Craig_B
Agent
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2002
- Messages
- 25
After much reading on this and other forums it appears to be the general consensus that DIY subs offer the biggest "bang for the buck" followed by offerings from SVS, Adire and Hsu (the later three being in no particular order). However, due to my limited woodworking skills and general lack of free time, I was not ready to tackle a DIY sub project, so several members suggested an alternative, which was to have someone who knows what they are doing build me a "DIY" sub.
Two names came up several times, Kyle Richardson of Acoustic Visions and Brian Bunge of Rutledge Audio Design. I contacted both gentleman and they are both very knowledgeable and came up with relatively similar sub designs based on my goals. My goals were to at least match and hopefully outperform the comparably priced SVS 20-39CS+/S1000 package and Hsu VTF-3 (which both offer incredible price to performance ratios) at a lower cost (less than their $850 to $1,000 price tags), while keeping within my size constraints (less than 26" in height).
Both of the proposed designs included a 15" driver (Tempest or DVC) in 175L to 195L ported boxes with a 250 watt plate amp (Adire or PE). While I would not hesitate to have either one build me a sub, I ended up going with Brian as he is local here in the Atlanta area and Kyle indicated shipping on such a large box would be prohibitive (although he did offer a flat kit which I could assemble myself).
The sub Brian is building for me is currently designed as follows:
“A Dayton DVC 15" in a 175L enclosure stuffed with 64oz. of polyfill. A single 4" dual flared port and a Parts Express 250W plate amp (#300-794). The amp has actually be measured at 280W at 4 ohms, so I'm going with that for input power in the simulations. The sub should be capable of around 107.7dB at 20Hz (anechoic) and should get up over 110dB in room. You won't have to worry about bottoming out at all with this much power and it should be pretty musical. You can still stuff the port and should get a Qtc around .53. That's a little low so it may be underwhelming, but I imagine you'll run it with the port open most of the time. You can always experiment.”
The sub will be downward firing and measure 25.5” x 25.5” x 25.5” inclusive of 4” legs. It will have a wood veneer finish stained black to match the rest of my speakers.
Anyway, I appreciate all the knowledge I have gained while reading this forum and will try to give a little back by updating this post with the progress of the project (Brian said he will send me some photos of the work in progress) and finally a review of the finished product.
Two names came up several times, Kyle Richardson of Acoustic Visions and Brian Bunge of Rutledge Audio Design. I contacted both gentleman and they are both very knowledgeable and came up with relatively similar sub designs based on my goals. My goals were to at least match and hopefully outperform the comparably priced SVS 20-39CS+/S1000 package and Hsu VTF-3 (which both offer incredible price to performance ratios) at a lower cost (less than their $850 to $1,000 price tags), while keeping within my size constraints (less than 26" in height).
Both of the proposed designs included a 15" driver (Tempest or DVC) in 175L to 195L ported boxes with a 250 watt plate amp (Adire or PE). While I would not hesitate to have either one build me a sub, I ended up going with Brian as he is local here in the Atlanta area and Kyle indicated shipping on such a large box would be prohibitive (although he did offer a flat kit which I could assemble myself).
The sub Brian is building for me is currently designed as follows:
“A Dayton DVC 15" in a 175L enclosure stuffed with 64oz. of polyfill. A single 4" dual flared port and a Parts Express 250W plate amp (#300-794). The amp has actually be measured at 280W at 4 ohms, so I'm going with that for input power in the simulations. The sub should be capable of around 107.7dB at 20Hz (anechoic) and should get up over 110dB in room. You won't have to worry about bottoming out at all with this much power and it should be pretty musical. You can still stuff the port and should get a Qtc around .53. That's a little low so it may be underwhelming, but I imagine you'll run it with the port open most of the time. You can always experiment.”
The sub will be downward firing and measure 25.5” x 25.5” x 25.5” inclusive of 4” legs. It will have a wood veneer finish stained black to match the rest of my speakers.
Anyway, I appreciate all the knowledge I have gained while reading this forum and will try to give a little back by updating this post with the progress of the project (Brian said he will send me some photos of the work in progress) and finally a review of the finished product.
