Hey All, I am new to this site, and I have a couple questions. I am thinking of buying an Adire Brahma 12, and then just playing around with it in my home theater... to see how it performs and such.
Now I was wondering why the Tumult is a "home" speaker and the brahmas are built for cars? What's the difference? Would it be a huge difference if I purchased the Tumult instead of a brahma?
Also, now when I buy one of these, what should I push it with? I'm currently pushing a Memphis SHP10 and a 18inch MCM (yes weak...but low) with a different home reciever. This seems to work fine, although the home reciever says it's rated for like 100 watts per channel. How is this working? Am I hurting my subs in any way? Because it seems like i have plenty of power.
Would it be a problem to push the brahma or tumult the same way?
Sorry this is so long, but I do appreciate any help or info because I don't want to fry my subs or anything. Thanks.
Now I was wondering why the Tumult is a "home" speaker and the brahmas are built for cars? What's the difference? Would it be a huge difference if I purchased the Tumult instead of a brahma?
Also, now when I buy one of these, what should I push it with? I'm currently pushing a Memphis SHP10 and a 18inch MCM (yes weak...but low) with a different home reciever. This seems to work fine, although the home reciever says it's rated for like 100 watts per channel. How is this working? Am I hurting my subs in any way? Because it seems like i have plenty of power.
Would it be a problem to push the brahma or tumult the same way?
Sorry this is so long, but I do appreciate any help or info because I don't want to fry my subs or anything. Thanks.
I have an Adire Brahma 12 in a 3ft^3 box tuned to 20Hz with two Adire PR15 with 1000g of mass added to each radiator. I am using it in my home theater. The differences I see between the Brahma and the Tumult offhand are:
1.The Tumult has a lower Fs. This could be useful, as I have found that the Brahma 12 benefits from a highpass filter. This is not to say that the Tumult will not need a filter, but you could probably set it at a lower frequency.
2.The Tumult has a much larger Sd, equal to about one and a half Brahma 12s.
3.The Tumult is more efficient by almost 3dB. This is significant as I have found that the Brahma 12 consumes a lot of power to get the output I like for home theater. In contrast, I believe the Tumult will require a greater damping factor to control the additional mass of the larger cone.
As for power, I am using an OMP1000 from BK electronics ( http://www.bkelec.com look under modules). I recently found out the hard way that the amp does NOT like a 1ohm load (Brahma voice coils wired in parallel). Ooops. Plan on wiring the voice coils in series.
Overall, I like the Brahma 12. I think the Tumult or Brahma 15 might work better in a home theater, though. I guess it depends how you like your bass. I recently acquired a Brahma 15 that I plan on moving into my home theater. I am going to try the B12 with a linkwitz transformer for music.
I think the Tumult will afford more box options. The Brahma 12 kinda requires a port or a vent to get decent lowend output for home theater IMO. A linkwitz transform might get it low enough, but you might be throwing away precious dB.
Hope some of this helps.
1.The Tumult has a lower Fs. This could be useful, as I have found that the Brahma 12 benefits from a highpass filter. This is not to say that the Tumult will not need a filter, but you could probably set it at a lower frequency.
2.The Tumult has a much larger Sd, equal to about one and a half Brahma 12s.
3.The Tumult is more efficient by almost 3dB. This is significant as I have found that the Brahma 12 consumes a lot of power to get the output I like for home theater. In contrast, I believe the Tumult will require a greater damping factor to control the additional mass of the larger cone.
As for power, I am using an OMP1000 from BK electronics ( http://www.bkelec.com look under modules). I recently found out the hard way that the amp does NOT like a 1ohm load (Brahma voice coils wired in parallel). Ooops. Plan on wiring the voice coils in series.
Overall, I like the Brahma 12. I think the Tumult or Brahma 15 might work better in a home theater, though. I guess it depends how you like your bass. I recently acquired a Brahma 15 that I plan on moving into my home theater. I am going to try the B12 with a linkwitz transformer for music.
I think the Tumult will afford more box options. The Brahma 12 kinda requires a port or a vent to get decent lowend output for home theater IMO. A linkwitz transform might get it low enough, but you might be throwing away precious dB.
Hope some of this helps.
As an owner of the Tumult, I have 2 things to say. The tumult is an awesome sub, and one or two hundred watts is simply not enough power. I experience this every time I listen to music. I want to turn it up. And there goes the amp into clipping, damn. I havent yet got an amp to fully power it, but judging by the sound quality at low level, and the XBL^2 I have a pretty good idea of what it can do.
