cross midbas at 140 hz and try to find adequate woofers for passive 4 Ohm 86 db bass module. Measurements come later . I see discussion going into direction that everything sounds the same if it's level, phase adjusted and measuring the same.
Therefore the best way to buy $100k speakers is to buy $5k ( or wait a couple of years and buy it for $ 500 like I do ) model from the same manufacturer measure , get SB woofer ( cheaper the better since they all sound the same on DBX test ) adjust it with help of some cheap measuring equipment add some $5 dsp card into the mix from Ebay and presto! A world beating system. That's 90% of Diyaudio philosophy and I want to exploit it 🙂
 
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I see discussion going into direction that everything sounds the same if it's level, phase adjusted and measuring the same.
For bass, show it’s not true 😉 Challenge yourself. Define your goals in terms of max SPL, max distortion. I for one wouldn’t let one get away with ‘measurements come later’.

But as I said before, go ahead and build that bass unit. You’re determined to do so, never mind the result. And no one is stopping you. But don’t believe the nonsense that ‘respected’ brands wish to claim just to sell their overly priced stuff. It’s (even) worse than the wine or whisky business.
 
Goal isn't very ambitious. I want to relieve 6" woofer in small enclosure from "pumping" low frequencies and introduce a mid-bass channel which practically can have the same 43 Hz f3 but will allow for more believable mid-bass performance , higher SPL and lower distortion, How much lower is less important. How much more SPL -dunno . It will be restricted by the cut off frequency of the monitor and the drivers which are already there. I posted picture of the monitor . I think it looks very nice and integrates well with factory stand. I wouldn't want to spoil the look of the setup so maybe black tower standing next to the wall with a couple of 10" or a few of 8" or one 12 " would do . Now should that driver be positioned on the level below the existing midwoofer on the same plane or maybe on the bottom. What enclosure type? I don't need to maximize it's low extension since I have subs too but I want it to be low enough so I won't need those subs for fairly high SPL playback. Is it going to be a super challenging task to try to cross is and blend it passively and match to existing speaker??
I suspect that this is 4 ohm custom version of the driver used
https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/midr...driver-midbass-kevlar-8-ohm-o17cm-p-3232.html
What do you want me to measure to help me with the choice of the woofer? How I determine if it should have aluminum , paper, composite or plastic cone to match kevlar midbass?
(Given the size of the space and lossy nature of the walls with less bass support than European building )
These are the questions experienced builders may have opinions on based on the projects , experiments they have done> I don't have that experience and no measurement can help me with answering those questions. I very much appreciate your help, I just think we have a problem with communication and understanding ones intentions. I do not dismiss measurements but I have to have something to measure.
That's the way the manufacturer solved the issue in the floorstanding model of the same speaker
https://stereonomono.blogspot.com/2018/12/mbl-300e-speakers.html
 
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Why would a light, stiff woofer with relatively high Fs shelved with a big coil (as in around 10mH?) be great with transients? As in: better than any other well-designed low end? All I see is a resonance not that well damped because of a big inductance in the electrical branch of the system.
As long as the coil has very low resistance - (it) just sounds “fast” and “dynamic”.

Ex. read impressions at bottom of page:

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/Supravox215GMF.htm
 
The specs of the monitor are in the link. Cross points are 2.5KH and 30 kh I didn't check the tunning on the monitor I suspect 40-50 hz . I thought of just rolling it off at 80-100 hz 6db ( cap ) to free monitor from bass range and introduce a sort of bass solution . What would it be ,it will have to be determined. Bass towers in the corners have 4 x 10 " Scanspeak woofers in each corner rolled 24db at 60 hz just to add " ambient" bass . Old Avantgarde bandpass subs are not connected. It's not the bass solution I'm looking for
I will eventually clean the mess, maybe ...
What you did here CAN'T work roperly! Doing a proper crossover and seamless integration takes a little more ....
Which ScanSpeak chassis do you use? This can't be that bad, just needs the right technique to get it done properly.

