I bought an Morel ultimo sc 12" recently.. The detail level is extremely good! The carbon fiber and paper cone makes it light and absorp any unwanted artifacts in the sound. Its also super quick! If your ultimo sub is anything like mine I would recomend it
For more power I would recomend it's bigger brother since it has better Xmax, 12.5mm instead of 9.5(sc v.) Bought mine from ebay for a good price btw.. For extreme spl purposes there are better alternatives since Xmax is a bit limited.. I use mine mostly for music and there it excels
For more power I would recomend it's bigger brother since it has better Xmax, 12.5mm instead of 9.5(sc v.) Bought mine from ebay for a good price btw.. For extreme spl purposes there are better alternatives since Xmax is a bit limited.. I use mine mostly for music and there it excels
I like Maidasound, been using them about the same time they opened. I like Morel speakers; the expensive sub woofers are temping, but I’m getting lots of bass now, maybe someday I’ll invest in one of the high dollar subs.
Nice sub cabinet, can I make a suggestion without being arrogant – from my experiences (and Madosound tipped me off about this long ago) you don’t need sound damping in a sub box, especially with a nice woofer. I built a set of huge bass reflex speakers (from Madisound) for a guy long time ago, we used way too much foam/fill, there was not much bass left. However, it sounds like you are in better shape than my small failure.
I’m glad you built a rectangle, square boxes can echo, very bad if woofer is in dead center of box.
Nice sub cabinet, can I make a suggestion without being arrogant – from my experiences (and Madosound tipped me off about this long ago) you don’t need sound damping in a sub box, especially with a nice woofer. I built a set of huge bass reflex speakers (from Madisound) for a guy long time ago, we used way too much foam/fill, there was not much bass left. However, it sounds like you are in better shape than my small failure.
I’m glad you built a rectangle, square boxes can echo, very bad if woofer is in dead center of box.
I believe that some acoustic foam is a good idea in a subwoofer because it absorbs the higher order distortion harmonics inside the box. I'm not sure how much this affects the radiation from the driver into the room though.
Woofer measurements
General speaking, and only from experience, I can think of 3 reasons why to use extra sound damping material in a sub woofer. [A small amount is fine, and then everybody’s happy.]
1. The woofer has an inherent peak, that would be a good time to load up on foam, etc. Try to make the peak less noticeable.
2. There is not a stick of furniture in the room, okay, got me on that one. A room with a lot of furniture/carpet would need less (or none), a hard room more damping. And that said, that’s a heck of a hard room, glass and cinder block.
3. A square cabinet/cube: a square cabinet will echo, and that will just pass through back through the cone, into the room. Again, angle or rectangle cabinets will resonate less.
Now that I use less foam in sub cabinets, I can hear more of what the speaker has to offer (detail). I’m positive the engineers at Morel have produced a top notch “Ultimate” speaker and it doesn’t need that much help. I would not load up the sound damping material it up and forget about it; it decreases the efficiency.
1. The woofer has an inherent peak, that would be a good time to load up on foam, etc. Try to make the peak less noticeable.
2. There is not a stick of furniture in the room, okay, got me on that one. A room with a lot of furniture/carpet would need less (or none), a hard room more damping. And that said, that’s a heck of a hard room, glass and cinder block.
3. A square cabinet/cube: a square cabinet will echo, and that will just pass through back through the cone, into the room. Again, angle or rectangle cabinets will resonate less.
Now that I use less foam in sub cabinets, I can hear more of what the speaker has to offer (detail). I’m positive the engineers at Morel have produced a top notch “Ultimate” speaker and it doesn’t need that much help. I would not load up the sound damping material it up and forget about it; it decreases the efficiency.
If you are hearing "detail" from a subwoofer, then I believe what you are actually hearing is distortion (i.e. the higher harmonics, which can be considerable depending on the SPL output). There is no "detail" in a 30Hz signal.... is there?
Higher harmonics above the cutoff filter for the subwoofer are not supposed to be produced, so it makes no sense to say that you can perceive a transient at 20Hz through a subwoofer only. You can perceive part of the transient, but not the whole thing.
Higher harmonics, those which are in fact in the music signal, are not reproduced above the cutoff frequency for the subwoofer. If they are present, then it is in fact distortion.
Isn't that more a function of the alignment (i.e ported vs. sealed and high Q vs. low Q) than the stuffing of the box?
