Subwoofer decision agony for serious music-only setup... please help

[tvrgeek]

Not a fan of PRs. Fan of 12 inch drivers. For music, low Q sealed. Of course, 12 inch and low Q is almost an oxymoron. My music system subs are the old Peerless XLSS paper/carbon cones in 1 1/2 foot each.

For any sub, I always put a subsonic HP filter on it. I know others think smaller drivers can be decent subs, but I totally disagree. An 8 is a mid-woofer, not a sub. The higher the excursion, the higher the distortion. I learned a long time ago that Mother Nature always wins over wishful thinking.

My new HT sub is a pair of RS265's in a sealed box. Got the Qtc below .7, but a far cry from .5. Tried BP-4, tried ported. Sealed always seems to work out better in the real room.

[billfitzmaurice]

The DCS255-4 in .75 cu ft ported will not have a 31Hz F3. It might be 45Hz. Model it yourself and see.

[djg]

http://techtalk.parts-express.com/fo...d-overdrive-10

[Wolf]

Thanks, bud!
Wolf

[djg]

No problem. I think Lunchmoney is looking for a build from a kit or a flat pack, but that design has stuck in my head. It certainly fits his size request.

[a4eaudio]

The Baby Boomer kit uses the Yung plate amp with bass boost. If you go the route of the Dayton plate amp model the difference to make sure it will do what you want.

[silverD]

I built a sub using the .67ft^3 flat pack, 8" RSS210HO-8 (bottom mounted), 10" RSS265-PR with 150g added (front mounted), and 4" hairpin legs on the bottom. Powered externally by a SPA500DSP. Model showed f3 is 32Hz with a max SPL of 97db.

[tvrgeek]

The DCS255-4 in .75 cu ft ported will not have a 31Hz F3. It might be 45Hz. Model it yourself and see.

Which might be a very good starting for a music sub to be put in a real room. A sub that measures / models flat will be horribly boomy in a real room. My experience, but some like boomey distorted bass. A F3 of 45Hz in a critical Q box blends with the room very well without eq. I believe the closer you get to proper response before eq the better. I looked at the analysis results of ARC after putting in my sub and it only cut. No boost.

[Blenton]

Lots of good responses, IMO. billfitzmaurice is on point and I actually agree with most of what he said. Usually, I like to poke the bear a little bit just for fun but I just can’t this time. Haha.

Of course, I have to throw in my obligatory plug for the Peerless stw-350f that would perform exceptionally well in a small sealed box, but that’s clearly not what you are looking for.

So, instead, I guess I will second a few things. Crown amps are dead silent and a great bang for the buck. Also, I like 8” subwoofers almost as much as I like the gargantuan peerless superwoofer. I find their great advantage to be low tuning in a small box at moderate volumes. As BFM mentioned, a vented 10 of the type mentioned is typically going to require ~2 CF (there are exceptions) but an 8 can be shoehorned in to a tiny sealed box or a very small vented/PR box 1 cube for a real 8” subwoofer can usually tune a vented setup sub 30’s. Right parameters and a fair amount of power will get you a nice sealed setup in the low 40’s or high 30’s.

So as far the ‘what if I got 10’s’ debate, IMO the only real advantages in this application would be total SPL and perhaps a touch of impact (but that is subjective and usually has more to do with box tuning and the lump in the response curve that happens with big drivers in small boxes), but at the expense of a larger box. Don’t get me wrong, I usually recommend the largest woofer one can fit and afford. But having used lots of 8” drivers I agree with the dual 8” driver camp, even though my brain also starts throwing red flags when the sub box is smaller than the mains... But you are trading efficiency for space, and loudness for extension. So if the goal isn’t super loud with minimal power, small box drivers with decent power are viable options - especially with the WAF added in.

Forgot to recommend a driver or two to look at. If you are set on 10” drivers, look at the Dayton RS HO DVC. They are geared towards car audio as far as box size, but share all the RS goodies and can handle a fair amount of power. My other short list item would be the Morel 1058 Classic. Both would need be used in pairs unless you get a pro amp that makes decent power at 2 or 8 ohms, respectively.

