fyi
a hog scoop plays lower (it leans more to a th)
the b&c 18sw100 and 18sw115,or 18 sound 18nlw 9600 go down to 35hz with groups of 4.
a hog scoop plays lower (it leans more to a th)
the b&c 18sw100 and 18sw115,or 18 sound 18nlw 9600 go down to 35hz with groups of 4.
Two grand isn't really that much money. Let's break it down. Say each box need two sheets of ply to build, (you really don't want to use MDF for this!), that's £120 to start. Add handles at four for £20, castors at about the same, then various other bits of hardware, wiring, connectors, (say, £15) and you get about £175 just for the box. Add a half decent driver, a PD 1850 for example, and there's £500.
So you're looking at four boxes. With two boxes a side outdoors, if you want level, going low isn't an option. So, you're looking at something probably rolling off at 45-50Hz and in the 105dB/1W sensitivity range. I'd go with your original plan of Rog's 1850 design. 🙂
So you're looking at four boxes. With two boxes a side outdoors, if you want level, going low isn't an option. So, you're looking at something probably rolling off at 45-50Hz and in the 105dB/1W sensitivity range. I'd go with your original plan of Rog's 1850 design. 🙂
The simplest way is to look at the phase of both subs in the passband where they will both be playing. If the phase isn't the same they won't sum properly, they will add at certain frequencies and subtract at others.
What you are proposing is generally not done, especially in systems where high spl is important like PA. Just to be clear, I've seen pictures of bass stacks with several kinds of different speakers in them, but that's not how the pros do it.
You requested a 32 hz bottom end and the 186 goes up to 200 hz. That's less than 3 octaves, I can't see any reason why you would want to consider more than one type of sub to handle this range. It adds complexity, introduces possible phasing issues and doesn't offer much (if any) benefit.
4x 18 tbw100 loaded keystone or TH18. Dunno how pricing is in UK on BC speakers butthat would be about 900 GbP here on drivers....
There isn't necessarily a price range. If need be i can just spend more, it just means more saving...
Just a guy, what do you suggest? I would like to just stick with one design.
Just a guy, what do you suggest? I would like to just stick with one design.
So far the goals as stated are :
I'd like it to be a minimum if 35hz, but not sure what up to. Outdoors so fairly loud. Size is roughly about 4 18" scoops wide. I'd spend up to £2K give or take a couple hundred But then you later stated that your music goes down to 32 hz, you could spend more than 2000 pounds and the cabs may or may not have to fit in a car. No indication of how high the subs need to play, what type of crossover or dsp you may have or be interesting in purchasing (for delay, etc) or what type of mains you might be interested in.
In good conscience I can't recommend anything based on that. But what I can do is give you a bunch of different designs to look at.
I'm going to start with ported boxes. Size does appear to be an issue here and well designed ported boxes are still the king of power density, no matter what the various marketing departments claim. This means that you will get the most output for the smallest space. Ported boxes are small (compared to horns) and you can make them just about any shape you want (within reason). Ported boxes have the widest bandwidth by far, and if the port is too large and starts to cause issues in the passband the design can easily be morphed to a reverse taper transmission line. This means that ported boxes (or tapered tl) can play as high as the driver can go, whereas horns can do 3 octaves max and sometimes much less than that.
Moving on to horns. There are a bunch of horn designs that are tuned a bit too high or a bit too low, and hundreds of designs I'm not too familiar with. Some of the more popular horns that kind of match some of your goals are listed below.
I'll start with front loaded. Front loaded horns are usually going to be very large but they can have up to 3 octaves of relatively flat response, especially if you stack a bunch of them. And the flat response means they are relatively easy to cross over to the mains, but they do require signal delay (on the mains) for proper matching.
There's the famous Labhorn at prosoundweb.com but it's VERY large, only goes down to about 35 hz and doesn't play very high. This one won't fit in anybody's car.
