Hello,
Quick Question:
What are the repercussions of having an oversized sealed subwoofer enclosure, double the volume in this case? I am specifically interested in optimizing efficiency/sensitivity and volume in this case, so how will it effect these factors? Is there an easy and inexpensive way to reduce the enclosure volume to optimize these factors?
Detailed Background:
I am brand new member here, but I was inspired to build my own portable speaker after reading through the boominator thread. However, I did not do a very good job designing my system.
During the initial design of my speaker system I kind of ignored the efficiency/sensitivity of the system all together. I really did not think it was a factor I needed to consider in much depth because the original boominator was stated to last up to about 50 hours without a charge using relatively small batteries, powering I believe a total of four 10" drivers and four tweeters. Given this fact I thought if I just used larger batteries I wouldn't need to really design for efficiency and I would still have a significant run time, but I was very wrong. At close to full volume my unit dies after only about 3 hours.
Anyways.... I am now trying to redesign my system to make it a little bit more efficient, and put in even bigger batteries (35AH, freaking huge I know, but this is how I'm remedying my terrible design lol). To do this I purchased some more sensitive drivers, two polk db521 (93dB/W) and a single polk MM1040 (91dB/W), probably not very sensitive drivers in your eyes, but I believe they are pretty efficient for car audio drivers.
However, I originally designed the entire enclosure for a different set of drivers, so the volume is way out of wack. I never optimized the volume for the 5-1/4 inch full range drivers, because I didn't have any of the necessary info to do so, but the subwoofer sealed enclosure is currently 1.26ft^3 and the new Polk sub is optimized for a sealed enclosure of 0.65ft^3 according the the spec sheet (0.44ft^3 according to the calculator on this website Speaker Box Enclosure Designer / Calculator).
Here is the current equipment that I have installed in my system:
Battery: 12V 18AH Sealed Lead Acid Battery
Amp: Sony XM-GTX6041 4/3 Channel Amp 600W Peak Power with a current drain of 31 Amps at max power
Full Range Drivers: 2x Sony XS-R1345 5 1/4" 4-Way Speakers 35W RMS with a sensitivity of 85dB/W
Subwoofer: 1 x Sony XS-GTX101LW 10" Subwoofer 300W RMS with a sensitivity of 84dB/W
Here is what I'm replacing:
Battery: 12V 35AH Sealed Lead Acid Battery
Full Range Drivers: 2 x Polk db521 5 1/4" Two Way Speakers 45W Max RMS with a sensitivity of 93dB/W
Subwoofer: 1 x Polk MM1040 10" Subwoofer 350W Max RMS with a sensitivity of 91dB/W
I estimated that making these changes will, at the very least, double my run time (6hr) at max volumes. I am hoping that it will increase my run time to closer to 8-10hrs at max volume. However, it is very obvious that my system isn't even close to being optimized. It is significantly heavier, has a much larger battery, and fewer drivers than the Boominator, and it still will probably only have about 20% of the run time of the Boominator. I'm obviously missing some information/knowledge about how to increase the efficiency of my system (is it the back to back drivers?), but I have no idea what could be making such a huge difference. If you guys have any recommendations for this amateur, they would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Ben
Quick Question:
What are the repercussions of having an oversized sealed subwoofer enclosure, double the volume in this case? I am specifically interested in optimizing efficiency/sensitivity and volume in this case, so how will it effect these factors? Is there an easy and inexpensive way to reduce the enclosure volume to optimize these factors?
Detailed Background:
I am brand new member here, but I was inspired to build my own portable speaker after reading through the boominator thread. However, I did not do a very good job designing my system.
During the initial design of my speaker system I kind of ignored the efficiency/sensitivity of the system all together. I really did not think it was a factor I needed to consider in much depth because the original boominator was stated to last up to about 50 hours without a charge using relatively small batteries, powering I believe a total of four 10" drivers and four tweeters. Given this fact I thought if I just used larger batteries I wouldn't need to really design for efficiency and I would still have a significant run time, but I was very wrong. At close to full volume my unit dies after only about 3 hours.
Anyways.... I am now trying to redesign my system to make it a little bit more efficient, and put in even bigger batteries (35AH, freaking huge I know, but this is how I'm remedying my terrible design lol). To do this I purchased some more sensitive drivers, two polk db521 (93dB/W) and a single polk MM1040 (91dB/W), probably not very sensitive drivers in your eyes, but I believe they are pretty efficient for car audio drivers.
However, I originally designed the entire enclosure for a different set of drivers, so the volume is way out of wack. I never optimized the volume for the 5-1/4 inch full range drivers, because I didn't have any of the necessary info to do so, but the subwoofer sealed enclosure is currently 1.26ft^3 and the new Polk sub is optimized for a sealed enclosure of 0.65ft^3 according the the spec sheet (0.44ft^3 according to the calculator on this website Speaker Box Enclosure Designer / Calculator).
Here is the current equipment that I have installed in my system:
Battery: 12V 18AH Sealed Lead Acid Battery
Amp: Sony XM-GTX6041 4/3 Channel Amp 600W Peak Power with a current drain of 31 Amps at max power
Full Range Drivers: 2x Sony XS-R1345 5 1/4" 4-Way Speakers 35W RMS with a sensitivity of 85dB/W
Subwoofer: 1 x Sony XS-GTX101LW 10" Subwoofer 300W RMS with a sensitivity of 84dB/W
Here is what I'm replacing:
Battery: 12V 35AH Sealed Lead Acid Battery
Full Range Drivers: 2 x Polk db521 5 1/4" Two Way Speakers 45W Max RMS with a sensitivity of 93dB/W
Subwoofer: 1 x Polk MM1040 10" Subwoofer 350W Max RMS with a sensitivity of 91dB/W
I estimated that making these changes will, at the very least, double my run time (6hr) at max volumes. I am hoping that it will increase my run time to closer to 8-10hrs at max volume. However, it is very obvious that my system isn't even close to being optimized. It is significantly heavier, has a much larger battery, and fewer drivers than the Boominator, and it still will probably only have about 20% of the run time of the Boominator. I'm obviously missing some information/knowledge about how to increase the efficiency of my system (is it the back to back drivers?), but I have no idea what could be making such a huge difference. If you guys have any recommendations for this amateur, they would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Ben