Adire Tumult discussion...

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...I just received my Adire Audio Tumult. Its a BEAST alright... about 50 yes fifty pounds and its a 15. For those who dont know its www.adireaudio.com . Anyway, I put it in a 3.0 cubic sonotube sealed enclosure so far and I put it in my car. I know its made to be a home driver based off the car sub Brahma. I put it in the back of my Corvette running off a soundstream rubicon 1002 amp. This amp is supposed to be 1000 watts x1 into 4 ohms. I have the 2 voice coils in series, but honestly I'm not too impressed with this sub as it is now. As much as Adire advertised it being capable of tremendous SPL it isnt that loud. I'm going to switch to a ported design and see what happens. Worse case scenario, I build a woofer for in the house use and use it with my Magneplanar MGIIIA speakers...Oh yeah, and power at home wont be an issue, I have a Crown MacroTech 5000vz pro audio amp if I need it (2500 watts per channel/2 ohms continuous)!

I thought this woofer was ideal in small (relatively speaking) sealed enclosures.

(yes I searched- found this thread, quite interesting, but alot of theory discussed, only a couple of actual installs) http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10663&highlight=tumult
 
More power. The Tumult is designed for small boxes and is extremely inefficient. Hoffman's iron law says a sub can be small, loud, efficient - choose 2. Plugging a 3 ft^3 box into one of Linkwitz's spreadsheets, I get the following to drive it to Xmax at 40Hz (most likely the lowest frequency you're listening to in the car.)

40 Hz Impedance 11.5 Ohms
V-peak 182.1 volts
I-peak 15.9 amps
Actual power 1447 watts into 11.5 Ohms
8 ohm equivalent power (V limited) 2072 watts
4 ohm equivalent power (V limited) 4144 watts

So, your 1000 watt at 4 ohm amp doesn't have enough voltage to use all that Xmax you're paying for. You're only using about half of it right now. Of course you can't pump all that power into it continuously without melting it but you'll need it available for transients.
 
catapult said:
More power. The Tumult is designed for small boxes and is extremely inefficient. Hoffman's iron law says a sub can be small, loud, efficient - choose 2. Plugging a 3 ft^3 box into one of Linkwitz's spreadsheets, I get the following to drive it to Xmax at 40Hz (most likely the lowest frequency you're listening to in the car.)

40 Hz Impedance 11.5 Ohms
V-peak 182.1 volts
I-peak 15.9 amps
Actual power 1447 watts into 11.5 Ohms
8 ohm equivalent power (V limited) 2072 watts
4 ohm equivalent power (V limited) 4144 watts

So, your 1000 watt at 4 ohm amp doesn't have enough voltage to use all that Xmax you're paying for. You're only using about half of it right now. Of course you can't pump all that power into it continuously without melting it but you'll need it available for transients.


Ya know what you have some very good points indeed. You are very right about this particular car amp not having the voltage needed to drive 4+ ohm loads it seems. It works great if I have it bridged mono'd into a 2 ohm load but otherwise it doesnt have the "oomph" at bridged 4 ohms or higher.

Ive used a pair of Electro-Voice EVX 180B 18" pro audio woofers with the amp paralleled (8 ohm each) and it was ok, not as much as i had expected but probbly cause the PA drivers were fairly efficient.

Also, the specs are rated at 200 wattsx2 4 ohm, 500x2 2 ohm and mono is 400x1 8 ohm and 1000x1 4 ohm. I dunno but I think it might be closer to 200 at 2 ohm and 500 at 1 ohm. but soundstream is at least a reputable company, but in any case it is obvious that this amp is optimized for low impedence loads.

Heres some other interesting tidbits on my past experiences with this particular amp. It has an "auto high current" mode which will engage (denoted by the LED turning green) if it needs to switch to high current mode. I used to use 2 15" 4 ohm Kicker woofers in there and it would switch to high current (and those so far are the loudest setup I've done in the car yet). But with the Tumult, with the 2 2 ohm voice coils in parallel, it has yet to switch over to high current mode- same if I just ran each channel in stereo mode, one per coil. I then tried the voice coils in parallel and then bridge monoing into that load, and the amp didnt like it at all. The car lights would dim and the amp would cut out so that load was obviously too low for the amp.

