HELP, what'll be my BEST BET in DIY. (1 Viewer)

[AhsanR]

Well hey guys,

After a rousing look around the internet, I am still confused.....

Right now, I want to get a GOOD subwoofer, and I know for a fact, I can't go retails direction.

That being said, I need a sub that plays TIGHT BASS, but has PUNCH that'll shake the house.

the room dimensions are: 20 by 20 by 10.

What drivers would you guys reccomend? What amp?

Could I hit reference with this baby?

I am thinking about tuning to about 16hz.

Thanks guys.

 

[Anthony_Gomez]

punch usually means no EBS which is the tunning range you want for most sub. the tightest bass is sealed. the next option for tighter bass is a low tunning to shift the group delay. now you also want reference levels.

you are asking for what every newbie wants without realizing that to achieve ALL of those will not be easy or cheap.

How much money can you put into this (amp/driver). how large of a box can you tolerate.

 

[Jonathan_D]

There are tons of threads on this forum dealing with your very questions. Do a search and you'll come up with more answers than you have questions for.

A couple of questions you need to ask yourself are how much do you want to pay and how confident are you in your cabinet building skills. How you answer these will go a long way in helping someone answer your questions.

There are more, but those two will be a big help to start.

That said, some of the favorite drivers here are Adire's Shiva and Tempest, Stryke's AV-12 and AV-15 and, current reigning king of the crop, Adire's monstrous (and quite expensive) Tumult. Also notable are the Dayton DVC and Titanic sub drivers.

For a look at what goes into building a sub, check out Adire's white papers, especially one's on the Shiva and Tempest.

Do the search, read what's here and you'll be a long way in clearing up that confusion!

 

[Martice]

You can also go the route of having a custom sub built for you buy the following four companies:

Acoustic Visions

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Rob Lloyd designs


Going this route will give you greater performance and better quality parts than if you walked into your your retail store with the same amount of money. You also have the benefit of custom finishes and size/performance preferences.

I've dealt with all four companies in some shape or form and have been happy with every purchase and customer service is top notch.

Good Luck

 

[AhsanR]

I'm willing to spend $1000 on a subwoofer. Give or take a $200, cheaper would be better. But the Room is big.

I'm looking for Bass, that'll scare the living hell out of me during scary movie scenes, or when action scenes come along, make me feel right in the middle of it.

BTW, those Adire Speakers, how do they compare with other speakers like Axiom and Rockets?

 

[Jonathan_D]

I haven't heard the Axiom or Rockets, but for $800 to $1000, a well designed DIY sub will simply destroy anything commercial up to three or four times the price.

I built my Tempest for about $220 (I use an old integrated AMP to power it) and another $117 for the BFD (-3db at 20hz). For what you're willing to pay, look at a Tumult system. From what I've read, it will scare the hell out of you!

 

[Mike Strassburg]

I built my dual Tempest sonosub with Hypex 500 amp for around $900. It can provide scary low bass and plenty of hit when listening to music. I got the specs for it straight from Dan W at Adire. I've had neighbors 2 houses away call and say it's rattling their windows!!

You could build it cheaper if you went with another amp and it shouldn't affect performance. If interested let me know and I'll send you the details.

 

[Wayne_D]

Hey Mike Strassburg, how are you runing your dual tempest with your hypex 500? are you runing it at 8ohms? if you have a link to pictures of your sub i would appreciat it!

 

[AhsanR]

How many DBs are you hitting?

And in a 20X20X10(H) room, do you think it could hit reference?

I am going to tune to 17hz, I know that for sure.....

What would be an equivelent SVS sub?

 

[Hank Frankenberg]

I built a ported, 175 Liter Tempest sonosub, tuned to 17.5 Hz and used an AVA250 plate amp. It "scares the hell" out of everyone who hears it for the first time. Drops jaws just like clockwork. Also good on music when volume matched to the mains.

 

[Arthur_King]

Ahsan,

Not trying to dull your enthusiasm (for gods sakes everyone here has more than 3x the normal allotted distribution! *grin*) but you're still being very "vague" about all of this.

Lets see if I can explain.

You've come onto a car modder website and asked "Hey what mods can I make to my Nissan Maxima to make it do a Quarter Mile in under 10 seconds??? I know I cant just go buy a Dodge Viper so I know I gotta mod my Nissan. I need something thats fast, but that corners really well, stable in the snap-turns but I need it to really cook on the straightaways."

There's a link at the top of this forum (DIY Advanced) that shows SONOTUBE LINKS. READ THOSE. There's about 27 discussions here about different subwoofer alignments and people showing their results of testing in-room responses. Adire has a bunch of FREE designs that you could just copy and get sick levels of bass.

But you keep asking for the ONE solution that will do EVERYTHING you need. We cant answer that, because there's no perfect setup, room, equipment, driver, tuning point, etc.

As a simple exersize, I would grab one of the ADIRE TEMPEST alignments (85L for example) and spend the 300 bux itll cost you to build it. IT WILL BLOW AWAY a $1000 sub from Bose/Yamaha/etc that you can buy at BestBuy et. al. If its NOT enough for you, the sell/housewarming gift/repurpose driver and build something else. Buy a SECOND tempest and blow the doors off the place, or get a Tumult, or setup the 12 dancing shivas.

But NOBODY is going to give you their "100% money back guaranteed" recommendation for a sub setup that will be "Tight and Fast and Loose and Bright and Moody and Low and Punchy and Smooth and Hard". Take the plunge. You'll never want to get out of the water again.

Daffy "In Retail computers, its Fast, Good, Cheap... Pick Two" Arthur King

 

[Rob Formica]

If you want ultimate, I'm just surprised no one suggested an IB (Infinite Baffle) ? It is basically a huge sealed box (actually an adjoining room) with a series of woofers driven with moderate power...

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just not recommended for anyone living in a rental unit...