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4 18" Dayton Audio Ultimax diy kit or 1 JTR Cap?

8K views 50 replies 22 participants last post by  basshead81 
#1 ·
Looking to buy either.... The Daytons would be powered by 2 Behringers 6000 amps. Which route would you guys go? Looking for opinions on previous and current owners of said subs.

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#4 ·
Agree'd!!!!!!!!! I like my Si HT18 but I absolutely love my Ultimax and will be buying more soon. The 18" flat pack bundle is less than $400 and a bang for the buck king in my mind. I don't know anything for around $2500 that will touch 4 18" Ultimax bundles and 2 Inuke 6000's properly setup. 2 up front and 2 near field for the win....:D
 
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#5 ·
That's the plan. However my living room is oddly shaped so I am limited to sub placement. I currently have 5 subs and it sounds just right. If one was to move parts of.the room.will have a null. Which sucks...a lot.

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#7 ·
A Captivator 1400 should be close to two of the UM18 on the Behringer if all you are considering to output. However, the Captivator 1400 is a complete product that's fully assembled, tested, verified, and completely built in the USA using high quality materials and components. The UM18 and Behringers are both made overseas. There have been quite a few quality issues with the UM18 so you might have to go through a few of them to get ones that work properly.

I'd love to see Data-bass test the Behringer on the subwoofers that they've tested with Powersoft and SpeakerPower amplifiers.
 
#11 · (Edited)
I'm pretty sure the cap is ported, the UM kit is likely sealed.

Nothing is stopping the OP from making ported boxes, that is, other than a $400 roybi table-saw and router/bit set.

If he uses a kit, then all that is needed is: wood glue, 4 wood clamps, a bag of wood screws and a power driver/bits. (Which he probably already has.)

Usually when it comes to bass, the more cone area and coils, the better. As it helps reduce excursion and heat, which reduces distortion.
Having two amplifiers connected to two different breakers helps draw more power, which helps get louder when needed. The fans help cool things down, although the downside is a bit of fan noise.

(2 breakers are 3db louder than 1 breaker, of equal size.)

The NU's are fairly quiet, similar to a modern day projector in eco-mode, if even that loud...
If you want to hear just how loud some of the stock amplifiers can get, take a look at this video on my YT channel:

The NU's are comparable to the EP, or slightly less loud than that.



A Crown iTech under load literally sounds like an F-18 going vertical. ;)
It's fans are a million times louder than an NU.
That CA amp is like an SR-71 with afterburners on, it has 4 4inch fans constantly going at high RPM.
Comparable to an FP on start-up. Good grief! :eek:

For example, you can't hear the two nu6kDSP's powering 4 UXL-18's in this vid as there is music playing at a medium SPL:


If you don't want fans in your amp, you'll have to fork out the money for the speakerpower plate-amps. As that is pretty much the only good fanless amp useful for sub-duty, stopping short of perhaps a pair of A/B McIntosh 2kW monoblocks or A/B Emo XPR-1 space heaters. :D

The cool thing about 4 sealed 18's is that they will reach down to ~5hz, where as a ported sub will drop like a rock starting as -3db @ tuning (because of its HPF and port/cone phase issues.)
Not sure about you, but I happen to enjoy the 7hz tone in BassILoveU and Irene\WOTW scenes... of course it won't be "uber loud" at those low frequencies, but at least it is reproducing it moderately-well.

It is fairly trivial to disable a HPF filter and crank the port velocity so high it levitates your carpet, but that doesn't mean it is loud...

i.e. ^^^this, and videos like this ;)
That's like 2000% cone distortion, the PA cones are pushing out to where there is -20 BL :D

Unlike that,
videos like pop's, notnyt's and mine, we are moving things with ACTUAL sound waves.
You know... actual SPL / DBs. Not "20hz below tuning" box-fan particle velocity turbulence effects. ;)
The bass wants out of the room and it is desperately seeking a place to escape... ;)







^^^ The OP will have about this much displacement / SPL. This is 2 21's and a LMS-18 with about 8kW. He'll have 4 18's and 12kW burst; so a comparable amount...

The distortion on my HzHorn is like 0.25% @ 134db @ 16hz. All the distortion you hear is from the mic clipping to death. ;)

That's just 1 LMS-18 @ only 400watts, corner-loaded and horned. The iTech -10db below clipping on just 1 channel. ;)

4 UM-18's horned could almost kill a person. hehe :p
The only downside is that the UM-18's needs a HUGE horn box, that's if you go that direction.
About 40% bigger than mine. Otherwise it will sound horrible. Probably best to just keep it sealed or ported (unless you have a huge barn-sized room or are a real bassheaded basshead.)
Horns are not a good starter sub. They are hard to design and build; and really only suitable for movies-only IMO (or ugly music like dubstep/rap etc.) Depending on what your tastes are.
 

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#13 ·
Or like me, you can run 4 Sealed 18s and.... add a JTR Cap 4000ULF or 218HT, why choose... do both!! Of course it will take a day of tweaking to get them to play nice in my sandbox.


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#15 ·
I am all for buying quality American Made products, but it is hard to argue that 1 JTR Cap would be the better choice over 4 UM 18's. The quality control issue is old news. Dayton corrected the problem according to Mark Seaton. Point remains that 4 subs properly inetgrated is going to be much better then a single. If the OP would of said 1 vs 1 I would say JTR all day, but obviously Diy or AIY presents a better value to the end user if one is willing to travel down that path.
 
#28 ·
+1

I believe the JTR is a better product from top to bottom. If money was no object, I would suggest to go with the Caps. Being Canadian, I always try to buy products made in either the US or Canada.

