Recommendations for Subwoofer DIY, Budget $700.00

the constraints tend to be cost and size.

if you don't have any constraints, notnyt, bosso, warpdrv, and ricci have some good builds, but that is kind of the deep end of the pool. :-)

if you have some cost and size restraints, kick them in and it will be easier to guide you into a solution.

edit: sometimes i have too many browsers open. for $700, get four dvc drivers or hf390's and an ep4000 amp. build sealed and fire them up. yeah, a little over budget, but who cares about deficits? :-)

one of the new mach 5 pi18's and an amp could work too.

Two sealed SSD 18's and a Behringer EP4000 from Ebay should get you really close to $700. I think you will be hard pressed to find better displacement for the $ sealed w that budget. That should outperform 3 Dayton's which would be similar price of two SSD 18's and take up the same cabinet space. An extra $200-$500 in the budget would likely give you a different recommendation (Pi-18, Fi Q18, and Marathon 5050/Lab clone amp, would be upgrades but then you need to look to upgrade your power supply and add DSP and so on and so on way over budget)

If you have space you could port a Pi-18 to 15hz in 10cu and get a little better output from 12-30hz theoretically.

I had two 13av.2's and I liked them as far as sound quality goes and size constraints but they weren't enough output in my room. I opted to have mine made into 18's to improve output if that tells you anything. You would get similar output from one Fi Q 18 for nearly half the price and same size box as 2 13av.2. For $500 and a smaller box you could go with the Mach Pi-18 (still cheaper than the 13av.2 w better output)

"So I guess my first post was a bit noobish."

not as bad as my inability to read. :-)

as was just said, in a 4-5 cube box, the pi18 is a good one.

another option that works with your form factor is two 2-2.5 cubic footers loaded with alpine swr-1243 drivers. the klippel report on them suggests that they should sound pretty good and certainly better than you might expect from what has traditionally been a car audio sub family.

swr1243d's are only...$133 but you might find them for less.



here is the pi18 and 2 x 1243d's in 5 cubes total (you could split up the 1243d's)

the 1243's run out of excursion sooner than the giant pi18, but otherwise they will have about the sensitivity. here is MAX spl.

cartoys.com has it for $120 free shipping and theyre actually authorized. nutty price

that's getting pretty budget friendly omega.

Run 4 at that price. That should even the score with the 18"

I had an RW-12d. It was ok, got loud and that's about it. In the lower freqs there would be a bit of port noise and the cheap plastic port world "creak" a bit. The driver was ts measured and the stock cabinet is way too small. Rebuild cabs about twice the volume and throw the drivers in and you'll have a real winner. Someone else on the forum did that and mentioned they went toe to toe with some of SVSs big boys. Long throw aluminum cone 12 and 300 watt bash amp for $300. You could do the same from PE unless you plan on using the stock cabinets.

Dan

parts express...a supplier of components for diy folks.

http://www.parts-express.com/

"So are 2 LFM-1 EX good to give me the "low" ?"

sounds like a marketing question in a science/engineering forum.

what spl at what hz in what room with what amp do you mean "low"?

if they do what you need great, if not, then not.

are you the kind of guy who likes to "blast it" or just play music and movies at modest levels?

what mains are you running?

Not that my vote counts, but I still say if you can fit two 4cu ft cabinets then go with 2 FiCar SSD 18's. You're looking at 112db at 20hz with that set up before room gain. That should get you better performance than any commercial offerings for around $700 w EP4000.

the "built in" sub in your mains is no where near what you want be. d.t. is a marketing company and imho doesn't engineer for what you want.

i may have to put my flame suit on, but if i were to just pick a system that would make you most happy, i'd look at a pair of aespeakers td18h drivers in 8 cubic foot ported cabs tuned to around 20hz or so and powered with a low cost amp, such as the ep2500/4000.

that will give you super clean bass from about 20hz up at 120db or more in room. it might be a little over your budget, but you won't regret it. it is a performance system. it is not a toy system, but something that you might find in a world class mastering studio.

the fi speaks are fine but they never return my emails when i ask about inductance and that is a problem for music detail the higher in frequency that you go.

wow wait.. $240 worth of alpine 12s will be fairly equal to a pi18? wuuuh?!!?

where are the thiele small specs for the FiCar SSD 18 w/copper coil?

i couldn't find them on the site.

"wow wait.. $240 worth of alpine 12s will be fairly equal to a pi18? wuuuh?!!?"

i wouldn't put it that way. two twelves have about the radiating area as one 18 and the two 12's are rated for 1/2 as much power as the 18 per driver, so in the power limited region, they will be quite similar. the 18 has more excursion, so dominates the lower end where excursion limits the 12's.

if you went with 4 twelves like ricci suggested, that would be a pretty "fair fight".

in a 4 cu ft box does the pi18 even get enough power from an ep4000? isnt an ma5050 needed

iirc the pi18 is rated for 1200 watts, though like most home audio subs, the testing conditions aren't provided. it can probably take 2000 peak, but i'm not sure you'd want to go higher for any extended period of time.

my concern is that he mentioned a large room and these sealed options just rolloff too soon imho.

Ported options simply do not get talked about enough on this forum anymore. To backup LTD, twin 15's or even twin 18's ported to 18-20hz with a kW or so of power will put a frown on most wives' faces...and that means a smile on ours.

Twin TD18's + amp pushes the budget, but, twin Alpines + ep4000 comes in under budget and allows room to upgrade if two more drivers are required. I'd have to model them, but I'm sure they'd work fine ported tuned to around that 18-20hz area.

the only caveat is that the alpines don't have the motor strength of the td18, so won't sound quite as clean in a ported application or any resonant application for that matter.

But being that they have about half the cone area of the 18, they don't need to have a motor of the same strength. Two drivers combined equals the same Sd as the td, so you can effectively add the bl.

I forgot the specs, but isn't their cms under .5?