Twelve 10" NHT Subwoofer Build. - Page 2

I'm not sure I could make a box that big for the area they are going in. The only thing I could do would be to go back to 3 per box ported. That would cut the size down to around 12 cu ft I guess? I could make that work.


But I'm not sure of the sound difference between four boxes with 3 subs or 3 boxes with 4 subs each.




Also, I seem to be getting a pretty low wattage needed to reach max excursion in a sealed box. Using 4 per box at 8 cu ft, Unibox is showing max excursion coming in around 35 hz with 600 watts going to that box.

I'm going to keep messing with these numbers.


Thanks for the help so far guys.

Thanks, I'll go with one of the first 2 then.

#1 looks like the reasonable box to do as a trial I guess. Fairly quick to build too. I surely wasn't second guessing any of you guys on it's output or excursion, I was just curious about the graph I was looking at and whether or not I was reading it wrong.


As for #2, are you guys recommending the ported enclosure over sealed? The 2 programs I used recommended sealed. But I suppose I don't have any real issues against ported.

At 78" tall, with the port on the top, that would only give me about a 4" clearance, would that be too close to the ceiling? The ceiling uses those 2x4' accoustic style panels, not drywall. I wonder if that would cause those panels to flutter above the port?

Yeh, they are the drop in type. But I didn't use the drop ceiling brackets because I didn't want to lose any height. The corners would be very hard to remove because of the way it had to be installed. Those were the first panels to go up, then it was all power spray painted to "lock" everything together. I'll take a closer look and see what will be involved.

Well, I got my Amp and the subwoofers today.

I wanted to show everyone how nice the packaging was from Jack and the speakers as well. By the way, I got these pretty fast coming from California to Ohio. Thanks Jack.

I got 6 of these boxes today. All of them looked good.






I opened them up to see what I was up against.









And last but not least a picture showing one of the corners to be graced by whichever box I end up going with. I'm beginning to think that 4 per box will simply be too big for this area. That light is about 60" off the ground and 22" from the back wall, other measurements are shown.







I'll need to draw up ported box for 3 and see how big that might be.

I'm not so sure my house could handle twelve 18's!

Okay, time to impress.....well sort of. I'd like to get thoughts and ideas for this final design. Box sizes may vary just a bit to get the correct cu/ft.


As a newbie to Sketchup, this took me longer than I would like to admit.










It keeps the area for my center channel clear and I can put teh Behringer amp up there too. Also it doesn't go up too high on the sides to get in the way of my lighting.

Each side will actually be 2 boxes for weight issues. Bottom box of 4 and one side box of 2. Wired as Neo Dan mentioned.

Box depth? Depends on sealed or ported I guess. I can make them maybe 15" deep fro sealed, or go 20" deep for ported.


Could I port the 2 side boxes out the top and then the bottom 4 out the front? Or will I have enough of these to just go sealed and be done with it?

I'm going to start testing that today. As of right now, and after many many sub placements, the front seemed to give me the best and most natural sound.

But, I haven't pushed them any closer to the side walls because I wasn't sure if they would cause issues with the mains. I will find out and let you know.

I figured on leaving about 2' between the subs. Do you think that would be enough? If I ever get another center channel, it might be a DIY model.

I just did some more measuring to check. I have a 110" screen and have considered going with a 100".....maybe. It's a cheap DIY out of designer white laminate, so it's changable. With a slightly smaller screen and moving a bit higher would allow me to put the center channel up above the sub boxes and still stay away from the screen, allowing for any width if it's ever needed. That's figuring the sub if I keep the boxes around 15" in width.


Okay, I gotta admit, I'm tired of measuring! I've been staring at my room and fooling with SketchUp for over a week. I gotta get this thing started!


This is the best I can do here: I just don't think I can scrape up much more cu/ft than the following.


4 identical sealed boxes:

15"x19"x48" gets me right around 6.36 cu ft. After the extra baffle, braces and driver displacement, it should be really close to the 2 cu ft per driver you guys recommended. Figuring driver dispacement in the range of .03 cuft.



OR


4 identical ported boxes.

Largest I can go to have everything fit (and still look reasonable):

15"x22"x48" which would give me about 7.45 cu ft prior to subtracting ports or anything else.


Modeled in Unibox, that ported box isn't half bad tuned to around 15 - 17.


The BIG question, which of those 2 makes the most sense? I'll have to get an EQ for the sealed or an filter for the ported, so that part doesn't matter.



I'm down to the final day before I go nuts! Any strong ideas on which of those 2 boxes I should go with could possibly save me a trip to the looney bin later this week.


I have a need for a cloud of flying MDF dust!!!!

Jim, if anyone does think that makes some sense, I can do the sealed horizontal boxes with 3 in each one as mentioned above.

The side vertical boxes you are talking about could go up to about 56" tall. If I do something like 15x21x56, that would give me about 8.3 cuft prior to braces, ports and subs. Depth would be different between the 2 boxes, but not too big of a deal.

I can't go any higher because I have a light at 60" high and 22" from the wall.



I have decided to try and keep 4 boxes of 3 for reasons ranging from too much output with all 12 going at one time for music, to the ease of mtching boxes, and 4 Ohm loads per box. It may not be ideal, but it just seems to work better for me in this scenerio.

I don't mind building 2 ported at one size and 2 sealed at another size though. Each pair can then be run on it's own seperate channel and adjustable as well. Even the ability to select ported for movies, then sealed for music. Or run all at the same time. I like those options.

No, I guess I haven't done the actual sound measurements with equipment. I have compared just by listening for quite a while. The ED's up on the front give me the most natural sound in the main listening area and the 2nd row as well. Those boxes are 15" deep and about 3.5" off the front wall. If I ended up doing the sealed 19" deep boxes, I figured they would be pushed up and toughing the front wall.

When you mention facing sideways 4" out from the corner, are you talking about the drivers facing left to right out into the room, or firing at the wall?


The front is not where I get the most bass, but it sounds the nicest. The left rear corner gives me the most, but I can pinpoint their location and they are also sitting 2' away from the 2nd row and the bass isn't as good in that position. The 3rd best place is about 10' back from the screen on the left wall. But again, it's easy to locate as it's just 2' from the main listening area, second row isn't as good either.


I was siding my house today and didn't have much time to move things around and test. I will try out multiple sub postions on Monday with both pairs of subs I have.