The French Bulldog - Tang Band W6 PR micro-sub

[thekorvers]

Re: The French Bulldog - Tang Band W6 PR micro-sub

Good; thanks! That's exactly the explanation I needed. I think I get it. So if I follow you right, and I want to high pass the monitors at, say, 80 hz (is this too high?), I calculate:

C=1/4*6.28*80=.000497, or a 500uF cap?

Above, I'm using the impedance of the sub driver/amp. Should I be calculating with the impedance of the speakers? In which case I'd calculate:

C=1/6*6.28*80=.000333, or a 330uF cap.

Oh, what did I start? ;) I gave you this formula to show you the relationship of the different components that make up this formula and how they affect each other.

It is not possible to generically use this formula to come up with an answer as to the precise value needed to achieve a certain x-over frequency as that depends upon the impedance profile of whatever follows. That said, your calculations are correct. If you are trying to achieve an 4 Ohm impedance at 80 Hz, 500 MFD would be required and for a 6 Ohm impedance at 80 Hz, 333MFD.

Just experiment by ear by plugging some different caps into the circuit and settle on what sounds good to you. The process is not that critical. It is similar to dialing in the right amount of bass assistance from your subwoofer. You increase the level to where it sounds good. You normally don't take measurements or perform calculations when you do this.

If there is an easy way to insert the capacitor in the circuit as Wolf suggests, so much the better. Start with a cap of 150MFD as he suggests and go up from there.

[justwill]

Re: The French Bulldog - Tang Band W6 PR micro-sub

Oh, what did I start? ;) I gave you this formula to show you the relationship of the different components that make up this formula and how they affect each other.

It is not possible to generically use this formula to come up with an answer as to the precise value needed to achieve a certain x-over frequency as that depends upon the impedance profile of whatever follows. That said, your calculations are correct. If you are trying to achieve an 4 Ohm impedance at 80 Hz, 500 MFD would be required and for a 6 Ohm impedance at 80 Hz, 333MFD.

Just experiment by ear by plugging some different caps into the circuit and settle on what sounds good to you. The process is not that critical. It is similar to dialing in the right amount of bass assistance from your subwoofer. You increase the level to where it sounds good. You normally don't take measurements or perform calculations when you do this.

If there is an easy way to insert the capacitor in the circuit as Wolf suggests, so much the better. Start with a cap of 150MFD as he suggests and go up from there.

Ha! I spose you gave me just enough rope to hang myself with. Thanks, anyway, for the lesson. The thing of it is, I don't have any spare caps laying around, and Radio Shack's supply of NP caps looks pretty lame, so I'll have to order some. I'm not keen on spending $30 on caps to experiment with. I'd rather do it right the first time, so I think I'll start with a higher value than 150, which seems to set a really high filter. I'll probably start with a 250uF cap and see how that sounds.

[thekorvers]

Re: The French Bulldog - Tang Band W6 PR micro-sub

Ha! I spose you gave me just enough rope to hang myself with. Thanks, anyway, for the lesson. The thing of it is, I don't have any spare caps laying around, and Radio Shack's supply of NP caps looks pretty lame, so I'll have to order some. I'm not keen on spending $30 on caps to experiment with. I'd rather do it right the first time, so I think I'll start with a higher value than 150, which seems to set a really high filter. I'll probably start with a 250uF cap and see how that sounds.

That sounds good. Remember that you can put caps in parallel to get the value you want. You can get a 200, 300 and 400 MFD for + $13 total. That would give you 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700 and 900 combined, a good range of values.

[justwill]

Re: The French Bulldog - Tang Band W6 PR micro-sub

That sounds good. Remember that you can put caps in parallel to get the value you want. You can get a 200, 300 and 400 MFD for + $13 total. That would give you 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700 and 900 combined, a good range of values.

Excellent. That's much more doable. I'll do some ordering and some experimenting and let you know what I find.

[stingray72]

Re: The French Bulldog - Tang Band W6 PR micro-sub

All,

This is my first design, rougly based on RJB's Cerberus sub. Let me know what you think.

