fwiw, I have the BC 18PS100 mentioned above in a 5.5ft3 sonotube cab, tuned to 36hz. Will do 120db+, not much can touch it. And it is TIGHT. I demo Enter Sandman for the kids and in the beginning there is just guitar without a hint of what's comin. Then when drums kick in they are floored. The whole thing only weighs about 45lbs - so it's easily portable.
Interesting,
I just added an additional seal to my 6 foot tall line arrays this afternoon. 😀 Budget might like 'em since they run twelve 5" woofers crossing to 48 10mm tweeters in a sealed box. They are my "garage speakers" as that is where they live their freezing to overheating life--along with beer, BBQ and sometimes high output. 95% of the time they are driven at 10 watt peaks and sound decent.
However, are they the be all--end all sound? No, but they sound big with a very large sweet spot and overpower the garage so it sounds as good as a garage can. Twenty-four 5" woofers in two 6 foot tall line attempt to produce low bass and they do... but not earth shaking. They are very efficient, 48 tweeters tend to do that sort of thing and have that big PA stack sound. The deep bass is lacking though, a perfect candidate for a PA subwoofer. That is fine by me, I didn't design them to be bass monsters and they are not. They CAN produce decent bass with EQ but distortion rises as the EQ goes up.
Last year I build what budget would THINK would sound good--in theory. Two 15" light weight paper coned PA woofers in isobarik push-pull configuration in a sealed box. They sounded great! Alas, they fell apart in the low 30's and the distortion was insane at higher levels at 20 Hz. My amplifier will limit when it detects non-linear voice coil travel and it limited at around 80 watts with the deep stuff.
I understand the dislike of typical ported speakers--it is the mid-bass "leak" from the port that "muddies" the sound. Since my isobarik sealed box was a failure (I wanted 20 Hz for home theater) I pondered my options. So I went ported with a twist, used an 18" passive radiator tuned to 21 Hz to get the low end I required for HT use. Viola! It worked! My amplifier then limited at 350 watts at 20 Hz and my house shook. The sub sounds "sealed" during typical music but during explosions and the like--that passive gets moving and my 20 to 40 Hz response is +2/-0 dB.
Oh yeah, the passive will sound bad at under 20 Hz...that is fine, I can't hear infrasonic frequencies so I don't care. My sub experiment works well from 20 Hz to 80 Hz, no port noise, no boom, no slop and even musicians like it. It took a couple of tries but I retuned it easily with weights on the passive to make it smooth where it is located in the room.
I'll give sealed subwoofers this though--they are the alignment to use if you don't use infrasonic filters below tuning frequency. Sealed subs are what I spec for most autosound, one because the early roll off is countered by cabin gain but the other reason is simple. My 18 year old son is an idiot. Yep, bass drops and shaking mirrors along with cone stroke is the rule... sealed allows much more abuse than ported, bandpass, TL or open baffle. It is not a question of sound quality, sealed is used to protect the speaker from the owner! 😉
For the record, my home theater speakers are all sealed boxes--the garage "PA speakers" are also sealed (so bugs and critters don't have a home) My subwoofers are not sealed. The home theater subwoofer is ported (passive radiator) and I'm working on a tapped horn for the sealed vertical line arrays in the garage. Can a single 10" subwoofer keep up with twenty-four 5" woofers? I'll find out! The only alignment that will get me close is horns... in a corner.
My personal preference is either sealed, passive radiator (tuned low) or horn loading. My life would be easier if I like one type--alas, that one type has not been invented to cover all my requirements. Maybe the Synergy Horn is in my future 😕😕
I just added an additional seal to my 6 foot tall line arrays this afternoon. 😀 Budget might like 'em since they run twelve 5" woofers crossing to 48 10mm tweeters in a sealed box. They are my "garage speakers" as that is where they live their freezing to overheating life--along with beer, BBQ and sometimes high output. 95% of the time they are driven at 10 watt peaks and sound decent.
However, are they the be all--end all sound? No, but they sound big with a very large sweet spot and overpower the garage so it sounds as good as a garage can. Twenty-four 5" woofers in two 6 foot tall line attempt to produce low bass and they do... but not earth shaking. They are very efficient, 48 tweeters tend to do that sort of thing and have that big PA stack sound. The deep bass is lacking though, a perfect candidate for a PA subwoofer. That is fine by me, I didn't design them to be bass monsters and they are not. They CAN produce decent bass with EQ but distortion rises as the EQ goes up.
Last year I build what budget would THINK would sound good--in theory. Two 15" light weight paper coned PA woofers in isobarik push-pull configuration in a sealed box. They sounded great! Alas, they fell apart in the low 30's and the distortion was insane at higher levels at 20 Hz. My amplifier will limit when it detects non-linear voice coil travel and it limited at around 80 watts with the deep stuff.
I understand the dislike of typical ported speakers--it is the mid-bass "leak" from the port that "muddies" the sound. Since my isobarik sealed box was a failure (I wanted 20 Hz for home theater) I pondered my options. So I went ported with a twist, used an 18" passive radiator tuned to 21 Hz to get the low end I required for HT use. Viola! It worked! My amplifier then limited at 350 watts at 20 Hz and my house shook. The sub sounds "sealed" during typical music but during explosions and the like--that passive gets moving and my 20 to 40 Hz response is +2/-0 dB.
Oh yeah, the passive will sound bad at under 20 Hz...that is fine, I can't hear infrasonic frequencies so I don't care. My sub experiment works well from 20 Hz to 80 Hz, no port noise, no boom, no slop and even musicians like it. It took a couple of tries but I retuned it easily with weights on the passive to make it smooth where it is located in the room.
I'll give sealed subwoofers this though--they are the alignment to use if you don't use infrasonic filters below tuning frequency. Sealed subs are what I spec for most autosound, one because the early roll off is countered by cabin gain but the other reason is simple. My 18 year old son is an idiot. Yep, bass drops and shaking mirrors along with cone stroke is the rule... sealed allows much more abuse than ported, bandpass, TL or open baffle. It is not a question of sound quality, sealed is used to protect the speaker from the owner! 😉
For the record, my home theater speakers are all sealed boxes--the garage "PA speakers" are also sealed (so bugs and critters don't have a home) My subwoofers are not sealed. The home theater subwoofer is ported (passive radiator) and I'm working on a tapped horn for the sealed vertical line arrays in the garage. Can a single 10" subwoofer keep up with twenty-four 5" woofers? I'll find out! The only alignment that will get me close is horns... in a corner.
My personal preference is either sealed, passive radiator (tuned low) or horn loading. My life would be easier if I like one type--alas, that one type has not been invented to cover all my requirements. Maybe the Synergy Horn is in my future 😕😕
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