Ive been looking into building a subwoofer for a friend of mine to round out his home theater after he finishes some home renovations. I'm trying to stay within a reasonable budget but still end up with something that will sound great and produce some quality low end. Right now I'm looking at using the Dayton DCS2054 8" Classic Sub paired with a Dayton SA70 plate amp. I built Paul C's Swopes for my own home theater so I have some speaker building experience but I've never designed an enclosure before so it's been a learning experience. As I've been going through this process I've been running into a lot of things I haven't thought of before or didn't realize were things to consider (chuffing for instance).
So far I have downloaded WinISD and have gone through several online tutorials. I added a database entry for the Dayton sub with all the relevant specs from the datasheet and have been tweaking several different box volumes, tuning frequencies, etc... I'm at the point where as a first time designer, I feel like I could use some feedback so I'm turning here to hopefully get some guidance.
Some of the assumptions I've made so far for this build are... (feel free to disagree or correct me)

Thanks in advance for any help!
- Steve
So far I have downloaded WinISD and have gone through several online tutorials. I added a database entry for the Dayton sub with all the relevant specs from the datasheet and have been tweaking several different box volumes, tuning frequencies, etc... I'm at the point where as a first time designer, I feel like I could use some feedback so I'm turning here to hopefully get some guidance.
Some of the assumptions I've made so far for this build are... (feel free to disagree or correct me)
- The size of the sub and the rated wattage of the amp calls for a ported enclosure as I don't think a sealed box with 70amps would get nearly loud enough.
- My friend built some Overnight Sensations for his systems and my assumption is that this sub setup would be a good compliment.
- I plan to use 3/4" MDF for the enclosure as I'm wary of using 1/2" MDF for a subwoofer.
- As mentioned, I'm trying to stay within a reasonable budget but I also realize that a smaller sub moves less air than a larger one. Am I wasting my time with this combo?
- What effect does the tuning frequency have on the sound produced by the subwoofer?
- After reading about chuffing I've been fairly worried about it being an issue. What's unclear to me is if there's a specific air velocity speed that a design should stay under in order to avoid it. I've also read that port/vent flaring reduces chuffing if air velocity is an issue. Would the 23m/s max I'm getting with my current design be an issue? If so would flaring the vent make it acceptable?
- XMax of this sub is 8.8mm and WinISD's cone excursion graph shows a line that exceeds this (max of about 11.75mm) between about 13-25Hz. The sub datasheet states a usable frequency range of 30-200Hz. Is it OK that the graph goes out of spec for this sub if it's in a non-usable range?
Thanks in advance for any help!
- Steve
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