contoursvt
12-30-2010, 11:02 PM
Its nothing fancy and definitely nothing pretty.
I had picked up a pair of drivers a decade ago and didnt do much with them until about a year ago. They sat around collecting dust. I figured maybe I can make some subwoofers for my stereo.
Drivers are not really 'subwoofers' as they dont have a lot of excursion or handle a lot of power and probably dont have the extension better drivers have but its what I had on hand :) Anyway cabinets are 3.1CF of internal volume and tuned to approx 22Hz. The response on paper was sagging and looked more like a sealed response curve but I figured I'd do this because in a small room, I might get some room gain and bump up the bottom and thats exactly what did happen. I seem to have fairly level bass between 50Hz and 22Hz which is the range they work well. I can get some usable bass down to 18Hz but then it starts to drop off quick.
Cabinets are 3/4" MDF with a brace in the center which is nothign more than a 3/4" divider with a 10" circle cut through it. I used some rockwool about 1" thick sound insulation.
http://powerthings.com/pics/newsubs_finished.jpg
I am running the subwoofers off a cheap radioshack amp but for the low amount of power I need, its working quite well. I'm using an old Audiocontrol Phase coupled activator as the crossover (set to 54Hz). The unit is sitting right on top of the amp and is barely seen in the photo. Subs are operating in stereo.
I'm not running the bookshelfs through the crossover so they are running full range. In the room, the bookshelfs are fairly flat to 50Hz before they start to drop off. Reason the mains are running full range is because when I was running them through the crossover, I thought I felt the sound stage shrink a bit and I got a bit more hiss through the tweeter when there was no music. I mean it might be my imagination but I left it like that. I rarely go over 80db and most times I listen in the 70's at least according to my old Audiocontrol RTA.
Anyway so thats what I did and its keeping me very happy. Now all I need to do is more room treatments to fix some 60Hz bump and midbass dips. Joys have a room thats close to square I guess.
I had picked up a pair of drivers a decade ago and didnt do much with them until about a year ago. They sat around collecting dust. I figured maybe I can make some subwoofers for my stereo.
Drivers are not really 'subwoofers' as they dont have a lot of excursion or handle a lot of power and probably dont have the extension better drivers have but its what I had on hand :) Anyway cabinets are 3.1CF of internal volume and tuned to approx 22Hz. The response on paper was sagging and looked more like a sealed response curve but I figured I'd do this because in a small room, I might get some room gain and bump up the bottom and thats exactly what did happen. I seem to have fairly level bass between 50Hz and 22Hz which is the range they work well. I can get some usable bass down to 18Hz but then it starts to drop off quick.
Cabinets are 3/4" MDF with a brace in the center which is nothign more than a 3/4" divider with a 10" circle cut through it. I used some rockwool about 1" thick sound insulation.
http://powerthings.com/pics/newsubs_finished.jpg
I am running the subwoofers off a cheap radioshack amp but for the low amount of power I need, its working quite well. I'm using an old Audiocontrol Phase coupled activator as the crossover (set to 54Hz). The unit is sitting right on top of the amp and is barely seen in the photo. Subs are operating in stereo.
I'm not running the bookshelfs through the crossover so they are running full range. In the room, the bookshelfs are fairly flat to 50Hz before they start to drop off. Reason the mains are running full range is because when I was running them through the crossover, I thought I felt the sound stage shrink a bit and I got a bit more hiss through the tweeter when there was no music. I mean it might be my imagination but I left it like that. I rarely go over 80db and most times I listen in the 70's at least according to my old Audiocontrol RTA.
Anyway so thats what I did and its keeping me very happy. Now all I need to do is more room treatments to fix some 60Hz bump and midbass dips. Joys have a room thats close to square I guess.