And there's Bill Fitzmarice's designs. I hate to even link to this stuff (Bill's designs are inexpensive but not especially good and I don't trust his measurements) but I don't know of too many flh designs that play this particular frequency range and he's got a bunch so here they are. I'm not recommending these and the plans are not free, just giving you some stuff to look at.
Tuba 24
Tuba 30 and Tuba 45
Titan 48
And now tapped horns. Tapped horns can have up to 3 octaves of bandwidth but usually have much less. And the top of their passband is very erratic, which can make crossing over to the mains problematic if you want to play them as high as possible. But they can be smaller than front loaded horns for the same f0.
There's the Othorn - Data-Bass - which is probably the most output you can expect to get from a horn in a small package due to it's outrageously priced driver. This one might even fit in a car. Tuning is 28 hz I think, but it starts rolling off pretty hard below 40 hz. Here's another Othorn link - The Othorn tapped horn
The Keystone has already been linked to, I believe. I really don't know much about this one, it might be tuned a couple hz higher than you wanted and I don't know how high it can play but it was designed by a very experienced sound engineer that uses it for his own work, so I assume it's at least a decent design.
We have the PAL12 design too http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/subwoofers/232219-325-lab-12-based-pa-tapped-horn-35hz-extension.html
I don't know anything at all about this one but it says 35 hz in the title.
And finally there's the TH-18. http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/subwoofers/190635-th-18-flat-35hz-xoc1s-design.html
Again, I don't know too much about this one but IIRC it's a clone of a commercial model so it should be good. And it says 35 hz in the title.
So there you go. No recommendations but lots of stuff to think about and look at.
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I know I have made this really difficult for you but it really does mean alot! Thank you very much for your help.
I learned a lot right here. Depending on how deep you want to go it could take several years. Do you have any specific questions or do you just want to learn? You don't necessarily need to know everything there is to know if you just want to play some tunes but I certainly won't discourage you from learning if that's what you want to do.
I'd really like to learn about it all. But i guess first priorities is actually knowing about the theory side of rig building. There arent really any direct questions.
Look into Bill Fitzmaurice T-60's and v-couple them. I don't think bang for the buck you can get better outdoor performance.
lab12s are not very cheap in the UK. and while the t60 does go low, its going to take about 3 dual loaded t60s to 2 th18 above 31hz.
Unless you "vcouple" the t60's and get a free 3db gain. No need to use LAB12 drivers. Besides, I would use LAB15's or the TS equivalent. Fitzmaurice is in a forum and can let you know of euro drivers that have close specs.
Don't get me wrong, tapped horn designs are great. So are the bfm folded horn designs. Bang for the buck, I still say the t60's vcoupled.
I've built both t48s, t30s, t60s (while I liked the extension of the t60 it was too big for my transportation situation). THe T60 is not recomended for a vcouple because it would then take a massive amount of space. There are very few alternative drivers for the t60. The epic 12 comes to mind. the lab 15 has a bit less output than the dual lab12 and based on my half assed recreation sim (using advanced centerline method) has an odd response (the sim does not speak for the final product.
Actually you are right. The T60 is cumbersome to say the least, and it is truly built around the Eminence Lab 12 or 15 drivers. I would say go to the Titan 48 which can use an array of different drivers; however, you will not be able to get the bass extension you could with the T60. Two pairs of vcoupled t30's would be more manageable, have the output, and can accept a wide variety of drivers. The drivers in T30's would cost less each than those required for a TH sub, but I'm not sure if it would be half as much. One good thing is splitting the sub into 4 pieces instead of 2 would be more manageable to move around. Overall, the cost would be a bit more though.
I currently use 6x T48s. I'm happy with their output down to about 40hz. after 3 years of use, they have definitely paid for themselves 10x over. I've realized that the complaints I have with the box really stems from the 3015lf... and I've blown 4 of them even limited to 50v (10v less than their "limit" as per plans), with an able tech at the controls keeping things out of the limiters at all times. For "bass heavy" (30 to 50hz sustained) THe 3015lf gets pretty angry in a bad way.
