As far as I can tell, I've only heard tapped horns without time correction, and they all sound muddy and poorly integrated to me......but I'm used to time correct bass.
Hey Mr. Bell,
I just got an call from my brother - he took the SS15 and our tops to a church youth group thing this afternoon and got to blast it for a while. Everyone was really impressed and he is very happy with it.
Also, I saw on you SS15 forum that you have designed a prototype SS18 with the Dayton Audio PA460-8 18" woofer. How does that compare to the SS15 in sound quality and power handling? Thanks.
I just got an call from my brother - he took the SS15 and our tops to a church youth group thing this afternoon and got to blast it for a while. Everyone was really impressed and he is very happy with it.
Also, I saw on you SS15 forum that you have designed a prototype SS18 with the Dayton Audio PA460-8 18" woofer. How does that compare to the SS15 in sound quality and power handling? Thanks.
yes, art -- somehow I figured you'd comment.
Consider my original proposal for small DJ setup like this:
10' left to center is left speaker on a stick
10' right to center is right speaker on a stick
pair ss15 subs center clustered, in 'plane' with the L/R speakers.
L/R speakers are toe'd in about 30 degrees, so when you are far off left, you hear right speaker, and when you are far off right you hear left speaker. Dance floor is approx 30' wide by 30' deep, with table seating behind and to the sides of that.
Choose several points on the dance floor -- what is the approximate delay needed to time align the sub to the tops?
I think if you do the geometry, you'll find that no delay is actually the most 'aligned' you can get in that particular setup.
On the SS18 vs ss15 and what to build....
Considering you are at least somewhat happy with a 3012lf loaded ss15, build original ss15's with 4015lf's and power it with an IPR 3000 dsp with maxxbass. That's the deal.
The ss18 with the dayton has a 50-60hz bump that is also the xmax point. As you wind it up you start hitting xmax at 50-60hz and it stops giving any more output while the other freq keep getting louder. So at full tilt it's about flat response, (but with some elevated 2nd order distortion) but at lower levels it has a nice 50-60hz bump. All in all it will give someone a bit of 'dynamic eq' so to speak, with some added 2nd order distortion that ears want to hear at war volume. Part of the reason (not just lack of time) I haven't released the ss18 with the dayton, is because I'm not convinced that is a good thing or not. Several folks have built them and are happy, but I believe they always run them flat out where they sound the best.
My 2c -- To keep your construction at a minimum, build a ss15 'slim' and put your 3012lf in it and buy a bash 500 plate amp, mod the salen key filter for your high pass at 32-36hz with 3db bump and install in the back of the cabinet -- you keep that, pair it with a pair of B112d behringer tops or some other powered top you like. Build another ss15, and enlarge the baffle for your first ss15 cabinet and load both of them with 4015lf's and power with the IPR amp.
Consider my original proposal for small DJ setup like this:
10' left to center is left speaker on a stick
10' right to center is right speaker on a stick
pair ss15 subs center clustered, in 'plane' with the L/R speakers.
L/R speakers are toe'd in about 30 degrees, so when you are far off left, you hear right speaker, and when you are far off right you hear left speaker. Dance floor is approx 30' wide by 30' deep, with table seating behind and to the sides of that.
Choose several points on the dance floor -- what is the approximate delay needed to time align the sub to the tops?
I think if you do the geometry, you'll find that no delay is actually the most 'aligned' you can get in that particular setup.
On the SS18 vs ss15 and what to build....
Considering you are at least somewhat happy with a 3012lf loaded ss15, build original ss15's with 4015lf's and power it with an IPR 3000 dsp with maxxbass. That's the deal.
The ss18 with the dayton has a 50-60hz bump that is also the xmax point. As you wind it up you start hitting xmax at 50-60hz and it stops giving any more output while the other freq keep getting louder. So at full tilt it's about flat response, (but with some elevated 2nd order distortion) but at lower levels it has a nice 50-60hz bump. All in all it will give someone a bit of 'dynamic eq' so to speak, with some added 2nd order distortion that ears want to hear at war volume. Part of the reason (not just lack of time) I haven't released the ss18 with the dayton, is because I'm not convinced that is a good thing or not. Several folks have built them and are happy, but I believe they always run them flat out where they sound the best.
