The MDF flew today... My Vision of what the Sunfire "TrueSub" should be! :) (1 Viewer)

[Brett DiMichele]

Take one Carver Sunfire Amp pushing 500 watts RMS...

Add liberal amounts of MDF and Glue... Totaling 14"x14"x15.5"

Then add one AV-12


What do you get? BASS.... Loads of it.. And in the imortal
words of my hero GoldMember... It's Very Tooyt.. Tooyt
like Tigaaar!


What a fun day.. I haven't even stuffed it yet and it sound
so damn good.. So tight, so fast and so hard hitting with
music! All of this from 14" worth of enclosure with a meager
500 Watts!

I need to decide on what to finish it with now.. The thing
turned out so good, the PE vinyl laminate I was going to
use doesn't seem good enough... How about WilsonArt piano
gloss black? Or maybe Wilsonart Granite? I dunno... I am
going to add stubie 1.5" x 1.5" Oak legs maybe tomorrow and
I need to stuff it yet...

 

[Greg Monfort]

I'm fond of their black marble and am in the process of redoing my kitchen counters with it.

GM

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Greg,

Cool just the man I need to talk to then!

What mastic do you use to affix it? and what do you use to
trim it? Don't they make a special edge knife for cutting
Wilsonart and other thick Laminates and Venners?

 

[Brian Bunge]

Brett,

Looks good! Stay away from that vinyl crap. I hate that stuff.

We've used WilsonArt black laminate and just use contact cement and a J-roller. We trim with a laminate trim bit with a slightly beveled cutter. I think it's got something like a 5 degree bevel to the cutter.

Greg,

Kitchen cabinets? We wanna see some more audio projects! Anything coming up to the ATL event this year?

 

[Frank Carter]

Looks good Brett.

Do you know if that AR/Sunfire amp has some sort of eq built in?

 

[Geoff L]

Tiny Mighty 12-incher you have their Brett...! GM's Black marble suggestion dose sound very sharp.

Your external cabinet dimensions are exactly the same as my 2 sealed subs. The baffle, top, and bottom are 1.5"-mdf on mine, 3/4-mdf with a Rythmik 380 plate on back. They weigh in at just short of 80-lbs apiece, no legs.

You have a much prettier drive than I. You certainly don't want to cover that up, far to sexy looking!

Like Frank asked, is there any eq-ing built in the AR-SUN Amp or using external eq-ing?

How long before some numbers/graphs???

Regards
Geoff

 

[Brett DiMichele]

There is no Boos when the switch is in A (Audio) there is
boost when the switch is in (V) Video mode. I haven't
measured how much boost but you can certaintly hear it.

Also there may be a SubSonic filter when in Video Mode. I
will take measurements in a couple days. It must be fairly
loud because I went outside for a smoke lastnight and my
across the road neighbors (more than 100' away) were
looking out thier window giving me an evil eye.....

Nothing good can come of this

I will have to check into the WilsonArt.. I really liked
the looks of the stuff. I could also spray it too, lord
knows it's smooth enough.. I spent about 2 hours sanding
all the joints.

As far as construction I just used 3/4 all around with two
internal braces running from the driver to amp side. It's
no elaborate 1.5" baffel with tons of braces (I didn't have
room!) but it's tight anyway.

 

[Jack Gilvey]

Looks like fun! I have an AV12 in a similar-sized box with a Linkwitz transform applied, works very nicely. The Formica black laminate works very well also, pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

 

[Michael R Price]

Looks wonderful Brett! Now I have to ask, how does it compare to the AR9s bass?

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Mike,

A lot more controlled sounding compared to the bass reflex
in the 9's.. And there is every bit as much output (more
even).

I haven't even experimented with placement, I really can't
move it too much considering It's plugged into a 220v
outlet and I only have one of those

 

[Michael R Price]

Well, I'm glad to hear that. Now, just imagine if you put it in a large ported box... or went to a 15". Seeing you do this and claim significant improvement has made me draw up plans for a subwoofer of my own (I have a plan for dipole, sealed, and vented once I can choose which type ), although I won't get around to that for awhile.

