db vs hz

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Hey everyone,

I'm going to be building a subwoofer for home, I'm aiming to make the box as light and small as possible as I'll be moving it quite often, but good sound is worth the extra lift ;).

I'm either thinking a Dayton Audio Ultimax or Dayton Audio DCS255.

Both builds will have 2 passive radiators:

UM10 passives

dcs255 passives

For the size of the box I'm looking at making (around 1.2 cubic ft) the Ultimax goes lower but the DCS255 gets louder.

I guess what I'm asking is, is there much difference between 35hz and 25hz?
and is it a good trade-off?

The UM10 build will be a lot more expensive and require twice as much power and will be heavier.

But as I've never heard 35hz and 25hz compared to one another I'm not sure what to build.

Here are graphs below
 

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I guess what I'm asking is, is there much difference between 35hz and 25hz?
and is it a good trade-off?

The UM10 build will be a lot more expensive and require twice as much power and will be heavier.
Camerong,

The difference between 25 and 35Hz is about 1/3 octave, musically not a large interval.
At 1kHz, a change of around 10 dB is required to sound twice/half as loud, while down at 30 Hz, a difference of only 5 dB sounds twice/half as loud.
Your choice trades being around twice as loud for an arguably relatively unimportant 1/3 octave for being nearly twice as loud for most of the bass range.
Being generally louder, lighter and less expensive, the DCS255 would be preferable to most.

That said, "flat" alignments are not required, a lower tuning on the DCS255 could give you something with the upper output and a lower F3 than you have chosen- like Johan mentions "something in the middle".

Art
 
For pipe organ and some electronic music you might want a full octave lower than the 35Hz mark. I agree with others that 1/3 8va is not enough to worry about especially since room gain will probably help some. If you want the extra 8va I concur with the use of extended bass shelf tuning as it would probably give a better in room response than maximally flat.
 
and here i thought that we where more sensitive to changes at mid frequencies than bass i guess Fletcher and Munsons findings have been revised...
Although Fletcher and Munsons findings have been revised by others like Robinson-Dadson through the years, all their findings were that although average hearing is far more sensitive to sound pressure level in the mid range, we are more sensitive to level changes at low frequencies.

Note the compression of "equal loudness levels" at the low end of the spectrum compared to midrange, and how low frequencies sound more "equal" at higher volumes.
 

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