I'm real happy with the sub so far. I don't think you stuff the box as much as with reg. speakers... I more just lined with Acustic foam... Madisound advised the Sub Reflex pannel behind the woofer and then the amount of foam. I didn't stuff much... I did hang some stuffing suspended from the ceiling of the box... Otherwise the box is mostly just the foam stapled to the inner walls. Below the woofer face is a support beam to the rear wall. I used 7 ply grade A maple.
I did go with the 300 Watt plate amp of Madisound. The F$%king thing gets louder then S$#t! Put this thing in a club with some 50 cent or something and it would work well... If your into 50 cent. It does well with music too. A musical sub... Not just jurasic park shake material.
I'd do it all over again just judging from my ears... Sorry, no meters or measuring equipment to provide specs and stuff.
I did go with the 300 Watt plate amp of Madisound. The F$%king thing gets louder then S$#t! Put this thing in a club with some 50 cent or something and it would work well... If your into 50 cent. It does well with music too. A musical sub... Not just jurasic park shake material.
I'd do it all over again just judging from my ears... Sorry, no meters or measuring equipment to provide specs and stuff.
Its look like a great sub/system, I’ve been thinking about selling off some of the stuff that’s been sitting around and buying one, kill two birds with one stone. E.g. I can’t believe I spent $300 on Bose headphones, now I don’t even wear them.
As mentioned, moving Sub(s) around helps a lot, I had my subs up front for years, moved them to the back of the room recently, that made a huge different. There was way too much 100hz – 200hz overlap with main front speakers. The main advantage to DIY speaker building is that you can go back and experiment – fine tune.
On a slightly different topic, what plans for the room? If I may make a suggestion: use acoustical tile on the ceiling (not the metal grid type). I installed a very modest, low cost system in my friend’s basement that has acoustical tile, carpet, huge sofa & wood paneling; that system sounds great, you can hear every little detail. Equipment: small Adcom 5 channel amp, Lexicon CP1 (analog only), Verizon Fios box. Front speakers are DIY 5 ¼” Peerless with Morel tweeter (6db xover).
As mentioned, moving Sub(s) around helps a lot, I had my subs up front for years, moved them to the back of the room recently, that made a huge different. There was way too much 100hz – 200hz overlap with main front speakers. The main advantage to DIY speaker building is that you can go back and experiment – fine tune.
On a slightly different topic, what plans for the room? If I may make a suggestion: use acoustical tile on the ceiling (not the metal grid type). I installed a very modest, low cost system in my friend’s basement that has acoustical tile, carpet, huge sofa & wood paneling; that system sounds great, you can hear every little detail. Equipment: small Adcom 5 channel amp, Lexicon CP1 (analog only), Verizon Fios box. Front speakers are DIY 5 ¼” Peerless with Morel tweeter (6db xover).
Last edited:
it's a function of lots of things, including VC inductance and system damping, basically it is the factor that describes how accurately a driver can change direction, far to complex to discuss here.
a short definition via. the Rane website:
Transient response: The reaction of an electronic circuit, or electromechanical device, or acoustic space to a non-repetitive stimulus such as a step or impulse response. It is the result to a sudden change in the input that is non-periodic. For example, percussive instruments produce primarily transient sounds. The transient stimulus and resulting response are characterized by the amplitude and the rise time (and fall time if it is an impulse), overshoot, and settling time. The standard reference is to note the maximum amplitude and the time required to reach within 10% of the steady-state value.
ref: Loudspeaker Transient Response -- Its Measurement and Graphical Representation - Google Scholar
You did it right, as the results show
Just so you understand what I was saying earlier, the "acoustic" foam does nothing at sub frequencies, if there were sounds coming from the driver in the range that that foam would absorb (above 800Hz) you'd have a defective or badly designed driver, which you don't. What the foam does is damp the panels that it is attached to decreasing the coloration caused by box resonances, which is good.
btw, what the heck is a Sub reflex panel? edit: i found it on the madisound website, it's just a rubber panel damper. (at sub frequencys)
Last edited:
You did it right, as the results show
Just so you understand what I was saying earlier, the "acoustic" foam does nothing at sub frequencies, if there were sounds coming from the driver in the range that that foam would absorb (above 800Hz) you'd have a defective or badly designed driver, which you don't. What the foam does is damp the panels that it is attached to decreasing the coloration caused by box resonances, which is good.
Acoustic foam still has an effect at lower frequencies. For example, Sonic Barrier has an absorption coefficient of 0.1 at 125Hz. At 500Hz it is anywhere from 0.2 to 0.7. It only goes up from there. Linkwitz measured significant harmonics from a "good" subwoofer up to at least 300Hz. Woofer measurements
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.