First - crossover slopes must fit. 4th order 60Hz will never fit to the filter you did to your mains. Have a look at THX norm. They demand a closed satelite with corner frequency of 80Hz. (-> slope 2nd order) THX amps add a 2nd order highpass -> ACOUSTICAL 4th order highpass. THEN you use a 4th order lowpass for the woofer - this fits.
In ADDITION you need to get the delay/phase between sub and mains right! A simple phase inversion is not precise enough, esp when they are so far apart. Nowerdays you can use delay to really fit the speaker together and this sounds seamless when done right.

So what can you do with your system? You want to preserve your speakers and don't want to do an active crossover at 250Hz?
Best bet is to close the reflex port and measure how low the TMT goes. Grab your woofers from the corners and put them next to your speaker and do a lowpass 2nd order at the same frequency. Invert the phase and MEASURE the biggest chancellation between the 2 - it will be the best summation when flipping the phase back. You can introduce and change delay with just moveing your subwoofer. That will not give the support of the TMT you would like but at least a simple and good integration of the sub.
Adding a 1st order filter to your mains will interact with the impedance and give a funky frequency response! You would need to linearise the impedance before ... you really need to know what you are doing with passive filtering!

But you miss the MAIN reason for a subwoofer - to put it on the best spot in the room to get an even response with the lowest room resonances!
For perfect subwoofer integration you would need DSP crossovers for your main speakers and Subwoofers and 50-100 measurements - but then it plays like there is no subwoofer. You just know it's there when you switch it off ...
 
Oh , it's working pretty well actually even though integration could be a bit better and less disjointed. It works like a classical satellite sub combo of monitors supported by pair of subwoofer in effort to mimick a real floor standing speaker which costs real money , except that I never heard one such setup I really liked. Always a half *** solutioni in bigger space . I thought today of simply getting rid of clutter of horns I hoped to work on some day and position monitors closer to back wall and subs but I do like large and deep stage current setup provides
I only roll off the bass towers 24 db/ Oct at 60 hz from an active crossover to bass amps. Signal taken from the seconnd main out in the preamp . While the slope is fixed 24db the frequency is variable. I did reverse the phase on the mains to get better results. It's just a mock up temporary setup which I put together to check out those monitors but longer I listen to it more I like it. Staging and imaging is quite addictive if you have a world class digital front end even if it's little bit dated.
There are total 8x 25W/ 8565-00 four in each corner in 4 subs, two per sub - closed box . Monitors are not filtered at all and just play full range. I can introduce 6db roll off on the input of the main amp. I didn't consider DSP but a local guy has a cheap TACT room correction unit . Maybe it's worth to invest in it.
I'm kind of with Geddes on this that elaborate bass modeling in speakers is bull and room effect will swamp any design effort . But he does use 10" -15" in his designs not a punny 6" to handle midbass and array of woofers spread around the room..
I will re-evaluate old Avant-garde bandpass subs and add them into the mix. They were used with first incarnation of Trio horns and have a pair of 8" drivers which were chosen to match a speed of their midbass horn which I don't believe had much output below 100Hz.. The solution was quickly abandoned as not sufficient but it did made into production phase so it had to have some merit ( small size for Euro rooms maybe ? ).
 
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As long as you have active solution with DSP correction capability (and measurement capability) - you should be pretty well off.

Maybe look to a smaller Crown class D with DSP like the XLS1002 (which you can always turn into a mono-amp for more power later). ..though those need a fair bit of voltage input/gain.
 
I would think all ingredients for a good multi-sub solution are in the house, except for a 6-channel DSP, REW and a USB mic (never thought I would advise one). Generally the crossover to your subs must be adjusted to above the problematic room modes (yes, you have them too, with your sloppy cardboard-and-stud walls and wooden floors). And probably you are better off by closing the reflex port of the satellites. That is better anyway, for midrange performance.
 
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