[BrolicBeast]

Greetings. I am brand new to DIY and am looking to purchase a set of the absolute best 24" and 18" drivers. Performance and reliability--quantified by sub-10hz extension, consistency of measurements, very high output, tautness of bass (given an ideal cabinet), and reliability--are the only criteria. I have no practical cabinet size constraints;however, an infinite baffle is not an option, due to subwoofer placement requirements in my theater design.

Any input would be most appreciated. Thank you.

 

[highfigh]

Greetings. I am brand new to DIY and am looking to purchase a set of the absolute best 24" and 18" drivers. Performance and reliability--quantified by sub-10hz extension, consistency of measurements, very high output, tautness of bass (given an ideal cabinet), and reliability--are the only criteria. I have no practical cabinet size constraints;however, an infinite baffle is not an option, due to subwoofer placement requirements in my theater design.

Any input would be most appreciated. Thank you.

If you intend to produce frequencies

 

[Sibuna]

If you intend to produce frequencies

 

[BrolicBeast]

umm there are many of us here with systems that are very capable down to and below 5 Hz

as for the OP

the LMS Ultra 18, RE XXX 18, UXL 18, SI24

Thank you, Sibuna...so those are the absolute best drivers I can pursue? Are the LMS, UXL, and RE 18" drivers identical in performance? Does SI have a competitor that most would also consider high-end?

I'm asking because this forum is very easy to get lost in. Ive seen LMS, UXL, and SI mentioned before. Do they all offer the highest availability performance and reliability (I want it work well and have a mean time to failure of at least ten years, so I wanted to see if, say there's a driver out there that's amazing, but folks don't mention it because it defeats the value proposition of DIY.

 

[BrolicBeast]

If you intend to produce frequencies

 

[datranz]

Uxl, ft21, or the usual stuff. Bass extension is dominated by box design and power. when not constraint by space or budget. Broc, you have a really nice theatre. I would do multiple seal uxl. Maybe 2 per 1/4 corner wall.

 

[Stumbo]

http://stereointegrity.com/product/hst18-18-subwoofer/

I favor these over the uxl and lms... But that's just my opinion

 

[BrolicBeast]

Uxl, ft21, or the usual stuff. Bass extension is dominated by box design and power. when not constraint by space or budget. Broc, you have a really nice theatre. I would do multiple seal uxl. Maybe 2 per 1/4 corner wall.

Ah, it's the box and not the driver? I never would have thought that. Thanks for letting me know....I'm now leaning more toward 18" than 24" since the box plays such a huge role. Thanks for the kind words on the theater....I hope to do the bass some justice in the room, man.

http://stereointegrity.com/product/hst18-18-subwoofer/

I favor these over the uxl and lms... But that's just my opinion

Ah, they look robust enough. I went to their Facebook page and saw a post about missing a "bunch of orders"....does that typically happen with these folks? (asking seriously here, not critically).

Does anyone know what the difference between HT18 and HTS18 is? And what do I need to know about selecting a voice coil "ohm?"

 

[WereWolf84]

if I'm not mistaken, the HST18 use the same motor as the HS24, which is stronger, 3" VC and able to handle more power than HT18, dual 2ohm VC gives you more wiring options

 

[Mfusick]

HST 18 and 24 are excellent drivers

But check out the ZV4. If you want small sealed cabs and silly bass (12) zv4 18" would be almost impossible to beat.

LMS is nice if you can find them.

 

[LTD02]

instead of 18" and 24", split the difference and get a pair of...21's


http://www.data-bass.com/data?page=system&id=6&mset=74


in an undersized cab (2 cubic feet per driver) they soaked up *** watts of power.


smooth frequency response (though eq would be needed to make it flat).


less than a db of compression until the amp went into clipping.


very low distortion.


6" split wound coils and a crap ton of neodymium give these things crazy horsepower. but good design and some other tricks may them quite linear.


unlike most of the high excursion subs, they have relatively good efficiency on the top end, so if that is important for high spl music, then they may be worth taking a look at.


street price is around $750 I think.




*** i originally has 25kw in here but that is too much for the amp and was based on an erroneous calculation. let's just say they maxed at a k10 amp, whatever that is, probably somewhere north of 10kw of power.

 

[Stumbo]

if I'm not mistaken, the HST18 use the same motor as the HS24, which is stronger, 3" VC and able to handle more power than HT18, dual 2ohm VC gives you more wiring options

The hst should give you 6dbs more than the HT18... According to the results posted at databass

 

[WereWolf84]

instead of 18" and 24", split the difference and get a pair of...21's

http://www.data-bass.com/data?page=system&id=6&mset=74

another option for 21" is FTW-21

 

[Jay1]

35 ft3 11hz tuned box with the equivalent of a 12" round port. BW4 @10hz filter. A pair of the mega 18"s like HST18 or LMS18 per 35 ft3 box, with 3500 watts to the pair for 120db @12 hz

 

[Scott Simonian]

TC LMS-Ultra

RE XXX18

SI HST-18

SI HS24

Sundown zv4-18

IST UXL18

IST FTW-21



This is a solid collection of the best subwoofer drivers for HT on the market at the moment. Some are in and out of stock at any given time but you should be able to snag most of these today.


Others can be considered as well and multiples of any lesser driver can and should be considered, always.

 

[N8DOGG]

Brolic, you should be trying to design the best sub for your space, not space for the sub. You need to figure out how big of a box/boxes you can deal with how much power you'll have to work with, then decide what will be best for your goals. Just grabbing some drivers and throwing power at them will work but you could have tons of output left on the table without knowing what you "could" have done.

Believe me, that is something you don't want to deal with.

Just a quick example, you buy 2 lms 18's, put them in 3 CF boxes, great, sounds awesome. Wait, I could have fit 2 x G-horns in my room and with the same 2 drivers had 4 times the output.... oops lol It's stuff like that you have to figure out before hand.

 

[zpatter1]

So the SI's are considered better than like a Dayton ultimax 18?

 

[Jay1]

So the SI's are considered better than like a Dayton ultimax 18?

For sub duty the HST is yes.

 

[wormraper]

So the SI's are considered better than like a Dayton ultimax 18?

The si 18 and dayton ho are near identical
The uxl 18 is about 1.5 times either of those two
The ultimax 18 is about half way in between the uxl and the other two

 

[WereWolf84]

Just found out another choice, thanks to jbrown15's info

http://www.pierceaudioproducts.com/index.html

they use 4" voice coils