Anyway, see if you can use some big extension cord (220V uses different connectors?) to move it around. I'm curious to see if you like the sound best corner loaded, or in some other spot.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Mike,

There was never a doubt that there would be a significant
gain in output and clarity with the sealed sub. The reason
I hadn't made the enclosure more quickly was that my AR9's
do put out fairly decent bass.

I am building a second sub just like this one, so I guess
unless I want to use a large 2 channel amp like a QSC or
Crown I am going to have to come across another ARS500 amp
and I will have to buy a 220 to 125 converter to run it
from a regular outlet.

These will sit beside my Line Array's when they are done
and will be run stereo.

 

[Greg Monfort]

>What mastic do you use to affix it? and what do you use to
trim it? Don't they make a special edge knife for cutting
Wilsonart and other thick Laminates and Venners?
====
Historically I've used spirit based contact cement, but decided to try the politically correct waterbased, and it lifted in some spots so now I have to strip it and do it again. :frowning: Dunno about the knife, there's probably one though, seems like there's a tool for every little operation now, but for quickly knocking it down to the approximate size I just score it with a sharp utility knife on its face and snap it upwards. Larger pieces, or long/narrow ones I use a router to cut it. Like BB, I have a small laminate trimmer now, but before that I used a router, and before that I used files to cut/dress the edges. They looked just as good as a bit cutter's finish, just takes alot longer. Main thing with these is to have slick surfaces for the roller bearing guide and baseplate to glide over. A 'j' roller is nice for uniformly flattening the laminate, but a wallpaper roller or scrap 2x4 block or somesuch wrapped in a rag and briskly tapped with a hammer works well also.
====
>Kitchen cabinets? We wanna see some more audio projects! Anything coming up to the ATL event this year?
====
I have drivers/plans galore, so many I may have to sell them or risk them going bad before they are used, but my house needs repair more, so this is where I need to devote my increasingly limited $$/~'healthy' time. Folks around the world have been building my pipe and horn designs of late, but none close enough to bring, and I need another pair of speakers like I need another hole in my head. Anyway, with all the pro quality speakers I saw last year, though unfortunately I didn't get to audition but a few due to having to work most of the day, I'm sure there'll be plenty of eye candy/smooth sounds to keep you groovin'.

Now if you and two ir three strong dudes want to come by with a large pickup and move/haul about 600lbs/40ft^3 of Altecs over and back.......

GM

 

[Michael R Price]

Brett, a QSC RMX-1450 amplifier (450W) costs $400 and the 750W one is $600. It's probably cheaper to buy one of those and sell your AR amp, than to buy another ARS500 and a 220V-120V converter. The converter would have to be very large, heavy and expensive to handle that much power. Or you could rewire your house, but that'd be a pain.

Man, now you can focus on the real deal line arrays. Isn't that a wonderful thing. (I'm in a productive mood, since I just finalized and purchased parts for maybe 5 electronics projects for the summer.)

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Okay,

I couldn't stand looking at raw MDF so I at least covered
it temporarily with the PE Ash Vinyl Laminate (which looks
pretty decent and went on fairly easy...)

Now I need to get my feet on, because I was running some
test tones today and it decided to take a walk across the
floor....

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Mike,

Yeah most likely I would be better off to get a QSC amp but
now I will have to make new enclosures.. Not that this is
a problem.. I may make larger enclosures anyway...

 

[Dan Hine]

I may make larger enclosures anyway...

The added weight may help the walking issue.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

She's standing on her own 4 legs now..

It's impossible to see due to the thickness of my carpet
but at the end of the oak legs are billet aluminum spikes.

The bass is even better now that it's properly coupled to
the floor and isn't walking all over the place!

*EDIT I moved all of the images to a new folder so
if you want to see all of the images just follow the link!

http://www.westol.com/~brettd/temp/mysub/


Also I tore it back apart today and added two 12.5" x 2"
Braces to tie the walls together and I put two coats of
poly on the feet. Here are a couple pictures.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

^Bump

 

[Brian-K-Owens]

Forget the sub, tell me about the car in the garage!!! Z06?