| Stevenn saying he is too busy to send me his plans, then saying I am avoiding doing an extremely large box. Steve - I am not angry, but I am also not sure how asking for different ideas means I am ruling anything out. |
| "Extreme" is in the eye of the beholder, Steve. Will the market embrace a 20" diameter 56" tall sono LLT? There's only one way to find out. :) |
| This exercise - in its current form - sounds to me like you are setting up the large reflex DIY for a fall. "It stunned our terrier unconscious at 10 yards during the GP session and it knocked small objects off the shelves during the HT evals, but it sounded bloated on music with smeared details and plenty of overhang and it couldn't hold a candle to the Maestro in SQ". Looking at DIY as just a route to louder/deeper is myopic. DIY is whatever you want it to be - that is the real beauty of the concept. My suggestion is to play your own hand instead of someone else's. State your known preferences up front and try to do them one better. And definitely take your eval room into consideration and make it an integral part of your design. Take a page from bosso's playbook and build a dual 15" 2nd order 0.6 Q sealed subwoofer of reasonable size which is designed to start rolling off at the approximate frequency which corresponds to the onset of room gain in your eval room. Then commission Phil Marchand to build a "BOSSIS" electronic interface. I'll let Bosso extole the virtues of such a unit, but in essence it will allow you to custom tailor the frequency response and the roll-of profile of your sealed subwoofer to provide a near-perfect complement to the acoustic transfer function of your room. That DIY project would get my attention in a hurry. |
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Originally Posted by soho54
craigsub- You might want to throw some constraints out there before this gets out of hand. Maybe a price cap or SPL limit something. Max power levels. Formula 1 and dirt track racers don't usually get along for very long. :rolleyes:
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Originally Posted by steve nn
I went back to double check and I don't see or recall saying such a thing although I understand misinterpreting fairly well... I said nothing close. The simple truth is, I'm not willing to help in any way (what I feel) your attempt to discredit the DIY realm and Steve C with a so called LLT. As you well know I never take as strong a position as some regarding sealed, vented or LLT, but I think being above board with our biases and moving forward with that knowledge in mind helps keep everything in perspective. With that being said, my perspective has hampered me a great deal. .
Hey Ed.... Get back to me after you figure it out. ;) |
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Originally Posted by Craigsub
Steve, I thought it would be of interest for everyone to see what is "size is not object" sub (yours) would do next to a well known and respected "turn key" sub (the Ultra) ...
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Originally Posted by craigsub
Interesting post, Ed. While you may think you have some knowledge about what is going on in my head that I don't, you are mistaken,
For the record ... a few clarifications ... 1. I don't have a preference for sealed subwoofers. |
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Originally Posted by previously made by Craig
“For the best overall sonic presentation, sealed speakers, whether subwoofer or full range, are the way to go.â€
“And when one gets to subwoofers, unless one has listened to what a properly designed, sealed subwoofer can do, one really is missing out on the best bass money can buy.†“Mark Seaton could easily have decided to come out with a "higher SPL per $$$$" by going ported. He is going sealed because it will perform and sound better in a room.†“Personally, I bought into the ‘louder is better’ concept until a single 15 inch, sealed subwoofer completely outclassed a quad 12 inch, ported design in every aspect. The sealed unit was tighter, it was deeper, and subjectively more powerful than the ported counterpart.†“…..The Maestro, even fresh out of the box, is capable of hitting any level of bass which a reasonable person can tolerate from 18 Hz and up - yet it is extremely articulate ... much more so than is the Ported Subwoofer sets we have.†“Eventually, you may get a chance to experience a properly designed, sealed system in your system, and suddenly it will make sense.†|
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Originally Posted by craigsub
2. I am not setting up the large reflex sub for a fall.
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Originally Posted by craigsub
I asked, in open forum, for ideas in regards to the final design people would like to see.
