ALUM15X downfiring OK? Plate AMPS at 3 ohms? (1 Viewer)

[JonWB]

Hello gang,
I'm looking at building a sealed box sub using one of these Audiobahn ALUM15X subwoofer drivers (from here). The driver parameters are:
Qts: 0.50
Qms: 4.28
Vas: 157.2L
Qes: 0.48
Fs: 19.70Hz
SPL: 86.1dB
Re: 2.70ohm
Pe: 1100W
Le: 2.89mH
BL: 16.60
Xmax: 19.0
Sd: 829.4cm^2
I was looking at a link
here . I plugged the above param's into their formula and got sort of a weird number. I'd guess that this driver should have a sufficiently stiff enough suspension to be mountable in a down-firing configuration, but if anyone could let me know what they think I'd appreciate it.
Now here's where things get interesting... This speaker is a DVC driver with each voice coil at 6 ohms. If I wire them in parallel that'd yield an impedance of 3 ohms. Do you think the usual crop of plate amps (PE #300-794, Adire AVA250, Stryke AMP250)can handle a 3 ohms load? Another (albeit crazy) idea I had was to run two of these plate amps together, one for each voice coil. Of course the knobs would need to be set the same. What do you guys think of that one??? I'd just buy a 2 channel amp and run each channel into one of the voice coils, but I like to have the control over phase and cross-over points that I get w/ the plate amps.
I know, I'm nuts. The more I read in this forum the more crazy ideas I'm tempted to try. This one sounds pretty tempting considering the cost and (potential) performance of the parts. Thanks for the feedback...
Jon

 

[Ron D Core]

I wouldn't worry about the load, those amps can take it, and if, for some reason they don't, you can just slap a 1 ohm resistor on the speaker wire. But with a car sub like that, you may have a hard time finding a flat response in a box with realistic parameters. It could take lots of power and get loud as hell, but you may end up making sacrifices somewhere in its operating range. Every car sub I've ever used in a house has the same problem. They are designed to take advantage of the cabin gain associated with the small confinements of automobiles. If you haven't bought the driver already I would suggest getting an Adire Tempest for potentially less. Otherwise I would just keep playing with different boxes to get something that sounds right.

 

[JonWB]

Thanks Ron, I was thinking that the reduced efficiency you usually see with the car subwoofers might make this thing require more power. I ran some sample boxes (sealed) in WinISD and both this driver and the Tempest look pretty good in a 3.5cu.ft. box. The ALUM15X looks like it'll go a little lower and the SPL for the two drivers looks almost identical. This subwoofer is marketed by Audiobahn as being a "Sound Quality" sub. For what that's worth, it does appear to be pretty well suited for a home sub in a sealed box config.

Jon