My 2c -- To keep your construction at a minimum, build a ss15 'slim' and put your 3012lf in it and buy a bash 500 plate amp, mod the salen key filter for your high pass at 32-36hz with 3db bump and install in the back of the cabinet -- you keep that, pair it with a pair of B112d behringer tops or some other powered top you like. Build another ss15, and enlarge the baffle for your first ss15 cabinet and load both of them with 4015lf's and power with the IPR amp.
why the bash 500 jbell? they have an inuke 3000. thats enough oomph for sure!
keep in mind they also bought 2 kappa? 15s (cant remember if they were kapplite or kappas)
keep in mind they also bought 2 kappa? 15s (cant remember if they were kapplite or kappas)
I can't see how that would be possible, at all, you would need around 6ms of delay on the tops for that setup to properly time align.
the idea is the people to the left have a great distance between the rightmost speaker and the subs (about 7feet), the same for the opposite side.
We had the 3012LF in the T39, which we actually just sold, so that speaker is gone (my brother made about $0.75 an hour for his building time).
We got a used Kappa 15LF-2 that we used to build the SS15. I doubt we could find another one used again, so if we decide to keep on the SS15 path, maybe we could just build two more with the 4015LF's?
Yeah, we have the iNuke 3000DSP, but I just looked up what the MaxxBass features is on the Peavy IPR and it looks pretty cool.
Ha, I found out why he got such a good deal on that minivan. It was a momma-mobile for a bunch of kids and it smells like McDonald's french fries inside of it. The back seats were heavily stained from kids eating in it, but my brother pulled them out and put our gear inside of it. Then he ran an extension cord out to it, plugged in the power amp, and blasted the music with all the windows closed. It was so loud he said his body started feeling strange. He said the condensed space seemed to make the subwoofer a lot louder.
"Zep Commercial Smoke Eliminator" is a great spray can smell eliminator, even works on cat pee!
Does not cover up the smell, it gets rid of it.
Cabin gain in a vehicle can increase low frequency by 10 dB or more- the difference between 1000 and 10,000 watts.
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So when you stand to the side of the dance floor, you get correct time alignment on the bass and no stereo....? Sounds *wonderful*.......😕
Great! Thanks for the tip Sir.
Ouch! I think that boy may need some adult supervision with his new toys.
its called cabin gain. its the biggest condtender to car response, esp in low frequencies. it also plays a part in small hometheaters.
Weird because when I had an ss15 in my CRV it didn't work for sh*t. Seemed it didn't do a good job of pressurizing the cabin the way my other purpose built car subwoofer cabinet did.
I forget where I saw the chart, but cabin gain really helps below 50hz if I remember correctly. It's something crazy like a 12db/octave increase below a certain frequency. That could be why....
Either way the ss15's I had did a great job on the beach over sand with only 250w or so per cabinet. For the weight, I couldn't ask for more.
If the OP thinks ss15's have enough low end, there is no need for him to step up to a larger cabinet that digs deeper. That's just wasting size and efficiency then.
Either way the ss15's I had did a great job on the beach over sand with only 250w or so per cabinet. For the weight, I couldn't ask for more.
If the OP thinks ss15's have enough low end, there is no need for him to step up to a larger cabinet that digs deeper. That's just wasting size and efficiency then.
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The really roll off below tuning is really steep on a horn. There may not have been as much 20-30 Hz coming out of it as a sealed sub. And the car sub may have been drawing 4x the power from the amp as an SS15 with an 8R driver in it.
We are much happier with the sound of the SS15 versus the Titan39, but we are still testing it and trying to decide if we actually need/want even more low-end response. It seems cost/size expands exponentially the lower you go, so ideally we would like to find the happy medium.
I have never heard of this "cabin gain" before, I am learning something new everyday. Thanks
Although I was satisfied with the compromise of cabinets that roll off below 60 Hz (like the SS15) last century, when hearing car subs on the street with more LF than my PA early this century realized that there is a lot of current music that digs way deeper.
I have settled on a low corner of 35 Hz as the new "happy medium" for PA use.
Another 10 years and 25 Hz will be a lot more typical...
Art
Room (cabin) gain is a huge factor in determining how much speaker output you will need. That is why systems you can scale up are important for mobile sound providers.
If you are trying to fill a very large room, or do a outdoor event, large horns or the ubiquitous (fairly common from rental shops) >150lb. double 18 subs are needed, small subs will be trashed if you push them too hard and without boundary's you can loose over 6db of LF in these locations.
Sub placement is also important and you should read up on wall loading and power alleys. Most of the time you will see systems that are set up to look good rather than sound the best.
Welters dual lab12 design is great for being compact and having good extension, a bit power hungry and heavy with the large ferrite magnets but if you need sub 40hz in a compact size that can handle livesound it is the type of box you will want.
And people already balk at the idea of 30 cubic foot boxes. Driver technology is going to have to take another leap forward to keep up.
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