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Originally Posted by Ed Mullen
Take a page from bosso's playbook and build a dual 15" 2nd order 0.6 Q sealed subwoofer of reasonable size which is designed to start rolling off at the approximate frequency which corresponds to the onset of room gain in your eval room. Then commission Phil Marchand to build a "BOSSIS" electronic interface. I'll let Bosso extole the virtues of such a unit, but in essence it will allow you to custom tailor the frequency response and the roll-of profile of your sealed subwoofer to provide a near-perfect complement to the acoustic transfer function of your room. That DIY project would get my attention in a hurry. |
| And repeatedly calling out the two Steve's specifically and asking for designs when you could easily go to the DIY section and find their exact plans just makes it look like you are trying to continue some personal fued and really does all of us here a major disservice as there are many people who would LOVE to see either option #1 or #2. |
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Originally Posted by purifiedaudio
Craig,
This enclosure will need more than just standard DIY construction methods to minimize vibrations and other pressure variant anomolies. Software sims and driver specs look great on paper, but they're pointless if the enclosure is not rigid (sims and T/S parameters don't apply to non-rigid enclosures), also turbulance plays a significant role in the LF performance of something like this. Do you have a rough sketch of your idea? I'd be willing to offer my $.02 on the engineering of the enclosure, if you don't mind. Otherwise, I'll just sit back, jeer, and post snide comments. -Matt |
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Originally Posted by steve nn
This sums up my thoughts to the T regarding the matter. Granted it's only my opinion and not a stated truth to be called a liar on, but history has a way of shaping ones conclusions.
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Originally Posted by Ed Mullen
We all know reflex has more output per woofer and that's why I'm a big fan of this alignment in OEM applications - because OEM subwoofers are almost by definition undersized, underpowered, underported to some extent - and need all the help they can get. But in the DIY realm, there is nothing a reflex subwoofer can do that a sealed subwoofer cannot ultimately do better. Yes, it will be less efficient, and yes it will require 2X the drivers, and yes it will cost more and take up more space - but that is the price you pay if you want to keep up with reflex on the output side of things AND also reap the benefits of the inherently superior phase response and transient characteristics of this alignment. Nobody ever said perfection comes cheap. ;) |
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Originally Posted by craigsub
Ed ... Full stop back at you .. Those comments were made based on blind listening impressions.
As with many, you also posted parts of what I said, leaving other information out. I also CLEARLY stated that I did not know whether the Maestro sounded so good because it was sealed, or because ACI does such excellent design work. It was the same with the speakers. I did not say they performed better because they are sealed ... I said that sealed speakers are the way to go because it was a sealed speaker that "won" in blind testing. If next week, I hear a ported speaker that bests the ACI's ... that will be reported accordingly. There is a difference between looking at a subwoofer, knowing what it is, and declaring that you like it the best, and performing carefully controlled, blind tests and coming up with a preference in that manner. Right now, under those blind conditions, sealed units have won out. This does not preclude a ported deign from besting the sealed design in a future test. When this subwoofer is done, it will also be evaluated under blind listening conditions. I will not care if it sounds as good, the same or worse than the sealed subwoofers we have here. If this design bests what I currently have as my benchmark, I will say so. This approach is not setting the large, ported design up for a fall. In fact, I sent Mike G. a link to this thread so he could follow it. He seems pretty happy. |
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Originally Posted by Craig
The one area that really is most frustrating in audio today is the demise of listening.
