Exceptional 18" drivers for 8 cu.ft., 25hz tuning ported box?

[noviygera]

Hello guys,

I need to find great performing, high output (and suitable for the EXISTING boxes) 18" drivers for 8 cu.ft., tuned to 25hz sub boxes.
I already have the boxes and they are good quality so I intend to use them.

The original drivers were the exceptional Aura 1808, but now those are unobtanium.
I need suitable replacements given the box (maybe not as good as the Aura with 18mm xmax but something that will work well)

Purpose: small outdoor gigs.

My current findings (that model well in WinISD)
Ciare 18.00SW-4

Your thoughts or recommendations would be truly appreciated.

regards,
Herman

[Chris Roemer]

Dayton's RSS460HO-4 should better 105dB @ 24Hz @ 500wRMS in THAT box

[scottvalentin]

LaVoce SAF184.03

[Some Guy]

4 ohm? Take a look at the Eminence Impero 18. Heck, if you want 8 ohm (though why would you?), the Impero 18 8 ohm version will work. The 4 ohm version in that box tuned to 25 Hz will bble oe well damped and capable of 115+db at Xmax with 300 watts. If you are willing to alter tuning (raise the box to 30-32 Hz by shortening the vent) you will get better performance. Try playing around with both versions in WinISD...

[STIchris722]

I agree with the Impero, but if I recall correctly Anthony from Eminence said one time that this was an outdated driver that should have been phased out a long time ago. I don't have a lot of experience with that driver personally, but it modeled well.

I am curious to see how these new babes will play: Eminence FSW4018-8 18" Professional Tour Grade Subwoofer Driver. The specs look solid at first glance. I haven't sat down and modeled it yet. I did model the 21" and didn't think it looked good at all though. Just my $0.02

[guitar maestro]

You can get the Aurasound NS18-992-4A on Madisound.

You can also get an Adire Audio Kali 18", that should blow pretty much any 18" out of the water for clean, clear deep bass reproduction. 4" coil, XBL², dual flux demodulation/shorting rings, 40mm one-way X-max. 3kW RMS.

[Brian Steele]

You can also get an Adire Audio Kali 18", that should blow pretty much any 18" out of the water for clean, clear deep bass reproduction. 4" coil, XBL², dual flux demodulation/shorting rings, 40mm one-way X-max. 3kW RMS.

No technical specs on the site though. For that price, I'd want to see the t/s parameters and an impedance curve at least.

Hopefully the characters selling that driver are not like the ones at Stereo Integrity, who got a bit hot and bothered on their FB page because I raised a query about the driver's high Le/Re ratio....

[noviygera]

The Adire won't work for a couple of reasons. Too expensive, low sensitivity. This is PA so no need for 20hz output outdoors. Currently looking at McCauley 6174....

[guitar maestro]

The Adire won't work for a couple of reasons. Too expensive, low sensitivity. This is PA so no need for 20hz output outdoors. Currently looking at McCauley 6174....

Gotcha. Take a look at the offerings from Beyma. I like a lot of the specs on their line-up.

No technical specs on the site though. For that price, I'd want to see the t/s parameters and an impedance curve at least.

Hopefully the characters selling that driver are not like the ones at Stereo Integrity, who got a bit hot and bothered on their FB page because I raised a query about the driver's high Le/Re ratio....

With a (relatively) short coil necessary for XBL² motor, and with shorting rings, I'm pretty sure Le/Re won't be too much of an issue for it's intended purpose.

[billfitzmaurice]

I'm pretty sure Le/Re won't be too much of an issue for it's intended purpose.

It seldom is with a subwoofer.

This is PA so no need for 20hz output outdoors.

There's no need to go lower than 30Hz in pro-sound.

[duronboy]

There's no need to go lower than 30Hz in pro-sound.

No need? Little need, maybe, but only because some people keep insisting it's pointless. I used to be one of those people. I can't see how you're one of those people considering you sell designs for subs supposedly capable of 25hz.

