Anything better than a Tempest for $150?? (1 Viewer)

[TonyiBe]

Seth,

Wow, i thought the stryke AV12 and AV15 were better than the shiva and tempest respectively, am i incorrect? I hope not i have both on the way and will be here any moment. I didn't go with the Tempest becuase i thought that the AV15 was WAY better.


Thanks,
Tone

 

[Seth_L]

Tone,

It all depends on the box. The AV12 and AV15 have a lot more excursion and a larger displacement than the Shiva and Tempest. In that regard they're better in Sealed LT applications. They're also better in high powered ported enclosures.

If you're only planning on putting 250W on the driver I'd be hard pressed to buy an AV12 over a 12" DVC in a ported application.

The Tempest and the AV15 are less similar. The Tempest is louder (above 30Hz), but can't play as low in the same ported enclosure.

However both Stryke woofers are going to use smaller sealed boxes for the same Q and will take more power then their similarly priced competitors.

Lets look at the Tumult for a minute. If you limit a comparison to 250W and put one in a 5cu-ft enclosure tuned to 20Hz (just like all the subs above) it gets outperformed (barely, less than .5dB) by the Shiva Mk III, Titanic Mk II, and the BPD 1201. The difference of course is that you can put 1600W+ on the Tumult and you run out of excusion around 250W on some of the other mentioned drivers. There's always tradeoffs. The Tumult uses a small box (like a modest 12" driver), and it does so at the cost of efficiency. However it has massive power handling to compensate.

So in short to answer your question, it all depends what you're doing with your AV12 or AV15.

Give me some specifics on your enclosure and we'll talk.

Seth

 

[BrianJ>Y]

Seth,

Thanks for modeling all the drivers, it's gonna help me to decide what kind of enclosure I put my av12 in. I'm going to be powering it with the rythmik 380watt amp.

Also, I went with the av12 on the notion that it was only 1-2db not 3-4db less sensitive than the shiva or dvc 12 (somebody on the forum mentioned this, can't remember who) Many have also mentioned that modeling a woofer doesn't tell the entire story and that a better constructed one will perform much more closely to the numbers and it seems like the av12 is a good step up in quality. I remember reading a post about Tom or Ron at svs having evidence for this. My room is med-large and thought the av12 would have a much harder time bottoming compared to the shiva or dvc, somebody on another forum compared the dvc12,shiva,and av12 and came to this conclusion...Those are the reasons why I chose the av12, maybe I could have saved a little money and gotten the same performance from the shiva, but I already purchased the stryke and I'm sure it'll satisfy me.

Finally, should I make the box a little smaller to flatten out that slight dip in the 20-30hz region? I was thinking about dropping the av12 in adire's ebs alignment for the shiva...

Thanks,
Brian

 

[Seth_L]

Brian,

Here's something that should help. Pick the curve for your AV12 that does what you want. You can get some really low bass from an AV12 if you tune it the way (yellow line).

380W on each driver.


Blue- Shiva EBS alignment (5cu-ft @20Hz)
Red - AV12 in 3.5cu-ft @20
green - AV12 in Shiva's EBS box
Yellow - AV12 in 5cu-ft @16Hz

Seth

 

[BrianJ>Y]

Seth,

Thanks so much for that graph, it definitely makes my planning a whole lot easier. I'm really new at all this DIY stuff and i'm winisd and lsp illiterate right now. Hmm...now I have to decide if I want the yellow or the red line. Would a 4.25cu.ft and 18hz tuning put me in between the red and yellow? Thanks again for your help, I appreciate it.

-Brian

 

[Seth_L]

Brian,

Good choice.


red - AV12 in 3.5cu-ft @20Hz
green - AV12 in 4.25cu-ft @18Hz
yellow - AV12 in 5cu-ft @16Hz

Seth

 

[BrianJ>Y]

Great, now I finally know what to build! I have ONE last question...hopefully How would I tune the 4.25 box to 18 hz?

-Brian

 

[Seth_L]

That's a good question.

Dual 3" ports (25.36"), or maybe a single 4" port (21.79").

Seth

 

[WillB]

This is my next HT subwoofer. I'm sticking a 350W rythmik plate amp on it. The E15k by elemental designs audio. I've got two E10k's in my car and I think they have better construction, SQ, and SPL than the tempest. Also, they require a smaller box.

http://www.edesignaudio.com/ep/kseries.htm

Graph this puppy and let me know what you think! -Will

Specifications e15K

Qts. .41
Qms. 5.7
Qes. .43
Fs. 23hz
Vas. 160 L
Sensitivity 91.1 dB
Re. 1.75 Per Coil
xMax 15.8 mm
BL Product 20
Sd 825
Magnet Weight 100oz
Displacement .085 CF
Cut - Out Diameter 14"
High Excursion Back Plate yes
Speaker Weight 19
Mounting Depth 7.2"

K - Series Power Chart

e15k
Mininum Rec. Power 75 Watts
Rec. RMS Power 400 Watts
Maximum RMS Power 900 Watts

 

[DerrickW]