Listening has, to many people, become an idea to be dismissed as "magic dust" or "sonic Voo Doo". We even have some speaker companies directly insulting listening tests as "self proclaimed golden ears" using "puffery". Speaking personally, and having had well in excess of 100 loudspeaker pairs and 100 subwoofers in our home, with literally 100's of blind tests being done, I have experienced the following: 1. Ported subwoofers will play louder for the same $$$$ as their sealed counterparts, at the subwoofer's tuning point. 2. Ported loudspeakers will play louder than sealed loudspeakers at the speaker's tuning point. 3. Ported subwoofers/loudspeakers can sound very good. 4. For the best overall sonic presentation, sealed speakers, whether subwoofer or full range, are the way to go. A great example is the ACI Essence V. Look at the specs, and they look like nothing special. However, for $1800 per pair, I have heard nothing which comes close to their performance, both on music and for home theater. ACI also builds ported speakers - but even for their ported designs, they make available port plugs when using a subwoofer. The ported designs are their smaller, bookshelf speakers, which need the port for extension, but a subwoofer eliminates that need. And when one gets to subwoofers, unless one has listened to what a properly designed, sealed subwoofer can do, one really is missing out on the best bass money can buy. Mark Seaton could easily have decided to come out with a "higher SPL per $$$$" by going ported. He is going sealed because it will perform and sound better in a room. Bossobass learned the same thing years ago. He is running quad 15 inch sealed drivers with plenty of power. Personally, I bought into the "louder is better" concept until a single 15 inch, sealed subwoofer completely outclassed a quad 12 inch, ported design in every aspect. The sealed unit was tighter, it was deeper, and subjectively more powerful than the ported counterpart. I will never forget my reaction when the ACI Maestro was revealed to be the winner over the SVS B4+ ... The moderator of this event was a gent who builds pro audio loudspeakers for a living, including systems which sell for well over $100,000. For pro-audio, they use ported or horn loaded designs, because they need loud. I had expected the B4+ to totally clean the Maestro's "clock", as the saying goes. I was really surprised. He was not. For his home system ? He uses twin Paradigm Servo 15 V.2's. Here is a guy who could easily build a monster ported sub, but who wants the best sound quality, and decided sealed was the way to go. For those who love the idea that ported gives more SPL per dollar, that is cool. We all start by making decisions based on our pocketbooks and our opinions as to what is best for the $$$$. Eventually, you may get a chance to experience a properly designed, sealed system in your system, and suddenly it will make sense. |
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Originally Posted by kramskoi
the AMEN prize to ya Ed! ;) one need not pay the obscene amounts that are charged for high end sealed designs...and furthermore, i'd very much like to see a servo sub (velo DD18, for example) tested against dual-driver critical-Q alignments (15's or 18's with state of the art drivers).
The DD18,servo15, maestro, revel performa are outstanding achievements in sealed designs but all of them are compromised basically because a single sealed driver, with eq, is a very hard working driver...high pass filtering throws away the 2nd order roll off and introduces added GD and system ringing... :( I concur with Ed that dual driver sealed designs are definitely something to look at...you can have it all, especially with drivers on the order of the LMS 5400 from TC sounds...two of those in a low Q sealed alignment... :eek: |
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Originally Posted by steve nn
I went back to double check and I don't see or recall saying such a thing although I understand misinterpreting fairly well... I said nothing close.
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Originally Posted by steve nn
It would be terribly interesting Craig, although I already have a general idea. In all sincerity, it would be quite the honor though. Maybe it's more of a matter of timing when some other things are out of the way first and I figure out just what I want to do "regarding bass" in the future . I'm sure your sensitive to this.
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Originally Posted by craigsub
Hey, I asked for input, remember ? YOU were too busy ... :p ;) :D
I am open to any and all design ideas. :) |
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Originally Posted by steve nn
And take away all your fun figuring this out away. :) I see you have a Thread discussing the topic now, so you should come up with a few different options I'm sure.
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| Mike Grynicks suggestion of a solid 8.5cf enclosure tuned to 18hz looks very appealing. Part of the resistance to it I suspect stems from the views often expressed that deep extension to single digits somehow equates to superior sound quality, which always makes me chuckle. |
| I get the feeling this sub will raise the bar for how good a reflex design can sound |
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Originally Posted by SteveCallas
Ed has presented a solid case. Anything besides a sealed or LLT IS setting up for failure. |
| Craig, with those speakers in the way, a sub like Steve's would not fit in your corner. |
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Originally Posted by SteveCallas
I think you have at least a somewhat good idea how a ported sub works, so it should be obvious to you why an LLT ported sub will have better sound quality than the traditional design Mike is suggesting.
:rolleyes: :D I can say with confidence that won't be the case. |
| The whole point is to compare a LLT sub to some of the commercial. |
