System Pictures & Description / Subwoofer Gallery

sub box designs

In the full range and multiway forums there are threads dedicated to pictures and stickied to the top but not this one. With the variety of different subwoofer design options it seems like a pictures thread could be interesting. I for one would love to see everyone's subs in one place

Maybe the mods could chime in on this one

I too am interested in the different designs for subs but less about the pictures. I am interested in hearing about the differences between the different box designs: specifically the advantages and disadvantages of loading a sub into a box. There seems to be many variations on a theme. Can anyone help?
 

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Been a while since I've posted here, but I've got another one for you all...

Dayton 12" Reference HF driver + a repurposed mini-safe. I got the safe for free and discovered it was the perfect internal volume for my driver (which I also got at a reduced price). Ripped the door off with some elbow grease and a crowbar. The Dremel tool attempt turned out to be futile. It sounds really great! The enclosure is totally dead due to the ~2" thick walls. Has anyone else seen a subwoofer made out of a safe? I searched but came up empty.

More deets here: http://rayban.vision/#!/projects/safe-sub

Great refurbish build. I like it, plus if you ever move it and drop it on accident, at least you know the enclosure will be safe.
 
Horn rotation

Looks good :)

Would turning it 90degrees to the right (pointing the mouth at the wall) lower the tuning at all?

Is a shame you have to hide it away, either way!

The driver faces left currently with a 2" gap to the wall. Originally i designed it to go horizontal but it just looks better upright. So as you say i tried rotating clockwise so that the driver faced the back wall and the horn to the side and tried various distances.

I'm glad that the amp i'm using has a phase reversal as the rotation initially dampened the bass from the main speakers. Inverted phase and all was ok again.

The honest truth is that when i face the cone forward into the room, it'll shake your kidneys. Facing it down or into any wall still seems to take the attack, the sub-sonics are definately there as listening with high bass regae makes you sick after a bit.

I've now gotten over the novelty and blended it back into the sound correctly and it's definitaly added a dimension to my listening that simply wasn't there before even with my nice Naim/Tannoy setup.

New bass amp next me thinks.
 
Dear all,

I'd like to build a cylindrical sub with an 18" driver (actually, this would be the bass part of an active 3-way system). Do you have any recommendations, formulas, software, link, whatever .. to correctly tune such a "pipe" woofer accordingly ? Besides high power I'd also need quality sound of these baffles, no peaks, dips, whatsoever.

Drivers are 2 Daytons. Using the cylinder design, woofer would be on the front, facing the listening position and there would be a port on the back. But all other parameters I don't really know yet, e.g. length of the baffle (with almost the same radius what the driver has), port diameter, port length.. (tuned at around 20-25Hz ..)
 
Something like this, yepp.. but front facing driver.


I figured I would help populate this thread a bit.

here's a sonotube sub I just finished for my home theater.

View attachment 284627
View attachment 284628

20"x36" tube with maple veneer, parts express classic sub.

After watching a few scenes from the Star Wars bluray's, I can safely say that it gets the job done quite well.
 
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WinISD?
Akabak?

WinISD gives me for the 18" woofer around 700 liters volume. This means: a cylindical box of the driver diameter and 1 meter in length which would be ok for me. However the port sizes and length are strange.. so.. I don't feel that safe yet.

The perfect example is here, the bass section. I'd like to reach something similar. (Courbé speakers)

3Way-05.jpg
 
I find BassBox Pro software quite usable.

Pros: it allows to simulate 4 most popular bass alignments - closed, vented (inlcuding extended bass alignment), bandpass and passive radiator. It also takes into account stuffing; what's most important it allows to simulate at what input power level chosen driver will reach its Xmax in chosen enclosure type and box volume, and at what frequencies. Large driver database with possibility to add new drivers. Output graphs have overlays so you can compare graphs for two or more different designs (remember to switch off normalization to compare absolute output levels). For your case box geometry list includes also cylinder. It includes also possibility to blend simulated responses with room/car response curves, however I haven't tried this. Anyway, room response heavily depends on sub placement and listener's position in it, so this must be taken into account when measuring room response for simulation. I'd say it is rather easier to design it flat and to have some EQ possibilities for tuning. (For most even bass across the room multiple subs are always better than one or two - according to Harman research papers optimum number for room is usually 4, spatially distributed at ~25% from walls.)

Cons: no calculations for horns (use hornresp instead), TL, TQWT, PPSL and similar other non-common types.

While BassBox Pro is not free, I find it quite good program for designing classical subs, and in my experience simulations are quite accurate.

Dear all,

I'd like to build a cylindrical sub with an 18" driver (actually, this would be the bass part of an active 3-way system). Do you have any recommendations, formulas, software, link, whatever .. to correctly tune such a "pipe" woofer accordingly ? Besides high power I'd also need quality sound of these baffles, no peaks, dips, whatsoever.

Drivers are 2 Daytons. Using the cylinder design, woofer would be on the front, facing the listening position and there would be a port on the back. But all other parameters I don't really know yet, e.g. length of the baffle (with almost the same radius what the driver has), port diameter, port length.. (tuned at around 20-25Hz ..)
 
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Thanks for the long answer.

I'll give it a try for sure. I'll have 2 drivers (left, right) - a simple stereo active 3-way setup. Some EQ will be possible, I'll first play around with a dbx DSP anyway, then I might switch to DSP-less Linkwitz Riley active circuits on preamp side or stay with the DSP, dunno yet. But if I have an already quite-good basics, that will help a lot.
 
8 x slightly modified ES18's, ready to be painted and loaded with Fane Col's. Next up, finishing the Othorns =D

Hi, allow me just a simple question, rather half-offtopic here, but still..: people in the US and also Australia tend to build light houses, walls made of wood, plasterboard, OSB (Oriented Strand Board) sheets, etc. Which is fine, however, in my country the majority of people build with brick, on top of a thick concrete layer.

How does a light house behave sonically when you let's say install 2 such monsters in the living room ? :rolleyes: I assume lower bass will simply exit the house partly due to lack of hard rigid walls but I might also be wrong - whereas a concrete cellar behaves again completely differently. Any ideas or maybe experience with it ?