Please recommend a 10" subwoofer

[okmat]

I'm going to build my first subwoofer and I thinks a 10" driver and the 240W plate amp from parts express should be more than enough form my small room (about 12 x 18 ft)...

I have read that the peerless subwoofers are great, but I also have the impression (maybe a wrong one) that aluminum drivers like dayton RS have thighter sound, is this true at all??

The goal is to get the cleanest and most well defined bass possible. The sub would be focused for music listening at a moderate volume level and I would like to start with a sealed box.

The candidate drivers:

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=295-460Dayton RSS265HF-4 10" Reference HF

Peerless 830452 10" XLS

Parts express' plate amp

240 Watts plate amp with boost

or, would the titanic kit be a better option?

Titanic MKIII subwoofer kit

Thanks for any advise

 

[sumaudioguy]

That peerless is the one in a very solid sealed box. 240 watts is way more than enough power but the bass boost is a really handy feature and actually needed. Half that much power would be fine.

Good luck- SUM

 

[tinitus]

Living in EU, wouldnt it be money wasted to buy from PE
Dutch BMM electronics may have what you want

anyway, I dont think you have chosen the right Peerless model, with its exstremely low Qts it will be exstremely "tight", or maybe even no or little sub output
Peerless seem to have newer and better models
Dayton looks good too, but appears to have highish Fs

Theres also a Seas L26ROY with thicker poleplate, but similar specs and price

And theres this kit option, now you mention the Titanic kit
Probably doesnt get much better
http://www.rythmikaudio.com/DS1200ci.html

 

[infinia]

Another approach is using two 10" or 12" subs in separate enclosures, using drivers not as costly but still high quality. This gives more flexibility as to amplifiers and placement. Peerless XLS drivers really need a passive radiator for best implementation, so don't forget to include them in cost trade-offs. Bass is all about moving air volume (# Drivers times Sd times Xm) in a linear way! Depending on the room, slopes, f-3 35-40 Hz is plenty low.
example 830668 - Peerless SLS-263 coated paper cone 39 mm voice coil AL shorting ring in magnet system - Europe Audio

 

[sumaudioguy]

That low Qts is all good. That means lower output impedance which means more predictable response in a room. Take that and add bass boost to flatten it out and like magic, clear punchy bass with very distinct notes and harmonics. In my experience this is by far the best way to get bass that is clean and natural. Using the resonance of the driver to "peak up" the response is like using a bell to "peak up" the response. Know it is very popular and still it is very wrong. Doing something wrong for a long time does not change it to right. The lower the Q in the cabinet the better and use electronic equalization to flatten it out. The PE plate amp has the right filter with adjustable Q and frequency so it can be adjusted to match the peerless just fine. It will be wonderful when complete IF the cabinet is made very solid. I have blown apart a lot of cabinets that were not good enought. Just how good is it? Almost as good as it gets at any price.

 

[ruferto]

I have bought 1 peerless xls10 cheap on ebay and now i am cheking on the forum what to do with him. i was thinking of sealed enclousure but i think i am going to do ported with one cerwing vega amp. + crossover .
Ported subs are good for music ? ? ? ?

 

[sumaudioguy]

Do you like notes in the bass? If the answer is yes then I suggest a sealed box, with electronic EQ if possible. Do you like big fat round sound with lots of rumbling down low which is good for special effects? Then a port is the choice.

Notes or no notes, that is the question. 😉 -SUM

 

[okmat]

That low Qts is all good. That means lower output impedance which means more predictable response in a room. Take that and add bass boost to flatten it out and like magic, clear punchy bass with very distinct notes and harmonics. In my experience this is by far the best way to get bass that is clean and natural. Using the resonance of the driver to "peak up" the response is like using a bell to "peak up" the response. Know it is very popular and still it is very wrong. Doing something wrong for a long time does not change it to right. The lower the Q in the cabinet the better and use electronic equalization to flatten it out. The PE plate amp has the right filter with adjustable Q and frequency so it can be adjusted to match the peerless just fine. It will be wonderful when complete IF the cabinet is made very solid. I have blown apart a lot of cabinets that were not good enought. Just how good is it? Almost as good as it gets at any price.

Yes, I was thinking of applying a Likwitz transform and that's why I choose a driver with high Xmax, low distortion, and an amp with spare power... now, with the boost included in the parts express' amp I guess the LT circuit could be omitted.

... anyway, I dont think you have chosen the right Peerless model, with its exstremely low Qts it will be exstremely "tight", or maybe even no or little sub output
Peerless seem to have newer and better models...

There's an aluminum Peerless 835016 subwoofer with higher Qts (0.32) than the 830452 nomex (QTS=0.17), and the Fs of the aluminum is only a bit higher (22.5 vs 19 Hz).

Is the 835016 subwoofer better suited for a sealed box?

In your experience, will an aluminum cone add clarity to the bass?

 

[ruferto]

Do you like notes in the bass?

Yes, the group delay should be as low as possible, is it ?

when i simulate sealed+EQ. vs ported the group delay of the sealed is greater than ported.

NS

 

[Colin]

If in the EU, have a look at

Home Page for quality UK manufactured subwoofers and sub bass systems

where they have a number of plate amps, a couple of which do bass boost. They also have a page on eBay

nkw armrs 1 from ipg 25 items at low prices on eBay.co.uk

where they sell drivers, including Peerless. Here's an associated site which has offers on Peerless from time to time

colosussxb, Business, Office Industrial, Consumer Electronics items at low prices on eBay.co.uk

 

[sumaudioguy]

referto... you are so funny- thank you for that! No harm intended!

