I'm building out my home theater, and unfortunately my ceilings are fairly low. I can just barely fit a 2.35:1 135" screen in, but that gives me about 10" of clearance from the floor to build subs. The good news is I can use the full width of the room -- 11.5 feet, and I could go up to 2-3 feet of depth.
Existing Hardware
- Emotiva XMC-1 Processor with Dirac Live full
- DIYSG HTM-12 for LCR
- DIYSG Volt-10's sealed angled for surrounds
- 2x Dayton Audio RSS390HO-4 15" drivers in a MicroMarty enclosure -- would be nice to reuse the drivers, but don't have to
- Crown XLS 2500 -- Again would be nice to reuse this but if the subs require more power I can either pick up another XLS2500 and bridge them, or upgrade to something more powerful (looking at FP14000 clones)
Design Goals/Considerations
- $1k to $2k budget for materials/drivers/amps
- Room is wired up for stereo subs -- both passive and RCA connections available
- Placement is pretty much locked unfortunately: front of the room, under the screen
- The projector screen wall is an 18" deep false fabric wall, filled top to bottom with fiberglass to absorb bass
- Rear of the room has a 10" high riser that I'll add vents to for bass absorption
- 10" max height for the subwoofer enclosure, 12" if it's really going to improve things though that will mean a smaller screen size
- 11.5' room width -- probably best to aim for 4' to 5' width per sub
- Leaning towards sealed designs for the best group delay (unless this doesn't really matter that much?)
- Aiming for plenty of low-end output, > 100 dB at 15 hz ideally
I've modeled a few different subs in WinISD already and they'll all meet my needs, but I don't know how well they'll actually interact with the room. This list is the design per subwoofer, so overall I'll build a pair of one of these designs.
- Four 10" drivers per enclosure, sealed Dayton Ultimax UM10-22 - Front facing, max spl is 103 dB at 15 hz, 118 dB at 40 hz
- Two 15" drivers per enclosure, sealed Dayton RSS390HO-4 - Down firing, max spl is 101 dB at 15 hz, 118 dB at 40 hz
- Three 15" drivers per enclosure, sealed Dayton RSS390HO-4 - Down firing, max spl is 104 dB at 15 hz, 121 dB at 40 hz
- Two 18" drivers per enclosure, sealed Dayton Ultimax UM18-22 - Down firing, max spl is 108 dB at 15 hz, 121 dB at 40 hz
The problem with the down-firing options is I can maybe only have 2" of clearance at most from the bottom of the driver to the carpet. This seems like it would muffle output quite a bit. I considered up-firing instead but I have a cat who will undoubtedly walk on top of the subs and I don't know how to protect the drivers well enough.
There is one more option though which would be building the subs into the false wall behind the projector screen in between the L + C, and C + R speakers. I have about 18-19" of width, ~15" of depth, and up to 6-7' of height then. Bonus: the subs don't take up any floor space. If I go with this option, I'd probably go with design
#3 of the three 15" drivers per enclosure. (Or 4!) My main concern here was there's no option of messing with subwoofer placement.
Thoughts? Am I putting too my much value in the low group delay and should I just stick with ported subs? If so, would a larger down-firing sub + front facing port work? Is there a design similar to the Danley DTS-10 that might work, but shorter? (Probably using 10" or even 8" subs?)