Thread: Getting new subs want opinons.

.707 is meaningless. You can aim for it, but it still may not turn out right.

.8 is a better goal for cars.

.5 is a nice goal for home theater.

But if you're going for home theater, you should be building an LLT or many sealed boxes or a true IB.

I'm more used to working with home speakers where you often run the woofer to 1-2KHz. However I've also had the understanding cone breakup happens at all frequencies. I know 10" woofers of all materials including aluminum have a large amount of breakup even below 1Khz and to me, thats mid-bass not midrange.

tho as you said, 80Hz is too close to being directional. Thats why I typically cross subs at 40-50Hz. unfortunately its very hard to find drivers that will produce clean loud sound below 60Hz in a car. So i typically aim for 60-70Hz crossover.

If your 10" woofer is crossed over at 250 Hz then why would you be concerned with whats happening at 800+ Hz? thats between 12-30 dB below the reference level granted you're using either a second or fourth order crossover. Even then, depending on the driver, you may be fine running it higher.

Clean sound below 60 Hz means having the displacement to do it as well as not having them firing into the trunk at all.

Try a pair of these in the doors.

http://creativesound.ca/pdf/TRIO8.pdf

That ought to solve your midbass problem.

Bass = <40 Hz.

Midbass = 40-150 Hz

Midrange = 500-3000 Hz

Treble = >3000 Hz

Hole between midbass and midrange is because its HIGHLY debatable but one things for sure... midrange's often work in the 250-1000 Hz range. You'd be surprised just how high those frequencies are. Try listening to some test tones.

In car audio, the issue is, your woofer can only run up that high if its on axis, which it can't be. 250 Hz is a good goal for your midrange to midbass crossover.

Originally Posted by I800C0LLECT

Meaningless? I was around .52 originally and now I'm closer to .68. I can tell a difference in the roll off. The .52 isn't as "smooth" as the other. The lower was very clean but it didn't carry a roll off which made majority of drums and bass unrealistic.

That was my experience with my speakers tho :/ I guess it's different with everybody. I can see how .5 makes closer to 20hz much cleaner. I did like that aspect. Double kick was much cleaner too.

So you like the typical roll off? then either learn to appreciate "flat" sound or build for ".707"

With cars, you have to remember there is MASSIVE cabin gain and its highly unpredictable.

So picking a Q and aiming for it won't help you unless you know what sounds good in your particular car and to your own ear.

with a decent sub, .8 should be good in most cars. they SAY .707 is good for home, but it really isn't considering room gain doesnt start till 30 Hz, and even then, it doesnt stack much.

I had an 18" woofer in a 21 cubic foot box tuned to 12.5 Hz with an 8" wide port, 36.5" long....

That... was the cleanest sub I've ever heard. My current setup is that same 18" sub re-coned in a 7 cubic foot box with two 18" passive radiators.

Doesn't even compare in terms of sound quality but its much less of an eyesore.

Then again, going from a coffin sized sub to a washing machine sized sub isn't much of an improvement.

It does weigh around 220 lbs when fully loaded though. Can you spell resonance-free?

But to the point, horrible sound quality relative to the coffin sub.

matt : i'm fairly certain a 12 or 15" driver will have breakup at low frequencies as well. However before I speak I am doing a bit of research.

Matt : i disagree with you on almost everything you said about home audio.

All i'm going to say is I've heard many quality 2-way designs outperform every other layout i've heard. more drivers means more crossover points means more problems. And most "pro audio" drivers are designed for high output at high distortion levels. Good luck finding a pro audio woofer with less then 10% THD.


and on car audio, a super tweeter for above 15KHz? we've had quality tweeters that could produce 3KHz-20KHz since the late 50s. And besides a lot of people not being able to hear above 15Khz theres almost no audio content in music there either.

get an alpine type r 15". i loved mine. great sq, got loud when you wanted it to, and it took 1100w daily no trouble.

matt : my two ways will hit 115db in a 10x20 room. However my record was exceeding 130dB in a 10x20 room, but it was done with 4 ways that had mid and tweeter horns. I feel i've "cranked it up" as much as the next guy.

That two way I posted a picture of would probably be in the 120-130 range.

I guess I completely forgot about horns. Just not a fan of them, havn't really heard any of them that sound pleasing to my ear.

