Tempest coffee table sub - any suggestions? (1 Viewer)

[Ryan Hawke]

I'm working on a design for a sub for my house that I'm moving into and would like to build a coffee table sub with a Tempest. I think the Tempest would be enough output and my only worry is building a table that is sturdy and won't shake during loud/low bass hits. I drew up a preliminary design and used double thick MDF all around. Using 48 lb/ft^3 as the density of MDF (stated in MDF FAQ) I found my box, wood alone, would weigh about 160 pounds. I would actually like to tweak this around so I have enough volume to do the Adire algnment (currenly my design is at 170L, but I'm sure I can add more by tweaking some things), so this might be a little higher. Would this be bulky enough to be pretty dead during loud LFE in movies? Should I go with a single layer and a lot of bracing instead? I'm open to any suggestions. Also, I'd like to make a plug for the port so that when listening to music I can have that nice low Q sealed sound that I love. What have people used for port plugs here? Thanks to all for reading this and TIA for suggestions!

--Ryan

 

[Ryan Hawke]

Oh yeah, forgot to add: how close can I put a port to the cabinet wall? I was wondering this and how it would change the tuning if too close. Thanks!

 

[Kyle Richardson]

Link Removed may give you some ideas and answer a few questions you may have.
Kyle Richardson
Acoustic Visions

 

[Ryan Hawke]

Wow, thanks for the link. That will really come in handy during this design process. I drew up the preliminary plans for this box/table and have generated a few pics of what it *could* look like.

This is the basic design, with sub on the bottom and you can see the ports on the side. This is in standard grey finish.

Here is a possible finish for the sub. Sorry about the lighting, but I didn't feel like tweaking with the lighting too much this early into the project. As you can see it is all black except the one part that wraps around.

This picture will give you some insight to my insanity This is a 45 degree cutaway view (the driver was imported from another design I did and scaled to be the same basic size as the Tempest) with each piece of MDF colored. This just shows the stoutness of the double layered design, but it might be overkill.
Any comments on these pics would be great. I'd love to hear suggestions on how to make it better and I figured that this would be the best way to let you see what I had in mind. Thanks!
--Ryan

 

[Pat K]

Nah nah, heavy is good. Thatll be really cool, i figure its better if its heavier, that way, its harder to even tell its a sub.. and it wont rattle whatevers on top as much either.. well..maybe.

 

[Will Pomeroy]

Those are some really nice renderings! What program is that? Solid edge?

 

[Cam S]

Ryan, I saw a website a while back posted on here about a guy who did exactly what you did, but used a 18" kicker CompVR sub and a single 8" port on the one end covered with some speaker grill cloth. The finished product looked incredible, and if your sub turns out like his, you'll be a happy man. I'll look around for that link and give it too you if I find out. Good luck

 

[Ellen]

Cam may be referring to this project.

 

[Wayne Ernst]

Ryan,

Your idea of incorporating the sub into the coffe table sounds like a great idea. The most important feature of building your sub in this manner has not even been mentioned yet: setting your drinks on this coffee table will ensure that they are constantly stirred when you are playing some tunes.

 

[Jack Gilvey]

The main drawback to these types of installations is the almost complete lack of placement flexibility, which can sometimes be as important as the quality of the sub itself.

 

[Rudy H]

North Creek Music's Levithan 4cf sealed box plans
If anything falls off the top of that beast....

 

[Brian Bunge]

Rudy,

I'm seriously considering North Creek's cabinet for my 1803. I'll be using a K2 for power and a BFD to boost the low end. Of course the enclosure with have 100% polyfil to give me a bit better Qtc. Should be a monster!

Brian

 

[Clay Autery]

My coffee table sub is fourth in line project-wise (1 - rock, float, paint HT room; 2 - 9 shelf flexirack; 3 - 6 drawer media storage cabinet, 4 - coffeetable sub; 5 - build 5 or 7 281's)
I pretty much finished the enclosure design tonight. The wife was hesitant to let me do the combo thing until I pulled out the veneer sample ring I borrowed.... I told her that SHE got to pick the veneer to use on the table, end tables, and other wood accents. That elicited total "buy-in" to the project.
I'm looking into a 4 cu. ft. NET volume Tempest right now, but haven't really run any numbers since this project is a ways back in the pipe...
Anyone got a link to the latest LSPCad from adire?
Thanks...

 

[Ryan Hawke]

Thanks to all for the comments. The program I drew them in is called Rhino 3D, www.rhino3d.com has a demo which is very nice. Jack, thanks for the suggestion about room placement, I might consider doing a square endtable type sub now similar to the one posted by Kyle (thanks for that link BTW). Clay, are you going to do sealed or ported? I would like to do ported for HT, but do a plug in case I feel like some low Q sealed bass. 4 cubes sounds kind of small for ported, so that's why I asked. Thanks again to everyone who responded!
--Ryan

 

[Robert_Gaither]

Speaking of making a table sub, does anyone know of a pool table sub (I was hoping someone else made one to get an idea of construction time, possible problems ran into, and how much of a success/failure it was)?

 

[NickSo]

Nice idea, *sigh* if only i had a job :p)
Just dont put drinks no that while watching U571

 

[Bryan Michael]

hey insetad of using mdfb how about a sono tube?

 

[Greg_R]

Have you factored bracing into your design yet? I didn't see any on the plans so I thought I'd ask...

 

[Ryan Hawke]

Greg, I haven't planned out the bracing yet, but still need to do something. It's going to be a while until I build it (a few months probably) but I just wanted to see what kinds of things I should take into account. Bryan, what do you mean use sonotube instead? For the port (i.e. small sonotube) or just for the whole sub? I'd really like to build this sub as a table (possibly even an end table), so I probably won't use sonotube. Thanks for all the replies!

--Ryan

 

[Bryan Michael]

buld the body of the tabble out of a sono tube and make some ends and put a top on it it would save you some mdfb and maby some cash