Brahma 12 for HT... you'd probably be better off getting a 15 and yess pr or ported boxes are about the only way to get unassisted flat fr. LT is the another option.
Brahma 12 for HT... you'd probably be better off getting a 15 and yess pr or ported boxes are about the only way to get unassisted flat fr. LT is the another option.
uh...
A ported or PR box is technically assisted. 😉
That said, I'm not sure that's true about needing ported or PR to get flat bass response. I have none of the above and am getting pretty darned flat response below 20Hz (room issues aside). No EQ, no LT. IB will do that for ya. 😉
I've seen some sealed Tumults do very respectably in this regard as well. Placement is key to get room boost where the driver starts to fall off. Adire's new line of amps (excellent BTW) include a LT circuit and two EQ channels. No problems at all with flat response. Sealed Tempest for my dad got this treatment.
And none of the extra sound influence of a ported or PR alignment.
C
A ported or PR box is technically assisted. 😉
That said, I'm not sure that's true about needing ported or PR to get flat bass response. I have none of the above and am getting pretty darned flat response below 20Hz (room issues aside). No EQ, no LT. IB will do that for ya. 😉
I've seen some sealed Tumults do very respectably in this regard as well. Placement is key to get room boost where the driver starts to fall off. Adire's new line of amps (excellent BTW) include a LT circuit and two EQ channels. No problems at all with flat response. Sealed Tempest for my dad got this treatment.
And none of the extra sound influence of a ported or PR alignment.
C
I totally agree with BassAwdyO with regards to power. I have not used a Tumult, but even with 750 watts the Brahma 12 doesn't reach full excusion in my ported setup. I would think that 100w would be disappointing, esp. if you are using questionably rated receiver watts. By the way, Adire also has some higher efficiency subs.
When I said flat unassisted I meant without EQ and anechoic. I was refering to the Boxed type speaker enclosures. I guess I ought to be more specific
Ok, I will definately use some of that info, thanks. I'd like to get a Tumult, but thats more than $100 bucks more than a brahma 12... especially if I won't be able to power the brahma (which I'm not sure about yet) Will a reciever be able to power a brahma without hurting it???
About how I have my subs hooked up now... is that a problem? I was wondering if many other people use other recievers to power subs?
Another un-experienced question.... how does a person fry a sub? Is that when there is too much power to a sub.... can someone hurt a speaker by turning a weak amplifier or reciever up too much? I just hope I'm not ruining my memphis by running it off a weak reciever.
Thanks All. It's good to have some quality answers to my questions, no one knows much where I'm from here in Wisconsin.
About how I have my subs hooked up now... is that a problem? I was wondering if many other people use other recievers to power subs?
Another un-experienced question.... how does a person fry a sub? Is that when there is too much power to a sub.... can someone hurt a speaker by turning a weak amplifier or reciever up too much? I just hope I'm not ruining my memphis by running it off a weak reciever.
Thanks All. It's good to have some quality answers to my questions, no one knows much where I'm from here in Wisconsin.
You won't hurt a subwoofer if your receiver is not powerful enough. A Brahma is very hard to burn, especially with only 100W.
The thing that's a bit hard on speakers is if you always run your receiver at full volume and you see some clipping. That could burn some speakers.
You can also burn a subwoofer with too much power.
The thing that's a bit hard on speakers is if you always run your receiver at full volume and you see some clipping. That could burn some speakers.
You can also burn a subwoofer with too much power.
It is my impression that you do not have to run a full volume to ruin a driver if the receiver cannot support a 4ohm load. The Brahma (and Tumult, for that matter) have dual 2ohm voice coils. Wired is series will only provide a 4ohm load, something that some receiver do not like. Clipping of the amp can occur at low volume in this situation, causing destruction of the driver.
Your receiver might do fine dealing with a 4ohm load; many modern HT receivers are...but it is worth looking into. However, it is quite likely that your other speakers are more efficient than the Brahma 12, and that you will require more power to the sub to balance the output between the sub and other speakers.
It works like this: for every additional 3 decibels (dB) of output, you must double the power provided to the speaker. Say your front/center/rear speakers have an efficiency rating of 90dB, and your sub has an efficiency rating of 87dB. The difference in efficiency between the sub and front/center/rear speakers is 3dB. Therefore, you must provide double the power in watts to your sub to achieve the same output. So if you feed your front/center/rear speakers 100 watts, your sub requires 200 watts to produce a matching output.