Welcome to the forum WillB! But using "SQ and SPL" isn't something you'll find around here, keep that to the car audio forums. You might want to search around first to find out why these experienced guys are suggesting these subwoofers. There are some large differences in low-frequency culture in home theater and car audio. Since cars are so much smaller, you get much more room gain down low. IE, you put a beautiful looking car sub in a home, and suddenly 20Hz disappears. Perhaps when you say "I think they have better construction" you are basing it on looks? The Adire Tempest isn’t about show. But then again, if you really know car audio you know that the Adire Brahma is one of the top three car audio subwoofers out there. Home Theater subs are designed with different specs to improve low-end extension. For example, here are the TS specs for the car audio Brahma and the home audio Tumult from Adire:

PARAM VALUE Tumult 15” (home)
Qms 4.3
Re 3.2 ohms (1.6 Ohms per VC)
Qes 0.39
Le 4.2 mH (2.1 mH per VC)
Qts 0.36
Mms 345 grams
Fs 19 Hz
BL 18.5 N/A
Vas 160 liters
Sd 749 cm^2
Xmax 34 mm one way
EBP 48.7
SPL 87.1 dB @ 1W/1m
Distortion

 

[Seth_L]

Derrick,

You're jumping the gun a little bit.

It's not a bad woofer for $150.

380W on 4 different 15" cones:

green - Dayton 15" DVC in 8.5 cu-ft @20.5Hz
red - Tempest in 11 cu-ft @19Hz
yellow - ED E15k in 7.5 cu-ft @21Hz
Blue - Stryke AV15 in 8 cu-ft @20Hz

The ED E15k is just like an AV15 with less Xmax, but below 400W RMS in ported boxes it's pretty much interchangable.

Seth

 

[DerrickW]

I don't think that's jumping the gun. The E15K is pretty good for a car sub in home use as I said. But the Tempest will still play lower and louder, so for the same price I don't know why you'd pick the E15K. I also don't know where that dip in the upper 20s in your graph is coming from for the Tempest, its not showing up on my graph in WinISD. We did actually come up with similar boxes on our own, so at least we think similarly. I modeled a 7 cu ft E15K at 21Hz, at larger than 7.5 cu ft I don't really like the bump at 25Hz.

The major advantage of the E15K would be that it doesn't need as large of a box to perform at its max. However, its max is less than a Tempest for the same price.

 

[Seth_L]

The dip in the Tempest is due to it running out of excursion with 380W in that particular box in that frequency range.

Your nitpicking over less than 1dB and a few Hz (maybe). Considering the Tempest can be pushed into it's excursion limits with the amount of power he's talking about I wouldn't advise it.

Seth

 

[WillB]

Well, I have a e15k and a 380w amp, now what do I do with it? Build a sealed or ported box? You guys are math wizards, so I would appreciate your expertise. I plugged the T/S params into winisd and got those graphs you guys have for the e15k. Now I just don't know what to do. The elemental site recommends 3.5 CF sealed. What do you guys recommend since you know all about HT? My knowledge is mostly limited to car audio (I've got two e10k's in my explorer). I could probally build a sealed box out of MDF pretty easily w/ your help. I found a lot of DIY speaker sites but haven't found any for building sub enclosures. Thanks for your help and I'll love you all for your advice!

-Will

Oh ya, here is the rest of my home theatre in my bedroom.
21" Sony Monitor (Use PowerDVD, DD works but still working out the bugs on DTS)
HK AVR-125 45x5 Could use more power, but it's clear as a bell.
JBL NSP1 Speaker Set..

And then this sub... it's gonna be awesome!

 

[Seth_L]

Will,

I'd suggested a ported enclosure. Do you have a size limit?

Seth

 

[WillB]

It's going to be at the foot of my bed. I have a trunk there now. Whichever you guys tell me, I'll try to make (or have someone make for me if its really complex). Is ported circles and vented squares?

 

[DerrickW]

I'll second the ported suggestion. The ED E15k in 7.5 cu-ft @21Hz shown above is about the best you can do, if you have 7.5cu ft of course. Building a ported enclosure takes a bit more effort to do correctly than a sealed, but you'll probably like it more. This box is MUCH larger than the ones suggested by ED on their website, but it extends lower. If you want more "boom" and care less about low end extension then you may want a smaller box and higher frequency tuning- but for home theater most of us would choose the lower, flatter response of a large box tuned low.

 

[Seth_L]

Vented/ported = same thing. You can use any port shape you want. Round ports are most common. You can also build a rectangular slot port in the side of the enclosure.

Seth

 

[WillB]

Well, It's going to go at the foot of a twin bed. I don't have any real conception of how big 7.5 CF is, but that sounds rather large. How large is that? Do you guys have any links to a site that shows how to build a ported enclosure? I've been in contact with Kyle at www.acoustic-visions.com and he sells several enclosures for subs. I'm not quite sure how to convert the liters to CF though. I could get one of those and just glue it together. Thanks -Will

 

[DerrickW]

1 cu ft is about 28.3 Liters. So 7.5 cu ft is 212L. I assume that acoustic visions includes the bracing volume, but the port volume and driver volume must also be included. Looks like the price would be about $205 assembled but unfinished. Then add on shipping though, so I assume unassembled might be cheaper there. I would discuss with them your exact details, he can calculate the port based on your desired tuning frequency and the net volume the enclosure will provide.