Solutions I can think of- use the Tumult in the home and get a more suitable car setup, although i really cant think of any. 2) Get a second amp, since it appears as though this amp is optimized for a bridge 2 ohm load, run 1 coil per amp. Should provide plenty of power. 3) Buy a higher current amp that can tolerate a 1 ohm load of the VC's in parallel. Probbly a high current monoblock amp.


Another thing is the actual install of the woofer that is peculiar. When I have the top off the car and the woofer is right behind me right in the middle, I find that the entire setup (no matter what woofer) sounds like doo doo. It seems to be 90 degrees out of phase in relation to the satellites cause I always have a hole at the Xover frequency (about 90 hz, 24db/oct linkwitz-riley alignment) and it does not matter which way the sub is wired in or out of phase in relation to the mains. Now, if I move the sub back in the hatch area about 1.5 feet, then the crossover smoothes out tremendously.

Grr this is bothering me, I need heavy duty clean and loud bass in my car!
 
Ive used a pair of Electro-Voice EVX 180B 18" pro audio woofers with the amp paralleled (8 ohm each) and it was ok

I used those EV's 15 years ago in my
van with Zapco - hehe

Did you drive the two woofers with
the amplifier in non-bridged mode ?
if yes, you are sending 100w into
each 18".. but in bridge mode each 18"
should get 500w each. The 10mm xmax is not exactly thrilling compared to what
the market offers today - hehe
 
thylantyr said:
Ive used a pair of Electro-Voice EVX 180B 18" pro audio woofers with the amp paralleled (8 ohm each) and it was ok

I used those EV's 15 years ago in my
van with Zapco - hehe

Did you drive the two woofers with
the amplifier in non-bridged mode ?
if yes, you are sending 100w into
each 18".. but in bridge mode each 18"
should get 500w each. The 10mm xmax is not exactly thrilling compared to what
the market offers today - hehe


No, I paralleled the woofers and bridged mono'd into that load. Still I think the amp is more suited for a lower impedence load. Anyway, the EVX180B's are newer, I dont think they were around 15 years ago. Infact I remember the EVX180As out only 5 years ago or so. But yea the Xmax is very puny compared to car audio drivers. EV specs it at only 6.4 mm one way at 10% distortion. But I think PA woofers are purposely made this way. After all, the evx180b is put in EV's best bass cabinets for touring use.


Oh yeah more on the Tumult- I'm gonna try porting it today to see what happens...
 
I put the woofer at home....First I used a ported sonotube enclosure wish some WinISD calculations. I dunno if they were right cause when I cranked it I started bottoming the woofer. I then plugged the ports to turn it into a sealed enclosure, I think it sounds much better. The tube is about 2.7 cubic foot, NOT minusing the driver, so after its all said its probbly about a 2.3-2.5 cubic foot. So this woofer might wind up staying at home in a small sealed enclosure. After all, this was what it was designed for.

Of course right now I have it integrated with my PA system, but it actually integrates OK. The woofer definately sounds better out of phase in relation to the main speakers. What I might do is tri amp the system, with the Adire covering 40 hz and below, the EV 18" subs from 40to 100 and the Eliminator high packs covering 100 and above.

Too bad I cant blast it right now as its late and I'd certainly wake up the neighbors...
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but 18's have a really hard time reproducing sound above around 60Hz...
This is just what I've heard, that they will not keep up very well.
If you need a replacement car audio subwoofer, check out www.ddaudio.com. I believe they are the best car audio subs, just check out the world records, and they STILL sound really nice.;) :cool:
I have a 9015 (discontinued) myself and it sounds better than any other sub I have heard in car audio.
 
asauer said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but 18's have a really hard time reproducing sound above around 60Hz...

Then you definately haven't worked around pro sound reinforcement stuff :)

The major things that constrain dynamic loudspeakers on the upper frequencies are:

- Voice coil inductance (natural roll-off)
- Cone breakup modes where the wavelength approaches the cone size (nastyness)
- Directionality, again, where the wavelength approaches the cone size the driver gets more directional (dispersion pattern)

60Hz is big. So is 100 Hz. I wouldn't start worrying about an 18" driver until well over 100 Hz.
 
Yeah PA woofers have ALOT of energy from 40 hz and above. They can go all the way up to 200 hz in PA systems.


As for the woofer, it rumbles very well, especially being powered by the Crown MacroTech 5000vz. However, I was able to overload it by turning the volume a bit too high. 34 mm one way excursion my ***!
 
Measuring excursion

http://linkwitzlab.com/faq.htm#Q29

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