First time poster here. I'm looking for some help in subwoofer design for a 3.1, or 3.2, home theater/music system.
Probably 20% movies, 80% music. Musical tastes are very broad with favorites being, RATM, Tool, Zep, Pink Floyd, Chicago, Vulfpeck, Snarky Puppy, you get the idea.
I've got some older SVS SC-01, MTM, to use for my fronts for now. All run through an Onkyo TX-SR705. Center channel horizontal, with matching left and rights positioned vertically, 10" off the floor with a 5 degree tilt to position the tweeter at ear level.
The only place I have to incorporate a subwoofer(s) is directly underneath the TV between the left and right speakers.
TV wall is only 7' in length with about 5' actual usable floor space.
My maximum outside dimensions for subwoofer cabinet 24"H x 24"W x 12"D, or split in half two smaller cabinets. Prefer either a down firing or side firing to protect from nieces, nephews, cats and dogs. Front firing could be an option with grills I suppose.
Room size is roughly 1,550 cuft. Oak hardwood but not afraid to put carpet tiles underneath subs.
I'm open to either ported or sealed which ever would give me the best sound for my musical tastes. Volume levels are low to moderate except for when the wife is away.
Budget is around $600 for driver(s) and amp. I have all other building materials on hand. Probably end up going with an MDF box and some nice book matched Walnut 1/4" homemade veneer.
Hit me with suggestions or point me in the right direction, I'm eager and willing to learn.
Thanks a ton.
Nathan
Probably 20% movies, 80% music. Musical tastes are very broad with favorites being, RATM, Tool, Zep, Pink Floyd, Chicago, Vulfpeck, Snarky Puppy, you get the idea.
I've got some older SVS SC-01, MTM, to use for my fronts for now. All run through an Onkyo TX-SR705. Center channel horizontal, with matching left and rights positioned vertically, 10" off the floor with a 5 degree tilt to position the tweeter at ear level.
The only place I have to incorporate a subwoofer(s) is directly underneath the TV between the left and right speakers.
TV wall is only 7' in length with about 5' actual usable floor space.
My maximum outside dimensions for subwoofer cabinet 24"H x 24"W x 12"D, or split in half two smaller cabinets. Prefer either a down firing or side firing to protect from nieces, nephews, cats and dogs. Front firing could be an option with grills I suppose.
Room size is roughly 1,550 cuft. Oak hardwood but not afraid to put carpet tiles underneath subs.
I'm open to either ported or sealed which ever would give me the best sound for my musical tastes. Volume levels are low to moderate except for when the wife is away.
Budget is around $600 for driver(s) and amp. I have all other building materials on hand. Probably end up going with an MDF box and some nice book matched Walnut 1/4" homemade veneer.
Hit me with suggestions or point me in the right direction, I'm eager and willing to learn.
Thanks a ton.
Nathan
I do not. I haven't had the chance to set a sound system up in this house yet. Stuff has been sitting in a closet for 5+ years.
I have a SVS PB10 sub that I can hook up and play with. It doesn't really fit the area and it's a total no go on spousal acceptance factor aesthetically.
I guess I need to get a media rack built get everything hooked up and see what my maximums levels are.
Hi GM,
A few respectful questions from a beginner:
3 cubic feet seems like a lot of volume to me, but I'd guess it doesn't seem like much to you. What would be ideal for the situation?
Would you put a dsp chip in the subwoofer itself?
Are there drawbacks to high Xmax designs? Slower?
There's so much to learn!
Thank you
The enclosure size is inextricably linked to other factors. Three ft3 sounds huge to me too but I made small sealed subs to match a modest setup for music instead of theater. If you need high SPLs at or below 20hz you may need a big tuned box. It’s going to be tough to make good choices if you can’t get a few desired outcomes locked in and design around those requirements.
There’s no need to incorporate DSP into the sub itself (if you need it at all). What is being suggested above is that, since sealed subs roll off sooner than ported subs, they can be boosted in the lows to get more extension as long as the amp has the power and the speaker has enough excursion. That doesn’t require digital, just EQ and power. There is a limit on how much sound pressure a driver can make based on its cone area and excursion. See:
Piston Excursion calculator
I’ve heard it said that larger diameter drivers (which need less excursion all things equal) sound more realistic and potentially have lower distortion. I haven’t had first hand experience.
What important is that smaller drivers will need more linear excursion to keep up in the bass. Smaller boxes are hard to tune lower but sealed boxes can dig a bit deeper with a more gradual roll off. The trade off is more power (hence lower efficiency).
I use a minidsp as my crossover/preamp.
There’s no need to incorporate DSP into the sub itself (if you need it at all). What is being suggested above is that, since sealed subs roll off sooner than ported subs, they can be boosted in the lows to get more extension as long as the amp has the power and the speaker has enough excursion. That doesn’t require digital, just EQ and power. There is a limit on how much sound pressure a driver can make based on its cone area and excursion. See:
Piston Excursion calculator
I’ve heard it said that larger diameter drivers (which need less excursion all things equal) sound more realistic and potentially have lower distortion. I haven’t had first hand experience.