In brief

Tang Band W6-1139SIF $50
Dayton SA70 $60
Dayton SD270 PR, with 190g mass added to the cone $25
12" cube gross (could use the PE prefab .67 cu ft cabinet)

Total cost ~ $170
F3/6/10 at 32/28/25
99 db

[ATTACH=CONFIG]51144[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]51143[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]51145[/ATTACH]

Design Goals

The idea was to design a small, low-budget, good looking sub that could fill out the bottom end of my Overnight Sensation MTMs. This sub will be used almost exclusively for music, and I'm an apartment dweller, so I wasn't after 25hz at 110SPL. I just wanted a clearer bottom octave, and to feel some bass. The Cerberus, with its combination of Tang Band W6-1139 and Dayton SA70, seemed to fit the bill, but that vent....it just seemed like something I didn't want to deal with. Other builders reported chuffing problems, and the 2" port looked pretty cramped in that box. I probably made too much of those challenges, as RJB's designs are well regarded and lots of folks have built the original Cerberus with no problems. Still: one obvious solution to the port problem is to use a PR. Plus, hey, it would be fun to design this around a PR.

With the help of Wolf, fastbike1, jonpike, and others, I modeled the W6 in a .55 cu ft box (the net volume of a 12" cube after subtracting amp and driver) with the SD270 10" PR, with 190g mass added to the cone. This tunes the box to 32.5hz, yielding F3/F6/F10 of 32/28/25. Models at 99dB with 70 watts, without excursion issues (once the 20hz highpass on the SA70 is factored in). So I won't be powering the neighborhood block party, but it should be enough for my needs.

Construction

It's a tight squeeze to get the driver, PR, and amp in this little box, and I had to position the amp and driver off center. But everything fits comfortably, with the PR on the side, the driver down-firing, and the amp on the back.

I wanted to dress up this little box. I built it out of 3/4 birch ply, with a douglass fir frame around a ply panel for the front. The ply panel is glued into the grooves on the frame, which eliminates potential rattling. I'm happy with how it looks: I really like the added detail of the frame on the front.

I painted the box with "French Gray" milk paint. I really love milk paint, both for its ease of application, non-toxicity, and deep, streaky color. I topcoated it with a couple coats of dewaxed shellac, which deepens the color and provides a real smooth surface (FWIW, this was my first time top-coating milk paint with shellac. I'll return to wax or oil in the future - the shellac was difficult to level in this application). I finished the base in shellac.

Hopefully I'm not being presumptuous in renaming a modified design, but I call it the French Bulldog. The name is an homage to RJB's "Cerberus" designation - Cerberus was a hellhound in Roman mythology. Mine is painted in french gray, and maybe it's not from hell, but a small, short-legged, apartment-friendly companion to my stand-mounted Overnight Sensations.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]51146[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]51147[/ATTACH]

Listening Impressions

Sounds good! The French Bulldog does exactly what I want: it fills out the bottom end and makes my system sound much bigger and fuller. On one of my favorite tracks - Kort's "Invariable Heartache" - I can really hear the low double-bass plucking along, where it was muddy and undefined before. The French Bulldog goes plenty loud and low for my modest living room. I cranked it up the other day, and thought "woah, that's too loud" before I ever reached excursion limits or ran out of watts.

One final thought: I called PE today, and asked them whether the high level inputs on the SA70 simply passed the full-range signal through the plate amp to the speakers, or if it actually high-passed the signal to the speakers, thereby taking the low frequencies away from the OS MTMs. The tech told me that it's a pass-through. I'd like to be able to remove bass duty from the mains, thereby freeing them up for midrange clarity. Any thoughts on how to best accomplish this? Should I just connect an 80hz low pass crossover from the output of the plate amp to each speaker? Is it even worth my money, or should I just be happy as is?

Thanks for reading!

Justin

I have four of these brand new still sitting around trying to figure out what to do with them but I might sell them now.

[ektrules]

Just letting you know that just built the sub, and it's pretty great. How did you add 190g to the cone? I wasn't able to find washers heavy enough to add that much weight with the included bolt, so had to get a longer bolt from Home Depot.

Instead of making a stand, I just glued ~2in legs made from 2x2 "whitewood" furring strips to the box with a dowel pinned joint.