It gets somewhat more tricky, as there are a couple ways to rate efficiency. Some companies will rate the output of there drivers by their output when provided with 1 watt of power, and measured at a distance of 1 meter (listed as 1w/1m). Other companies, in an attempt to boost the appearance of efficiency, rate their drivers at 2.83 volts provided to the driver and measured at 1 meter (listed as 2.83v/1m). In fairness, there may be a reason to measure a driver at 2.83v/1m other than to bloat its output efficiency stat, but I don't know what that reason could be.
Hope this helps some, and isn't an echo of something you already know...
Your receiver might do fine dealing with a 4ohm load; many modern HT receivers are...but it is worth looking into. However, it is quite likely that your other speakers are more efficient than the Brahma 12, and that you will require more power to the sub to balance the output between the sub and other speakers.
It works like this: for every additional 3 decibels (dB) of output, you must double the power provided to the speaker. Say your front/center/rear speakers have an efficiency rating of 90dB, and your sub has an efficiency rating of 87dB. The difference in efficiency between the sub and front/center/rear speakers is 3dB. Therefore, you must provide double the power in watts to your sub to achieve the same output. So if you feed your front/center/rear speakers 100 watts, your sub requires 200 watts to produce a matching output.
It gets somewhat more tricky, as there are a couple ways to rate efficiency. Some companies will rate the output of there drivers by their output when provided with 1 watt of power, and measured at a distance of 1 meter (listed as 1w/1m). Other companies, in an attempt to boost the appearance of efficiency, rate their drivers at 2.83 volts provided to the driver and measured at 1 meter (listed as 2.83v/1m). In fairness, there may be a reason to measure a driver at 2.83v/1m other than to bloat its output efficiency stat, but I don't know what that reason could be.
Hope this helps some, and isn't an echo of something you already know...
Raoul said:
Reason being that most amplifiers put out a *voltage* proportional to their input. So by measuring 2.83V/1m, you provide a means to compare the relative loudness of 2 drivers when powered by the same amplifier with the volume knob in the same position.
2.83 into an 8 ohm driver equates to one watt, but it equates to TWO watts on a 4 ohm driver, which makes the sensitivity appear 3dB HIGHER!
xstephanx said:2.83 into an 8 ohm driver equates to one watt, but it equates to TWO watts on a 4 ohm driver, which makes the sensitivity appear 3dB HIGHER!
That's certainly true, but consider a person who knows more or less nothing about the technical aspects of audio / electronics and just has a bit of cash they want to spend on their home theatre ... they are generally going to want to know 2 things....
1. will this speaker system work with my receiver?
2. how will it's loudness compare to what I currently use?
Now within reason and assuming that this person does not typically have the volume knob on their receiver maxed out.....
1. the impedance of the speaker will for most cases tell the person if they are likely able to use this speaker with their system.
2. comparing the 2.83V/1m rating will within reasonable bounds give a rough approximation of the relative loudness of the new speakers vs. the current speakers at a given position on the volume knob.
Now for those of us that have a deeper understanding, we may rather a 1w/1m rating but a 2.83V/1m rating can still have it's legitimate uses.
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simon5 said:
That is a lie.. if you have to little power you will burn it out faster with distortion. you should always have more power than the sub is caple of handling. it is called head room and distortion factor. if i were you id power it with a better amp than a 100watt one.
Fazorcat said:
Fuzzy and distorted. Clipping is term used to describe what is happening to the sine wave exiting your amp. Anytime you hear fuzzy sound, and you know it's not the speakers creating the sound, that's clipping.
Cal
Ok, so I have one person saying I will hurt the brahma if I under power it, and I have one person saying that I won't. How do I know who to believe?
My next question was gonna be about distortion, because I've heard that can be bad for your speakers. I've heard distortion is from UNDERPOWERING the sub. So I'm leaning with jleaman in thinking that can hurt the sub. So... what do I do if I want a brahma, but don't want to buy a $500 amp to push it? Is there anyway to play with my new SUB then? (once I get it, I don't have it yet)
My next question was gonna be about distortion, because I've heard that can be bad for your speakers. I've heard distortion is from UNDERPOWERING the sub. So I'm leaning with jleaman in thinking that can hurt the sub. So... what do I do if I want a brahma, but don't want to buy a $500 amp to push it? Is there anyway to play with my new SUB then? (once I get it, I don't have it yet)
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