I have a pretty good system going, high end aspirations, rooted in measuring and real world budget prioritisation.
My main speakers are DIY accuton 1" tweeters and accuton 7" woofers in a "stand mount", 11l enclosure. I originally intended them as satellites not to play bass and integrate with my dd10, but they sound really good on their own, just without that extra airiness that really low bass (sub 25hz) gives.
My DD10 went out though, second time, and I'm inclined to replace it with a DIY solution.
I have pretty high WAF requirements, besides that the idea is to cut the mains at 60 hz or so, and dsp for eq and room correction in the lowest end - and I am aiming for 20hz output at 90 db or so at least. My room is not very big.
I have a minidsp, a umik, and a pair of mcintosh mc7100 amps (2x100w / 1x300 watts into 8 ohm) to drive the sub/subs with. Bridged, those amps are min 8 ohms however, so I'll try to avoid 4 ohm drivers unless I want to stay at 100w (which should be quite sufficient I guess, I am not aiming for 110db output...)
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Enough scope definition. I have been considering a few options. Budget would preferably be under $250 for the driver/ drivers - I think. Less would be nice, without too much compromise on performance.
* 8" woofers, either corner placed or "Watt / Puppy" speaker stand style. There is a pair of used Scan Speak 8" revelator 22W8851T00 for sale locally, I am tempted to try them, but it might seem a little wasteful to use for only sub 60hz, and a pair of 8"ers should probably not push enough air. However, I have tried this - I have a JBL GTO 804 (8" woofer for car use, that I used in my go-to-work car before Covid) in an 8 liter closed box that I have tried, and it works quite well - with extremely punishing bass tracks it distorts before it is quite loud enough but two 8" could maaaybe be enough? The Watt/ Puppy is 4x8"...
* 10" woofer, closed and Linkwitz transformed?
* 12" woofer would clearly be preferred but will probably end up too large... otherwise the Scan-Speak 30W/4558T00 seems to be the most common choice.
Thoughts?
My main speakers are DIY accuton 1" tweeters and accuton 7" woofers in a "stand mount", 11l enclosure. I originally intended them as satellites not to play bass and integrate with my dd10, but they sound really good on their own, just without that extra airiness that really low bass (sub 25hz) gives.
My DD10 went out though, second time, and I'm inclined to replace it with a DIY solution.
I have pretty high WAF requirements, besides that the idea is to cut the mains at 60 hz or so, and dsp for eq and room correction in the lowest end - and I am aiming for 20hz output at 90 db or so at least. My room is not very big.
I have a minidsp, a umik, and a pair of mcintosh mc7100 amps (2x100w / 1x300 watts into 8 ohm) to drive the sub/subs with. Bridged, those amps are min 8 ohms however, so I'll try to avoid 4 ohm drivers unless I want to stay at 100w (which should be quite sufficient I guess, I am not aiming for 110db output...)
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Enough scope definition. I have been considering a few options. Budget would preferably be under $250 for the driver/ drivers - I think. Less would be nice, without too much compromise on performance.
* 8" woofers, either corner placed or "Watt / Puppy" speaker stand style. There is a pair of used Scan Speak 8" revelator 22W8851T00 for sale locally, I am tempted to try them, but it might seem a little wasteful to use for only sub 60hz, and a pair of 8"ers should probably not push enough air. However, I have tried this - I have a JBL GTO 804 (8" woofer for car use, that I used in my go-to-work car before Covid) in an 8 liter closed box that I have tried, and it works quite well - with extremely punishing bass tracks it distorts before it is quite loud enough but two 8" could maaaybe be enough? The Watt/ Puppy is 4x8"...
* 10" woofer, closed and Linkwitz transformed?
* 12" woofer would clearly be preferred but will probably end up too large... otherwise the Scan-Speak 30W/4558T00 seems to be the most common choice.
Thoughts?
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So, a little follow-up if anyone's interested. As mentioned, an old friend had a pair of Peerless sls12 12" woofer NIB (830669), a pretty cheap woofer with not the biggest magnet nor xmax, but cheap and interesting to try. I ended up putting them in quick 'n' dirty small sealed boxes just to see what would happen, and they work surprisingly well. I run them in series with a 300w amp, eq:d by a minidsp.
Sound
It sounds quite impressive. They are pretty much completely seamlessly integrated with my (1" & 7" accuton stand mount) mains, and just fill in the bottom nicely, they are cut at 60hz since I have massive 40hz room nodes to handle with eq. They are quite sufficient for me down to about 25hz I'd say, when pushed with loud test tones at 20hz, they distort terribly at less volume than I'd want (85db or so at listening position, although hard to judge for such low test tones). For the low cost, very good! For ultimate infrasound rendition, not as good.
Next step
Since my beef is to get full output at 20hz and lower, the question is what to do next. infra bass requires significant increase in "air pump volume", i.e. xmax * sd, these woofers have +/- 8mm xmax, so I am guessing my main issue is to get woofers with much higher xmax (or more of them, but more than two 12" subs is probably hard to hide from the missus).
The other interesting question is how much bigger magnets etc would get me, probably less thermal distortion, but I don't think that's my main issue.
And actually first I suppose, I should try bigger boxes to see if my main source of distortion is internal sound pressure, but I doubt it, I'm guessing xmax is my main issue.
Sound
It sounds quite impressive. They are pretty much completely seamlessly integrated with my (1" & 7" accuton stand mount) mains, and just fill in the bottom nicely, they are cut at 60hz since I have massive 40hz room nodes to handle with eq. They are quite sufficient for me down to about 25hz I'd say, when pushed with loud test tones at 20hz, they distort terribly at less volume than I'd want (85db or so at listening position, although hard to judge for such low test tones). For the low cost, very good! For ultimate infrasound rendition, not as good.
Next step
Since my beef is to get full output at 20hz and lower, the question is what to do next. infra bass requires significant increase in "air pump volume", i.e. xmax * sd, these woofers have +/- 8mm xmax, so I am guessing my main issue is to get woofers with much higher xmax (or more of them, but more than two 12" subs is probably hard to hide from the missus).
The other interesting question is how much bigger magnets etc would get me, probably less thermal distortion, but I don't think that's my main issue.
And actually first I suppose, I should try bigger boxes to see if my main source of distortion is internal sound pressure, but I doubt it, I'm guessing xmax is my main issue.
If anyone might be interested...
I ended up with a mammoth/ premium 15" "car" subwoofer from Ground Zero (5000w, 25mm maximum xmax), a minidsp and a behringer 1000w PA amp - finally full output down to 10-15hz, listening to test tones loud, distortion increases when the out is high and very low, but for normal listening it works incredibly well!
I ended up with a mammoth/ premium 15" "car" subwoofer from Ground Zero (5000w, 25mm maximum xmax), a minidsp and a behringer 1000w PA amp - finally full output down to 10-15hz, listening to test tones loud, distortion increases when the out is high and very low, but for normal listening it works incredibly well!