There's a bit of sub-30hz stuff on youtube, some of it's rap and pop that's been slowed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mccQutJk3oM

Can't say I enjoy most of it, but some yes. The capability of hitting below 30hz is here, at least in a very limited number of systems. https://www.prosoundweb.com/channels...the_new_50_hz/

[billfitzmaurice]

I've taken over a hundred RTAs of national and international touring acts, playing through million dollar plus systems fully capable of going to 20Hz. None had meaningful content below 35Hz. 25Hz and below has its place in home theaters, but that's it. Even real theaters don't bother probing those depths.

[duronboy]

I've taken over a hundred RTAs of national and international touring acts, playing through million dollar plus systems fully capable of going to 20Hz. None had meaningful content below 35Hz. 25Hz and below has its place in home theaters, but that's it. Even real theaters don't bother probing those depths.

I do doubt, as a percentage, many national touring acts are actually capable delivering 25-ish-hz frequencies at the level necessary to make the WOW experience they're capable of causing.

I think there are enough genres that appeal to enough people that contain, or could contain added sub-30hz content. Tool fans maybe, Taylor Swift, maybe not? Definitely hip-hop, definitely metal, definitely electronic. Then there's old weirdo organ music from like 50-100 years ago that goes down to 16hz. I'm not really sure how many churchgoers will appreciate that, but with the subs my dad is having me build, they could get the chance to experience it! lol

But the main problem is not enough people are trying to do it. 35hz is deep, and acceptably deep for the vast majority of people, so that's as good as we can hope for.

I've been underwhelmed by nearly every theater. Theaters are terrible. For a lot of reasons. But theaters are trying minimize interference between rooms their jam-packed buildings. You get 45-50hz in a lot of theaters.

[duronboy]

Wrote a long reply and it was flagged as spam. Nice one, PE.

[STIchris722]

I've taken over a hundred RTAs of national and international touring acts, playing through million dollar plus systems fully capable of going to 20Hz. None had meaningful content below 35Hz. 25Hz and below has its place in home theaters, but that's it. Even real theaters don't bother probing those depths.

I second this as an opinion only (maybe some fact). We just had a discussion on another thread regarding this same subject in woofers/sub-woofers. Content much below 35Hz is near non-existent in PA/SR applications. The reason for this is due to the human ear not entirely processing those frequencies as audible, but rather perceived as feeling. The example I made was the low B string on a 5 string bass. It's fundamental frequency is 31Hz if I recall correctly. The overtones/harmonics are in the 60Hz plus range. I challenge anyone to find a bass guitar manufacturer with accurate data stating any of their cabinets are hitting 31Hz @ 0dB. There is no need to play that low and if in fact you do, it sounds like mud IMO.

Recording professionals tell you the first thing to do when mixing drums is to HPF everything to 40Hz minimum to take out the mud and boominess (Kick drum specifically). I literally just read this last night. I am in total agreement that sub 35Hz isn't necessary in PA/SR applications because of the reason stated above. As far as HT is concerned, this wasn't the venue to talk about that so I'd leave that for another day.

Back to the original question in the post though.....I built some ported subs a while back using the Eminence Kappalite 3015LF 8ohm sub-woofers. The boxes were 4ft^3 and tuned to 44Hz. They sound beautiful and handle nearly anything I throw at them (They have a 24dB/octave subsonic filter on them @40Hz though). The only time I felt like they were lacking a little was when a synth was playing and/or drop tuning on a 5 string bass (metal-heads)! To combat this, I built 8ft^3 boxes tuned to 35Hz with an F3 of 32.4Hz (B&C 18TBW100 18" Professional Subwoofer 8 Ohm). The cone runs out of excursion right @30Hz. This was the perfect sub IMO. I cannot fathom tuning any lower. It could be done, but you would be sacrificing output/excursion for inaudible extension.

The last thing worth noting is running 8ohm sub-woofers. That has always been my preference so that I can run my amps bridged mono @4ohms when I run two (2) subs in parallel. I don't know of too many people that mix live in Stereo except maybe huge stadiums with side fills, but then again I could be wrong. I just have never encountered it in my lifetime.

[guitar maestro]

I am curious to see how these new babes will play: Eminence FSW4018-8 18" Professional Tour Grade Subwoofer Driver. The specs look solid at first glance

Specs look good, but for that kind of money, I'd surely be looking at 18s from Beyma, B&C, 18 Sound,BMS,Ciare