What important is that smaller drivers will need more linear excursion to keep up in the bass. Smaller boxes are hard to tune lower but sealed boxes can dig a bit deeper with a more gradual roll off. The trade off is more power (hence lower efficiency).
I use a minidsp as my crossover/preamp.
3 cubic feet Depending on your carpentry skills I would base my design on the previously popular cubes: -MORDAUNT SHORT PREMIER MS308W SUB WOOFER VANADIUM | Archive | HiFix | Mordaunt Short but double-up - divide a double-width cab into two and use an 2 x 8" drivers in a 24W x 12H x 12D cabinet. If you can extend the available depth to 14" the you can use 10" drivers in a 25W x 18H x 14D box. Mordant-Short achieve 23Hhz using a 10" drive in a similar specification box. Cover the top surface in foam then encase the foam in tasteful fabric - the nieces and nephews will use it a bench when the TV is off.
If your desire is to produce something "interesting" there are other novel designs. e.g. Start with the basic design (specific measurements will need to be recalculated). Start with a basic sealed design of 2 x 10" drivers in a 24W x 15H x 12D box. Two of the long panels will measure 24" x 12" - change this to 24" x 13.5". Roll the cabinet so as the baffle is facing down. You have effectively created (using the gap between the baffle and the floor) a band-pass sub with a 24" long slot-port measuring 3.5"W by 1.5".
The beauty is this design is that if you don't like the way it sounds you can roll the sub so the drivers are facing you - you are back to experiencing a sealed system. The downside - on a hard floor the cabinet will walk at high volumes.
If your desire is to produce something "interesting" there are other novel designs. e.g. Start with the basic design (specific measurements will need to be recalculated). Start with a basic sealed design of 2 x 10" drivers in a 24W x 15H x 12D box. Two of the long panels will measure 24" x 12" - change this to 24" x 13.5". Roll the cabinet so as the baffle is facing down. You have effectively created (using the gap between the baffle and the floor) a band-pass sub with a 24" long slot-port measuring 3.5"W by 1.5".
The beauty is this design is that if you don't like the way it sounds you can roll the sub so the drivers are facing you - you are back to experiencing a sealed system. The downside - on a hard floor the cabinet will walk at high volumes.
Thank you!
I'm still trying to put what I'm learning to practical use, so thanks for explaining!
Regarding bigger is better, why not use the largest driver possible for the enclosure, like a 15 or 18 inch driver? Does rear wall distance provide limitations? Surtsey suggested using 2 drivers... is that effectively doing the same thing?
Thank you
Thanks
After doing a lot more reading and talking with the wife I'm now thinking about going with dual front, or down firing 10".
6 foot wall arrangement.
L__SUB__C__SUB__R
I'm still wrapping my head around technical terms and trying to understand subwoofer design.
I probably jumped the gun a little bit and needed to do quite a bit more research before I even started asking questions here.
We just finished up building a set of Audio Nirvana cabinets for a friend and while we were in speaker building mode I thought maybe I would jump on a subwoofer(s). Now I've decided to do some more research and planning before I start cutting and waste a few sheets of MDF.
Thanks for all the responses.
Greets!
Yes, as BJ noted, when it's time to go low and/or loud there's 'no replacement for displacement'!
Physics, it's the LAW! See attached below the vented, sealed box sizes Vs eff. [SPL] limits we're stuck with and conversions here to see how inefficient a 3 ft^3 [net] box is down low: Efficiency and sensitivity conversion - loudspeaker percent and dB per watt and meter loudspeaker efficiency versus sensitivity vs speaker sensitivity 1 watt = 2,83 volt box chart - sengpielaudio Sengpiel Berlin
Depends, I guess, i.e. better to have an outboard controller for the entire system than just an amp with limited DSP.
Yes, there's some drawbacks with driver, cab construction, amp costs being a major one for many DIYers, especially for HT when wanting to meet THX LFE reference down to 20 Hz and especially below it down to < ~10 Hz for movies with serious LFE content: The Ultimate List of BASS in Movies w/ Frequency Charts - AVS Forum | Home Theater Discussions And Reviews
Well, a bass system [LFE] is by definition 'slow' ;), it's the mid-bass - up system adding its harmonic structure that defines the LFE's 'speed'.
That said, the room's acoustics dominates down low, so if the LFE system isn't designed to blend with it you can wind up with 'boomy', 'slow', 'sloppy', etc., bass that can 'ring' well up into the mids where our hearing acuity is getting good enough to discern 'coloring', etc., of vocals, plucked strings, etc., so the lower a soundtrack goes, the more critical it is to get it right since the lower the frequency, the wider its BW, a point that until the advent of relatively inexpensive DSP, many folks mostly ignored even if they knew it due to not having an easy way to time & phase align subs to the mains.
GM
Attachments
Agreed. Since your priority seems to be music, and assuming you aren’t trying split ear drums down to 20hz, I would recommend that you go with smaller, dual subs. If you are trying to stay small then sealed is usually better (as was mentioned above. The good news is sealed subs are also less reliant on critical internal volumes for tuning.