[oldloder]

Lunch, I love the same setup you have in your HT. If you like that you'll also love the rss265's and might very well get away with a single. Another single sub solution is the SDX10 in a cube sealed with some low boost gets you to 20 hz. My pick would be a pair of 265HF's in 1 cu ft sealed with an SA1000 .....2 drivers plus amp is a little over $700, grab a coupon and you've got all the power you need and some response shaping with the SA1000 for under $700. If you can't do a pair of 1cu ft. cabs do a pair of rss265HO's sealed to get down to .75 cubes. Or a pair of RSS10HO's ... in .75 cubes ... heard them all and I can't imagine any of these would disappoint.

[lunchmoney]

Can someone please clarify:

The Bagby Baby Boomer has two configurations, PR and ported.... I know the PR version is a tiny .75 cu ft enclosure.... but what about the ported version? Is it bigger? From what I think I understand of PR vs ported, bigger would make sense. Meniscus makes no mention.

I'm not asking what the best answer is, but rather what Jeff came up with.

[lunchmoney]

The DCS255-4 in .75 cu ft ported will not have a 31Hz F3. It might be 45Hz. Model it yourself and see.

Indeed I will, thanks.... It's been a while, is WinISD still a good choice for free software?

[tomzarbo]

Sounds like you're already there decision wise, but just in case... The TB8 is my favorite sub of all time, clean, loud, and low, just under a cube I think... http://techtalk.parts-express.com/fo...s-8-subwoofers

This one is similar to SilverD's but with the 4 ohm driver... http://techtalk.parts-express.com/fo...ment-subwoofer

Extra clean, non-bloated bass, but two would be over your budget by a little bit.

TomZ

[djg]

I built a passive version ot Tom's Tenacious 8 design, similar to this. TB W8-740 and a 10" Dayton PR. Great performance. The W8-740 is now on quantity order status, too bad.

[LOUT]

If you need to stay under 1ft-cu and ~45hz isn't quite low enough, I think the 8" DCS205-4 reaches about 10hz deeper than its bigger 10" sibling in a 0.75-1.0ft ported (or PR) space.
It doesn't get as loud, but it should still be able to hit roughly 107db (before baffle/etc losses...not sure if that's a thing for subs).
I think the 10" DCS255-4 (like billfizmaurice mentioned), though not as deep, can get about up around 111db.

[lunchmoney]

Sounds like you're already there decision wise, but just in case...

Ha!.... No, far from it... the decision agony continues.... although I say agony in jest; I'm having fun digging into some speaker projects again after all these years.

I'm strongly leaning towards two of the .75 cu ft boxes.... so easy to build, and room placement has a decent number of options.

The Bagby Baby Boomer is certainly a contendor, but I'm wondering if a simpler (cheaper?) sealed design would also work well. A few suggestions have already been made, I just gotta figure out which one....

Or maybe someone has another idea for these boxes?

Thanks again everyone

[lunchmoney]

If you need to stay under 1ft-cu and ~45hz isn't quite low enough, I think the 8" DCS205-4 reaches about 10hz deeper than its bigger 10" sibling in a 0.75-1.0ft ported (or PR) space.
It doesn't get as loud, but it should still be able to hit roughly 107db (before baffle/etc losses...not sure if that's a thing for subs).
I think the 10" DCS255-4 (like billfizmaurice mentioned), though not as deep, can get about up around 111db.

Thanks. Yes a ported 8 might make sense in the .75 cu ft boxes.... I would just need to get over my fear of being underwhelmed by 8's. Because I'm going for two subs, I probably just need to get over it.

[lunchmoney]

See below I've taken a stab at modeling the DCS205-4 in the .75 cu ft box, as LOUT suggested here.... thanks again!

[lunchmoney]

Ok so I've taken a stab at modeling the Dayton Classic 8" sub in the PE .75 cu ft flat pack enclosure, vented with a 1.5" x 4.5" port, tuned to 33.63 hz.... the tuning was automatically suggested by WinISD, I didn't try changing it (should I?)

Decided to try this because it really keeps the cost down for 2 subs, and maybe it's enough for me.

I'm shaky at best in WinISD, could someone please double check me here?

And of course, does this seem like a good solution overall?

Thanks