This signal from the port is one full cycle behind the active driver. Does your software show that? Tuned to 33Hz that is 30ms of delay. Is that more group delay than the EQ? Simulated response is for simulated music. I prefer real notes and real music from sealed loudspeakers. The sound will be as described for the two different methods. Depends on what one desires as the final result.

Lower Q always results in better performance in a room so I always go for the lowest Q driver if it has a good cone like the Peerless. Higher Q is back to that resonant peaking (like a bell ringing) of the response thing. Always a bad idea. EQ not high Q, just like is done in mids and highs of almost all speakers. No resonance peaking in the mids and the highs is found in 99% of designs so why resonance peak in the bass? Because it is a bad idea I think and people know how to do that so they do. It is very popular.

 

[okmat]

Lower Q always results in better performance in a room so I always go for the lowest Q driver if it has a good cone like the Peerless. Higher Q is back to that resonant peaking (like a bell ringing) of the response thing. Always a bad idea. EQ not high Q, just like is done in mids and highs of almost all speakers. No resonance peaking in the mids and the highs is found in 99% of designs so why resonance peak in the bass? Because it is a bad idea I think and people know how to do that so they do. It is very popular.

Humm, this is interesting! I'll look into it, thanks for this info. Indeed, in simulations, I can get quite a similar frequency response with a low Q and medium Q drivers after applying a LT.

The red curve is for peerless 83045 (nomex, qts = 0.17) the yellow one is for the aluminum peerless 835016. Both Linkwitz transformed.

So in this example the lower Q driver will be more musical? with notes in the bass?

 

[event horizon]

I don't know how you have managed to get a bass response like that from both of those drivers unless you applied the wrong response from the linkwitz transform. Try altering the parameters so you get the thing smooth in the upper bass. You should be able to get the things entirely flat rather than any kind of peak (be it broad or not).

I suggest you first look at the resonance frequency of each driver in the closed box & this will tell you the frequency to apply the curve to (think it's Fo) & then look at how many Db below the flat response it is, this will give you a good idea of Qo.

Work from there & you'll get it flat soon enough 😉

E2A:- the really interesting & superb thing about the Linkwitz/Riley transform is that it not only corrects for level variations in it's passband, but also the transient response.

 

[tinitus]

Is the 835016 subwoofer better suited for a sealed box?

In your experience, will an aluminum cone add clarity to the bass?

Note that the older paper coned Peerless has almost 50% higher mms

Theres a 12" sister to the alu coned 10"
It has very low Fs, and still relatively low mms
Low Fs is good with closed
Slightly higher Qts means going low with less EQ
Bigger size should result in less cone moving
Needs a bigger box, but maybe you can compensate with EQ

Maybe look at box Qtc around 0.55

 

[okmat]

I don't know how you have managed to get a bass response like that from both of those drivers unless you applied the wrong response from the linkwitz transform. Try altering the parameters so you get the thing smooth in the upper bass. You should be able to get the things entirely flat rather than any kind of peak (be it broad or not).

I suggest you first look at the resonance frequency of each driver in the closed box & this will tell you the frequency to apply the curve to (think it's Fo) & then look at how many Db below the flat response it is, this will give you a good idea of Qo.

Work from there & you'll get it flat soon enough 😉

E2A:- the really interesting & superb thing about the Linkwitz/Riley transform is that it not only corrects for level variations in it's passband, but also the transient response.

I got it like that applying the a linkwitz transform right from winISD EQ section, with the optimal parameters suggested by winISD itself, which are based on the thiele/small parameters of the simulated driver + box volume. Is it very ugly? The peak around 100 Hz is only a couple of DB above "flat" so I tought I don't care too much hehe, I'll try to get a flatter response by tweaking the parameters anyway. Thanks

 

[event horizon]

It's not pretty no 😀 2Db may not look a lot on a graph but it'll be rather intrusive with music at that sort of frequency unfortunately.

If you can't get the thing flatter give me the driver specs & i'll see what i can do to help 🙂

 

[sumaudioguy]

The reason I like heavy cone is the voice coil is heavy also if it is wound with copper. Cone mass and voice coil assembly mass should be about the same for best coupling. Also a heavy cone is a thick cone making the cone more rigid than the thin aluminum cone. The aluminum cone has higher propagation velocity which is a benefit. As long as the Q in the box is .577 or less (I like .5) then results can be pretty good. - but this is all speaker design theory

1st graph Q box = .5 Fb= 30Hz -3dB at 46.5Hz
2nd graph Q filter = 1.6 Ff =30Hz +4dB at 30Hz
3rd graph system output -3dB at 28.5Hz

More EQ can take it as low as you wish to go until excursion limit is reached. There are other ways to EQ which do not use high Q filter. Of course electronic filter. If it is a dual voice coil there is always the watkins woofers system (watson?) like infinity.

 

[infinia]

After alignment and EQing. Don't forget to look at displacement vs SPL to get an idea of true system performance. Then you will quickly realize using more lower Xm sub-drivers is a bigger advantage than one costly ultra Xmax sub-driver.

 

[ruferto]

I am new in the world of subwoofer diy .
I am going to use the sub.90% for music , so sealed enclosure is the way 😀
Just have to buy the plate amp. and make the sealed box.
But has i can see it´s going to take some time, I am still learning