Building a new home with an unfinished basement I will be finishing myself. Looking at Monolith Powered Subwoofer (15 Inch with 1,000 Watt Amplifier) or a 18-Inch MartyCube with a Dayton UM18-2 pushed by a Behringer NX1000. The part of the room for the home theater/ media room will be approximately 25ft deep by 25ft wide and is in the middle of a 50ft wide by 26ft deep open floor plan basement with an exposed 9 foot ceiling. I have no real experience with home audio. I have some with car audio from years back (we all have that phase in life). Will either of those option provide enough bass to feel the bass or should I be looking at other options. Budget is around 1200-1500 for the sub/amp.
Will be for 99% home theater/movies/Netflix. Maybe 1% music- not loud enough to bother neighbors
Keep in mind I have used a Rockville 8 powered sub in a two car garage set up and liked it but it died and was replaced by a Sony 10” powered sub. So that is the extent of my home subwoofer experience. I love the look of a big driver centered under my projector screen and am even considering the Marty box or custom box with the Kracken 21” sub just for the visual but that would be pushing my budget. My dyi skills are solid so building a custom box is not the issue.
Boys and their toys! Some of these posts are actually embarrassing. Just to get things straight . . . you want to use an amount of electricity that would power an entire African village to reproduce incoherent rumble in a movie soundtrack?
My current setup uses two subwoofers, 170 watts RMS. There's a scene in King Kong verses Godzilla where the ape is strapped to the deck of a ship. The sound of his breathing ripped the coving from my ceiling. I'm not sure if that reflects on my skills as a system builder, or a failure on the part of my contractor.
My point is: be green! There are skilled engineers on this forum, many of which can use 1 watt to make your neighbours take legal action.
If I think, back in the day, my monthly school disco was cancelled due to noise complaints. Three hundred kids were traumatised! The DJ used a 100 watt Citronic console.
1Kw in a house makes you a laughing stock - the sub Homer Simpson built. Get a girlfriend or pay more attention to your wife before she leaves you.
As to actual technical help - I have nothing.
My current setup uses two subwoofers, 170 watts RMS. There's a scene in King Kong verses Godzilla where the ape is strapped to the deck of a ship. The sound of his breathing ripped the coving from my ceiling. I'm not sure if that reflects on my skills as a system builder, or a failure on the part of my contractor.
My point is: be green! There are skilled engineers on this forum, many of which can use 1 watt to make your neighbours take legal action.
If I think, back in the day, my monthly school disco was cancelled due to noise complaints. Three hundred kids were traumatised! The DJ used a 100 watt Citronic console.
1Kw in a house makes you a laughing stock - the sub Homer Simpson built. Get a girlfriend or pay more attention to your wife before she leaves you.
As to actual technical help - I have nothing.
The UM18 in a sealed cabinet, powered by a Behringer NX is a great performer for the price and design simplicity. But get the NX3000, the NX1000 isn't going to give you more than a few hundred watts actual watts. You want some headroom. NX3000 will let you get the most out of the low end without pushing the cheap amp into protection. And get the DSP version so you can use the power where you need it.
I don't agree with the poster who said a 1kW sub is ridiculous overkill. The above system is the minimum I would consider for an HT sub in a large room. And your room is massive really, great for smooth response but not so great for LF boundary reinforcement. In no way comparable to a 13x15 room or a car for that matter.
I don't agree with the poster who said a 1kW sub is ridiculous overkill. The above system is the minimum I would consider for an HT sub in a large room. And your room is massive really, great for smooth response but not so great for LF boundary reinforcement. In no way comparable to a 13x15 room or a car for that matter.
Yeah, the lowest eigenmode in either direction [25, 50 ft = ~22.6 - 11.3 Hz] basically means no room gain till well below 20 Hz, so precious little boost for even the lowest LF movie soundtracks other than what corner loading adds and depending on how far away from it's location(s), ULF efficiency, even a 1 KW rated sub might not be powerful enough to meet Dolby's 115 dB peaks at the listening position(s).
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The more I read in this forum the more I learn that I don’t know much about this. I have attached a quick drawing of the room. It is 50ft by 26 ft with a bar to the side. Poured concrete floor but will have a 12‘ x 15 black rug directly under the screen. And a dark wall behind the screen as indicated. The green boxes on the drawing are the speakers the two large ones the top of the page are two subwoofers under the 100 inch screen. The other remaining green boxes are tower speakers and the speakers by the theater seats are mounted in the ceiling. The red boxes are outlets on a separate 20 amp breaker for the subs and receiver/amps.
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The monolith you mentioned is great. I hear a lot of great things about it. If you have that amount in your budget I think you would be very happy with it. It seems you did your research for your size room and selected a solid respicble well knows and well received product.
If you like the DIY way which a lot of us on this forum do I recommend the tuba 24 or better yet HT tuba. Just Google it. I have built a few and for the power they use they produce a good amount of base. They take up a lot of room though and for your size of room something larger than tuba 24 might be recommended. I have used a tuba 24 in a room just under that size in a concrete basement and ended up having to build two to make me happy. Now I live in a slightly smaller home with a concrete floored basement but drywall walls and ceiling. One tuba 24 is just right. Of course I hope to build a HT tuba one day. Hehe
One last option if your budget needs to lower would be used klipch woofers. In my area I find great deals on 10",12" and sometimes 15" woofers. What my top choice is for smaller rooms when I help friends build little theaters. I have a 10" klisph woofer I found at an estate sale for almost free (was missing power cord). It's phenomenal in an open TV room, 40'x15' and hardwood floors. Corner placement with little area rugs help it shine.
Best of luck to you and your selection. Post back when you have tried something.
Two other options if you feel like a little DIY action.
https://www.parts-express.com/Power...Watt-Subwoofer-Kit-with-Built-In-DSP-300-7154
Passive Dayton Audio Reference 18" With Dual Passive Radiator Subwoofer Kit
You could get one Dayton 1500 and see how you like it. They are cheap, but a great value. If it's not enough, but you like it get another. If it's really not enough sell it and get the monolith or build something.
I started with a single 10 Dayton driver in a sealed box. Then ported box. Now that little 10" is in the tuba 24 only pulling ~180 watts and thumping hard. The tuba 24 was similar to my friends dual 12" setup. The 12"s felt lower m, but sound quality was not as nice and pulled 4x the power.
I started with a single 10 Dayton driver in a sealed box. Then ported box. Now that little 10" is in the tuba 24 only pulling ~180 watts and thumping hard. The tuba 24 was similar to my friends dual 12" setup. The 12"s felt lower m, but sound quality was not as nice and pulled 4x the power.
Not a bad idea, I like the look of the Dayton sub-1500 without the grill, maybe I will just get 4 and line them up in front below the projector screen. Since I am finishing the basement myself, I can place as many dedicated outlets/breakers as I like. This is all in theory as the house will not be complete and ready to move in until August of 2022. But thank you all for the responses.
Ok still building this in my mind, after years of big car stereos and loud home stereos/clubs, I am getting to the point in life where I don’t want to damage my hearing any further. But I would like some nice low end. That being said; is there a way to add the low rumble at lower volume? Would two powered 15s for general bass and a sealed 21 for the deep notes work for low volume if I use two mini dsp to cut off the frequency? One would be for the 15s and the other for the 21. Or am I overthinking this?