That and they're mostly pro audio equipment so I'm not sure why you're recommending them

Originally Posted by MrTube

Matt : im weird, i'll admit to that

I did my research and what I thought was correct. Large drivers DO have cone-breakup at low frequencies. If you look at the cone of a 12-18" woofer producing 30-50Hz with a strobe light all you will see is the cone flexing all over the place. Its distortion galore. And the larger the cone, the worse it gets. I also never said pro audio aims for clipping. The woofers generally produce very high levels of harmonic distortion. In fact all woofers do, If you get down to 1% your doing pretty good.


I love the sound of sealed quality woofers and quality horns. I honestly do not know why. Horns are rarely considered "quality" midrange or tweeters.

I suppose in the end, I like bass tight and flat. I prefer a system that can produce below 30Hz with low distortion, Yet I like bright highs and strong midrange. most pro speakers ive heard always sound boomy and hollow to me.

Hence the ideal cone material for subs being one that doesnt flex. Say, aluminum or titanium?

This is where building for headroom comes into play. If you're going for the absolute lowest distortion in home audio, line arrays= win.

If you're aiming for flat response, you'd need 4 18" hi-xmax woofers with around a thousand watts on each one positioned at the midpoint of each of the four walls of the room. That should be good until 3 Hz if you're careful about your room choice/design and amp choice. They obviously won't put out 130 dB at 3 Hz but in the home environment, 115 is usually more than enough to please most people.

Tight usually refers to the transient response. So if your ported sub isn't design for the room, then it'll sound boomy. If the sub itself wasn't designed to be used in a ported box, it'll sound boomy.

Sealed boxes work great in cars because of the massive cabin gain, but not so much in houses unless you've got many of them (Think IB).

Try an IB for your next home sub, i dont think it would disappoint granted you pull it off correctly.

Its partially about enclosure design as well. Most pro speakers cabinets will rattle all over the place with no absorption inside the box. The midrange drivers are most sensitive to this because the cones have to be very light in order to reach well past 2 KHz.

Matt : you know thats what I thought too, but apparently aluminum cones also have breakup. I never did get to put the strobe light to my a/d/s/ 312rs's I should do that when I get a chance. its hard to think that they could flex.


I don't listen so loud these days. After the damage i've done to my ears, altho I can still hear 16-17KHz and older crt tv's annoy me bigtime with their squeel. I do have a constant ringing in my ears i hear in dead silence.

Most of the damage came from the setup I had that used 2 18" woofers in sealed cabinets an 8" midbass, a large midrange horn and a tweeter horn, All were Electrovoice drivers I know, your thinking "pro speakers" They never sounded boomy tho I agree 100% on pro cabinets being made poorly. I swear by 3/4" or 1" MDF with plenty of bracing.


So, outcome is for car subs buy 12" drivers capable of long excursions with aluminum cones and put them in well built sealed cabinets eh?

If\when I pull the stock 6x9's out i'll try to get some pics of them under a strobe I'm sure it'll look like the Atlantic.


BTW speaking of IB. I remember people building a wall between their backseat and the trunk and using the trunk as the sub enclosure, Hows this work out in the end?

to the op the kickers like ported better as less mine do, L series are good woofers they can take more than what they say and be fine(ported) idk about sealed

Originally Posted by MrTube

Matt : you know thats what I thought too, but apparently aluminum cones also have breakup. I never did get to put the strobe light to my a/d/s/ 312rs's I should do that when I get a chance. its hard to think that they could flex.


I don't listen so loud these days. After the damage i've done to my ears, altho I can still hear 16-17KHz and older crt tv's annoy me bigtime with their squeel. I do have a constant ringing in my ears i hear in dead silence.

Most of the damage came from the setup I had that used 2 18" woofers in sealed cabinets an 8" midbass, a large midrange horn and a tweeter horn, All were Electrovoice drivers I know, your thinking "pro speakers" They never sounded boomy tho I agree 100% on pro cabinets being made poorly. I swear by 3/4" or 1" MDF with plenty of bracing.


So, outcome is for car subs buy 12" drivers capable of long excursions with aluminum cones and put them in well built sealed cabinets eh?

If\when I pull the stock 6x9's out i'll try to get some pics of them under a strobe I'm sure it'll look like the Atlantic.


BTW speaking of IB. I remember people building a wall between their backseat and the trunk and using the trunk as the sub enclosure, Hows this work out in the end?

Using the trunk as enclosure is using a box made of thin sheet metal as an enclosure.... I'm sure you wouldn't want to try that.

You can try and find some old TC sounds subs or perhaps try the AE subs.

I prefer the TC's since they have more stroke.

You could also try some of the SoundSplinter subwoofers. The 18 I had was a great woofer... till I broke the cone. Gotta be careful with aluminum cone'd subs...