Hey everyone, been lurking on this board for a while. I'm a regular over at DIYMA. I've been really involved in car audio for a long time and I think I'm ready to tackle my first HT DIY project.
Wife and I haven't been in agreement on where to put a sub in our new house. As most can relate, she doesn't want to see anything. Initially, I thought maybe I'd go with a ceiling IB manifold setup but as I considered it more, I determined it was more work then I wanted to commit too, and more importantly, I didn't have an aesthetically pleasing location to put a manifold in the ceiling of my living room. Then it hit me, I could use my coffee table to conceal my subwoofer. I could do this in two ways, 1. Make the enclosure part of the table, 2. Build a separate enclosure that the table would sit over top of to conceal the subwoofer. What would you guys think is best?
Onto the design... Coming from Car Audio, I've known for a while that the Alpine SWS-15's are a real bargain in terms of performance, value, and output. I think the total area of what I could build would come out to be about 5.6 cubic ft. Using UniBox to model the sub, I get a nice flat response down to 30Hz. I've attached the FR curve. The idea is that I'd use two of the subs in the enclosure. Power would be provided by a Kenwood Basic M2a, 350WPC at 4 ohms.
What do you experts think about my plans so far? Do you have any other driver recommendations that you think would work better in this configuration? Thanks for your help!
Wife and I haven't been in agreement on where to put a sub in our new house. As most can relate, she doesn't want to see anything. Initially, I thought maybe I'd go with a ceiling IB manifold setup but as I considered it more, I determined it was more work then I wanted to commit too, and more importantly, I didn't have an aesthetically pleasing location to put a manifold in the ceiling of my living room. Then it hit me, I could use my coffee table to conceal my subwoofer. I could do this in two ways, 1. Make the enclosure part of the table, 2. Build a separate enclosure that the table would sit over top of to conceal the subwoofer. What would you guys think is best?
Onto the design... Coming from Car Audio, I've known for a while that the Alpine SWS-15's are a real bargain in terms of performance, value, and output. I think the total area of what I could build would come out to be about 5.6 cubic ft. Using UniBox to model the sub, I get a nice flat response down to 30Hz. I've attached the FR curve. The idea is that I'd use two of the subs in the enclosure. Power would be provided by a Kenwood Basic M2a, 350WPC at 4 ohms.
What do you experts think about my plans so far? Do you have any other driver recommendations that you think would work better in this configuration? Thanks for your help!
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How important is size? I've built a TH dual 12 sws12d4 box that sims at 125 dB average 35-100. That's at 8.5 cu.ft external.
Designed one for the 15 a while back, here it is (left image). It's large, at roughly 25 cu. ft. but since you didn't mention size: this is what is possible with those two drivers and my limited knowledge (only been designing for 2 years). This design is recieving 44 V input signal, limited by displacement.
It's basically unreasonable to get a pair sws15's down to 30 with any decent efficiency going the horn route in the under 7 cu. ft. range so in the <7 cu. ft category BR wins out. Here is a BR design of comparable size to yours (6 cu.ft, the one on the right).
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If you're looking for impressive WAF and have finishing skills look up the table tuba on Bill Fitzmaurice's website, some have turned it into a furniture grade piece of art and the driver cost can be quite cheap. I'm in the pre-wife age group that paints everything like batman prefers: black.
Yea, it really can't be any bigger than 5.5 cu ft because it needs to fit under the coffee table. I guess I didn't make that clear enough in my original post. The largest size that I can fit under the table is 5.5 cubic ft. I know I can't get down super low, but I figure this sub would still out perform most anything that I could buy. If there's any other subs out there that would still perform well in this enclosure and outperform the Alpine SWS-15's I'm all ears.
Buy the HT18 by stereo integrity 160 dollars, only need 1 18 to match a pair of the SWS (maybe slightly less output) but you can tune it down to 25 Hz and get usable response to 20 in a ported box of the size you want! 120 dB average output, f3 of 30 Hz, lots more excursion on the table for EQing the low end. The two 15's yield about 1 dB more output for the same power but can take more power in the long run (1000 watts versus 600) when/if you get a bigger amp.
IMO I'd buy the 18 because it would save money and it's one less circle cut.
http://stereointegrity.com/product/ht18-18-subwoofer/
Just looked up some pro 18 inch woofers and they aren't any better than a pair of sws15's.
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Yea, I looked at the HT18, the only drawback is the mounting depth in my enclosure. The HT18 is 9.5" deep, my total enclosure is only 10" deep. Seeing as the HT18 has a vented pole piece, it probably needs at least 2-3" of room behind it so it can breathe properly, wouldn't you say?
Also wanted to mention that they do indeed model really close to one another. Peak is about the same, and as you said slightly lower output throughout the spectrum. They are both modeling about the same output at 20hz. I'm sure in a better box the HT18 probably does have better output below 30Hz, but I am limited to what I can fit under the table. Maybe if I can bump out the back of the box where the sub would be mounted, the HT18 could work and save me a little bit of money in the process.
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