well as a guide my boxes are 200L and loaded with two drivers and weigh and estimated 50kg+ so require a sack lift and if taken up stairs two people. I have an estate car and fill it to capacity with 4 of these boxes. So 100L would be quite manageable by one person if constructed sensibly.
FWIW, I ran sealed boxes for a while in my PA system, and wouldn't recommend it. Lots of cone area, lots of power, not a whole lot of output.
The ported boxes I replaced them with can cheerfully annihilate them when LF extension is required - you're looking at 2 or 3 sealed boxes to match one ported box, and that's with equal power per driver. ie, 2-3KW and 2-3 driver in sealed boxes to match 1KW and 1 driver in a ported box.
I get that sealed boxes are really nice and small (mine were 440mm square by 250mm deep), but it was too much of a tradeoff IMO.
The ported boxes I'm using now are less than 30kg IIRC, and an easy one-man lift. I'm using good neodymium drivers, though, which keeps weight down and performance up.
Chris
The ported boxes I replaced them with can cheerfully annihilate them when LF extension is required - you're looking at 2 or 3 sealed boxes to match one ported box, and that's with equal power per driver. ie, 2-3KW and 2-3 driver in sealed boxes to match 1KW and 1 driver in a ported box.
I get that sealed boxes are really nice and small (mine were 440mm square by 250mm deep), but it was too much of a tradeoff IMO.
The ported boxes I'm using now are less than 30kg IIRC, and an easy one-man lift. I'm using good neodymium drivers, though, which keeps weight down and performance up.
Chris
Hi Damo,
be mindful that what you are listening to is dB not Watts, and as a general rule the less you stress a driver the less distortion it will have, so as a general rule a high sensitivity speaker will sound better than a low sensitivity speaker. This holds true for a a wide variety of speakers at about the same occurrence as a more expensive speaker will sound better than a cheaper one, so not always true, but generally yes.
So you have 3 or 4 particular ways to get a to higher sensitivity speaker.
select for a higher sensitivity driver
increase driver surface area,
either by getting a bigger driver or
getting multiples of the same driver (these are kinda intertwined reasons) And the 4th is to use horn loading.
And that gets you to Bill Fitzmaurice, he uses all of these principles to varying degrees in his designs. Well worth a look.
https://billfitzmaurice.info/
Do you really want a PA system? Sounds like a home stereo. There is a huge efficiency difference between home entertainment and professional (PA) speakers. PA systems usually do not have a lot of bass because large rooms have a very long reverberation time at low frequencies. What matters for a PA system is controlling the sound pattern, ie keeping the sound on the audience and off the walls, so horns and horn loaded enclosures are a good choice. For recorded music, no one cares much, but if you want the mic to be understood, you need to understand some room acoustics and enclosure design. And if you want to be loud like the pro's, forget the hi-fi speakers. You can not compensate for low efficiency speakers with large power amps.
yes this is true with most drivers designed for subwoofer usage but I had different optimisation goals. 1. maximising output at 20 Hz in small rooms, 2. physical volume rather than weight constrained, 3. low budget with an exceptionally cheap driver available that made boxes the primary cost. Here is a good comparison with a high motor strength driver:
Data-Bass
Also if cost and power is no object there are drivers with exceptionally strong motors and high power handling that can get high output from very small boxes: Data-Bass
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