Pick a driver in you size/budget range and put the TS parameters into a calculator like this:
Speakerbuilder Pro 2.0
To see what size box gets you in the range of a .5qtc enclosure. The lower the damping number the shallower the roll off but higher the -3db point (but you also need a bigger box than a high damping enclosure, trade offs). I like the gradual roll off because it’s easier to eq more naturally if needed. On that subject...
... one thing that hasn’t been mentioned is “room gain”. Every room has some reinforcement at low frequencies and will provide some natural increase in very low frequencies, particularly if the sub is in a corner. I bought my mini dsp to eq the low end in on my sealed subs but I have it turned off for now because the system just gets much deeper than it simulates out as.
If you are building two subs then eventually I hope you get to set them up as stereo reinforcement of L/R. You could simply use them mono and get two small subs to perform like one big one but in my opinion stereo bass is quite amazing and not something many people get worked into their systems.
After talking with the wife some more I'm honestly leaning towards a nice sound bar for TV duties and putting together more of a HiFi system for music. We're not into chest thumping bass for TV and movies just nice crystal clear sound.
On the other hand we listen to music every day, multiple times a day, sometimes after a few nips we like to crank it up a little, and that is honestly my #1 priority.
This would mean scraping the Onkyo AV receiver, SVS surround speakers and starting from scratch.
I've got a good buddy who's got some nice vintage stuff I believe he's fixing to get rid of I'll probably pick his brain when he comes to get his speaker cabinets we built for him.
My main listening position is 12' from the wall where the speakers have to live. Unfortunately there is very little (none) room behind the speakers to get them away from the wall.
I'm thinking a good proven design diy set of 3 way bookshelves, designed to be placed against a wall, and dual 8” or 10" subs are probably where I'm headed.
Bookshelf-3WC
Something like that with paired with some nice tight subs.
I've got some homework to do because all I'm used to is setting up some speakers, tweaking a few sub adjustments and letting an AV receiver make adjustments using the mic and whatever program it has.
Thanks to all who have replied with help, I shall return with many more questions.
BJosephs I got my hands on some decent 70's Toshiba gear last week that has been gone through and upgraded (preamp & amp) it puts out 40w @ 8ohms.
I've now decided to focus in on a good "HiFi" system, this will be 100% dedicated music system.
I'm thinking about buying a good bookshelf kit from Meniscus, Mini Statements or something similar, 2 way with a 5"-6.5" mid.
After listening to the tuner with my old SVS bookshelves, using a db app 85db is probably about my max. Much more than that gets into headache territory for me.
Chad at Meniscus suggested the possibility of 2 smaller subs, probably place a set of 2 way bookshelves directly on top. This would limit me to a cabinet width of around 12" outside. 8" driver?
I've been looking at external sub amps, Monoprice and Dayton from PE. I've been eyeballing this
SB Acoustics SB23MFCL45-8, 8" Sub Woofer
driver from Madisound.
I don't have access to a Windows PC at the moment which limits me on modeling software.
Is this driver suitable for a 1ft³ sealed cabinet? Should I try and stretch the cabinet height and depth to achieve 1.2ft³ per their recommendations for a ported enclosure.
Scrap the dual sub idea and go back to a single, larger driver enclosure?
I honestly would love to keep external cabinet dimensions 12x12x16" using 3/4 material with a 1" mounting baffle.
Anyone have any ideas, thoughts, inputs or links to proven designs with a roughly 12x12" footprint I'm all ears.
Thanks,
Nathan
That’s the route I went... smaller stereo setup. Check the link in my signature. I used the 4 ohm version of that sub driver. The enclosures are 12”x15”x15”. I used a little eq shelving below 35hz to help the thump a bit but in truth room gain makes a small sealed sub much more impactful than the simulations might indicate. I think you’ll love them.
Thanks for the info. Your setup style is pretty much what I'm going after. I want to be able to swap out multiple bookshelf style speakers with ease and leave the subwoofers in place.
I'm really debating on saving up the scratch to get these ScanSpeak Revelator 23W/4557T-02, 9" Aluminum Cone Subwoofer, Black Cone drivers, not sure if it's really worth the extra $260 each though.
Do you have a detailed build thread on your subs? What amp/amps are you using to drive them?
I'm still exploring amplifier options. First thing on order, after speakers, is a miniDSP HD, after watching reviews and setup I don't think I can do without one, honestly seems like a no brainier purchase to me.
I considered the more expensive driver as well but this was an experiment for me and it didn’t seem worth it.
I don’t have any real details documented anywhere - it’s just 18mm Baltic birch made into a box with the driver hole routed out. The inside has a healthy chunk of polyester fluff, no bracing.
I use a 2x75W carvin rack amp to drive them, just what I had lying around. A 2x150 would be better but I don’t need the extra few db.
I don’t have any real details documented anywhere - it’s just 18mm Baltic birch made into a box with the driver hole routed out. The inside has a healthy chunk of polyester fluff, no bracing.
I use a 2x75W carvin rack amp to drive them, just what I had lying around. A 2x150 would be better but I don’t need the extra few db.
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