But if you are willing to give yourself some trouble, you can have a very decent product at a lesser price.

4 subs is indeed superior to 1. That being said, having never heard a JTR in my life, how does a DIY 18" (ie: Mini Marty, Johnny) compares to a JTR Cap as far as sound quality?
 
#36 · (Edited)
@BassThatHz


Good montage of clips.


I will take issue with you on one point.


I've been to Popalock's house you showed in that video and experienced first hand what 16 sealed do in a 1500 cubic foot space. (I'm videotaping the footage below!) I've also been in a half dozen theaters now with eight 15's or 18's (or greater subwoofer firepower) including my own. (Gorilla83, Carp, Scrappydue, Archaea, d_c, desertdome)

This is me filming @popalock s with the Irene scene and witnessing the party tricks! (timestamp 15:35)







Watching those videos - how can that not be fun too?!?! Answer - it IS fun!

Anway -- your post proclaiming sealed as so much superior reads a bit biased to me. I know you love your sealed, but there is nothing wrong with a strong ported setup. I'll also make note that in the Blind Subwoofer Shootout I hosted in 2012, not one single enthusiast correctly identified all subwoofer box alignments correctly (ported, sealed, horn). These aren't just newbies --- these were enthusiasts from multiple states throughout US (i.e. subwoofer aficionados with enough interest to fly or drive multiple hundreds of miles to listen to subs all day in a blind test) -- The attendees established clear quality tiers in their collective/summed voting scores, but none could identify box alignment. This indicates pretty clearly that these sealed vs. ported vs horn forum wars ----- just don't matter in the end.

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/113-s...sas-city-blind-subwoofer-shootout-2012-a.html
No, in the end it's simply about clean SPL output - and you can accomplish it a variety of ways!

I'd imagine a pair of JTR ULF4000's would pretty handedly best my eight sealed UM18-22 in real world home theater use (all things considered). In the KC crawl coming up this weekend, Jeff is supposed to be bringing down a single JTR ULF4000 and putting it up against eight of @carp s SI 18HT. I think reality is the JTR with just two 18" drivers will really surprise some of the junior attendees in that matchup. :cool: The old veterans already have a clear idea of the quality design and potency JTR can bring to the table! :cool:

No, one ULF 1400 won't beat 4 UM18-22. Nobody said it would -- but it would be fun to put one ULF4000 up against 4 UM18-22, or 4 SI 18HT. I think that'd be a different story entirely.
 
#41 · (Edited)
@
I'd imagine a pair of JTR ULF4000's would pretty handedly best my eight sealed UM18-22 in real world home theater use (all things considered). In the KC crawl coming up this weekend, Jeff is supposed to be bringing down a single JTR ULF4000 and putting it up against eight of @carp s SI 18HT. I think reality is the JTR with just two 18" drivers will really surprise some of the junior attendees in that matchup. :cool: The old veterans already have a clear idea of the quality design and potency JTR can bring to the table! :cool:

No, one ULF 1400 won't beat 4 UM18-22. Nobody said it would -- but it would be fun to put one ULF4000 up against 4 UM18-22, or 4 SI 18HT. I think that'd be a different story entirely.


The thread title doesn't say Captivator 1400. The four UM18 and two 6000 would cost about $2000 not including wood, glue, screws, etc. So, at $2400 parts cost (still not including labor) the Captivator 2400ULF comes into the picture. Based off the Data-Bass numbers of the UM18 the Captivator 2400ULF should have an advantage in the 12.5-16hz and be close everywhere else to four UM18 of two inuke 6000s.
 
#45 ·
^^^

The omission of labor is a huge factor though. Going by your prices. Would you rather take the time to build, sand, paint/stain 4 enclosures yourself. Or pay the extra $200 and get something that you know performs and sounds great, is likely better built and looks much nicer than what most are capable of achieving themselves.
 
#46 ·
Size can be a significant consideration for some people (not sure about the OP, he didn't mention it).

The JTRs are going to be 7-11 cubic feet (1400, S2, 2400ULF). The UM18s are going to be 5-7 (sealed) & 7-15 (ported) cubic feet PER DRIVER. So depending on your form factor you need one huge box, two great big boxes, or four very large boxes. Vs just one very large box for the JTRs.

So besides the labor going into the UM18s, there is also at least two, three or four times as much room space needed for them. Clearly the JTRs are the space-saver option :)

That said, I'm building a ported UM18 cabinet, so I think the JTRs are good options for some, and the UM18s are good options for others. I'd be really interested in comparing them :)
 
#50 ·
The article also stated this for power results:
Conclusion of power testing

Neither of the amplifiers showed any signs of progressively restricting the output during these tests so I'm inclined believe that they should be good to do this indefinitely. As a caveat though I did not test them in this mode for long as my load box is not capable of these power levels for more than a couple of minutes at a time.

To summarise, for music signals, both channels driven, you can expect an output of:

Behringer:
1.37kW into 8 Ohms, 2.05kW into 4 Ohms for full-range or mid-top duty
1.16kW into 8 Ohms, 1.80kW into 4 Ohms for Bass duty


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#51 ·
Josh Ricci stated in the past that you knock off about 4db above 40hz on all the diy subs he tested with his Power Soft K10 compared to using a budget oriented amp like the Behringer 3000dsp. So if that is the case then the UM-18 sealed with a Inuke 3000 should still hit 120-121db 2m rms in the 40-80hz. 4 of them powered by 2 6000's should hit 131-132db above 40-80hz, 123db 20-31hz, and 109db 10-20hz.
 
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