From bills own site:
the TH115 is more sensitive below 60hz (and has a lower hipass). They have very similar cubic volume (the T48 is actually a bit bigger). The 15TBX100 Is also a bit more robust than the 3015lf (premium driver for t48, although you can also use the 18 sound 15NLW9300 if prices are acceptable in the UK). The Xoc TH18 is *very* close to the TH115/TH118 from danley. The TH118 has even more sensitivity below 40hz, and more power handling than the th115.
Even if you could only supply 60v to each box... 4 xoc TH118 (even loaded with the 15TBX100) are going to make about 6db more "boom" below 50hz than the T48. THis is a significant improvement.
I do notice a notable increase in output below 60hz with 4 T48 when vplating... but I would only say its about 3db. Corner loaded and VPlated, 4 T48 come into their own, Unfortunately OP wants to play outisde.
From bills own site:
the TH115 is more sensitive below 60hz (and has a lower hipass). They have very similar cubic volume (the T48 is actually a bit bigger). The 15TBX100 Is also a bit more robust than the 3015lf (premium driver for t48, although you can also use the 18 sound 15NLW9300 if prices are acceptable in the UK). The Xoc TH18 is *very* close to the TH115/TH118 from danley. The TH118 has even more sensitivity below 40hz, and more power handling than the th115.
Even if you could only supply 60v to each box... 4 xoc TH118 (even loaded with the 15TBX100) are going to make about 6db more "boom" below 50hz than the T48. THis is a significant improvement.
I do notice a notable increase in output below 60hz with 4 T48 when vplating... but I would only say its about 3db. Corner loaded and VPlated, 4 T48 come into their own, Unfortunately OP wants to play outisde.
Two 16" wide S2010 loaded T30, V coupled, and two JTR Growlers.
Two 45x45x24 inch 334 pound 3x12 BassMaxx X3C 'Trip' versus two 30x30x27 inch 97 pound dual 4012 loaded T30s:
Add 6db for each additional pair of vcoupled t30's. The 27" wide dual T30's would have flat 110db efficiency from 30-60hz, and +/-3db from about 27 to 65hz. At +/-10 db you're looking at 23-200+hz!
Two 45x45x24 inch 334 pound 3x12 BassMaxx X3C 'Trip' versus two 30x30x27 inch 97 pound dual 4012 loaded T30s:
Add 6db for each additional pair of vcoupled t30's. The 27" wide dual T30's would have flat 110db efficiency from 30-60hz, and +/-3db from about 27 to 65hz. At +/-10 db you're looking at 23-200+hz!
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keep in mind that a pair of t30 with the s2010 handle about 25 volts, and must be hipassed at 35. the growlers take more like 70 volts, with a hipass at 40hz.... not a very flattering comparison when you chop off the extension below 35hz at 24 db/oct. the growler pair is capable of almost 10 db more between 40 and 70 (the wheelhouse for dancemusic).
and 4 TH18s will have approximatly 117db (7db more than the t30 stack) sensitivity (th18 go lower and are a tad more sensitive than TH15) from 35hz to 100hz, and handle 90 to 120 volts...
Again, If the OP was in the US, I"d likely be recomending some BFM kit. Since he's in the UK, Eminence is more expensive, making 4x T30 (dual loaded) a potential 2k in drivers right there (blowing his budget before he even gets wood). o
and 4 TH18s will have approximatly 117db (7db more than the t30 stack) sensitivity (th18 go lower and are a tad more sensitive than TH15) from 35hz to 100hz, and handle 90 to 120 volts...
Again, If the OP was in the US, I"d likely be recomending some BFM kit. Since he's in the UK, Eminence is more expensive, making 4x T30 (dual loaded) a potential 2k in drivers right there (blowing his budget before he even gets wood). o
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