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There is no doubt that when you listen to something that you made the reward is even greater than commercial one, I do it with mine and they were made by a friend of mine.


There are too many variables on a decission making like this one and to each its own.


I, one again, am thinking about building some midbass modules, but neither option is bad, commercial or DIY. Both are valid


Regards,
When you say you did not have the wow effect, in what way? What product? What expectations? I know there are many varaibles that go into a DIY build and if a design is sound, and it does not wow, usually the build has an error, like a leak, wiring, you name it. There is no question that the UM18 driver will outperform many commercial subs. You take the SVS PB16 which costs $2500. I can build a dual UM18 with huge power for much less. I can even have my car painting friend put a great finish on it and still be cheaper. The performance won't be even close. Selling products all depends on the buyers.
 
There is no doubt that when you listen to something that you made the reward is even greater than commercial one, I do it with mine and they were made by a friend of mine.


There are too many variables on a decission making like this one and to each its own.


I, one again, am thinking about building some midbass modules, but neither option is bad, commercial or DIY. Both are valid


Regards,
Some of the qsc and JBL cinema line products are great and very affordable. Been thinking about doing some of the 9300 for surrounds they look pretty impressive and that wave guide is not something I could DIY if I tried. And their entry level screen wall speakers are under $500 have jbl7 series CD's in them with a 15" woofer. I bet dollar for dollar it would be hard to beat them in a DIY setup.
 
When you say you did not have the wow effect, in what way? What product? What expectations? I know there are many varaibles that go into a DIY build and if a design is sound, and it does not wow, usually the build has an error, like a leak, wiring, you name it. There is no question that the UM18 driver will outperform many commercial subs. You take the SVS PB16 which costs $2500. I can build a dual UM18 with huge power for much less. I can even have my car painting friend put a great finish on it and still be cheaper. The performance won't be even close. Selling products all depends on the buyers.

My main subs are XTZ Sound 3x12 https://www.xtzsound.eu/product/sub-3x12 and I expected the Full Martys with SI 18" to be very close to them but they were 7 dB less powerful (driven with Behringer NU 6000 dsp).


As always there might me an error on my side, but I have a friend who is almost a pro and overviewed everything and found no issues in the design or the parameters in the behringer.


I have no doubt that given the same price point the DIY route is a much better one than the commercial one. In fact, my oldest SW are sealed JBL 1514 and very happy with them.


If I were to find some finished DIY SW close to where I live (Miami) I would buy them, but here in the USA I have no way of building something (my company transferred me for one year as I am from Spain)
 
How did you compare them and how did you determine they were 7 dB less powerful? There is more than people think in properly comparing subs, speakers, etc.. A properly ported Si 18 tuned to 16hz should have more output than the XTZ 3x12 at 12-40hz, so what frequencies were you comparing, etc..
 
Yes, the smaller the box the more power it needs for higher excursion. It all depends on listening habits and the room it is in. The one tested at DB was a 6.1 cubic foot box.

The amp having failures is one thing, but having an amp with failure problems driving more power than intended can lead to quicker problems for the amp. It takes 1500 watts to reach x-max in a 4 cubic foot box and 2500 watts for 28 mm which we know the UM18 can do. Again, a faulty 1200 watt amp would not be up to the task in this box depending on usage of course. I am not sure how much power one can feed the UM without heating issues as well.
The one tested on db was 4.2 cuft internal volume. 6.16 cuft was external.

I like a real world ~1200-1500 watts for the ultimax in a ~4 cuft box. IMO it's about perfect with little concern about melting the driver. If you're clipping the bajezus out of an amp, sure that's not a good strategy, but it's a small real world difference between 1500 and 2500 watts in a room with a sealed ultimax. If 1500 watts leaves you wanting, IMO really unlikely 2500 is going to make you happy, you'll probably need at least double drivers and amps to note a worthwhile difference.

This is assuming the plate amp does what it's supposed to do and has legit power output of ~a kilowatt. I'm not a huge fan of them, aside from speakerpower or some of the ICE amps, plate amps are notorious for failure issues. I'll stick to my crowns.
 
I'm not a huge fan of them, aside from speakerpower or some of the ICE amps, plate amps are notorious for failure issues. I'll stick to my crowns.
While not a powerful one, I ran a BASH 300s @ 2ohms forever and it never let me down. It is NOT rated for 2ohm duty lol

I would never NOT recommend one of those to someone only needing 200-300 watts. (which is more than enough for family movies)
 
The one tested on db was 4.2 cuft internal volume. 6.16 cuft was external.

I like a real world ~1200-1500 watts for the ultimax in a ~4 cuft box. IMO it's about perfect with little concern about melting the driver. If you're clipping the bajezus out of an amp, sure that's not a good strategy, but it's a small real world difference between 1500 and 2500 watts in a room with a sealed ultimax. If 1500 watts leaves you wanting, IMO really unlikely 2500 is going to make you happy, you'll probably need at least double drivers and amps to note a worthwhile difference.

This is assuming the plate amp does what it's supposed to do and has legit power output of ~a kilowatt. I'm not a huge fan of them, aside from speakerpower or some of the ICE amps, plate amps are notorious for failure issues. I'll stick to my crowns.
1500 to 2500 is almost 3 dB, noticed only if needed though. The ultimax has usable excursion to 28mm and running it at 1500 watts in a 4 cubic foot box yeilds 22mm. So this design leaves more excursion on the table and not ideal for this driver. Now if all one needs is that of course it will work, and work great. The difference between 22mm and 28mm is bigger than the difference between the UM18 and the JTR driver at 33mm. Just sayin, limiting it to that makes more on par with the Si 18 and others with less excursion. I guess it depends on the person. They won't notice if they never try.
 
1500 to 2500 is almost 3 dB, noticed only if needed though. The ultimax has usable excursion to 28mm and running it at 1500 watts in a 4 cubic foot box yeilds 22mm. So this design leaves more excursion on the table and not ideal for this driver. Now if all one needs is that of course it will work, and work great. The difference between 22mm and 28mm is bigger than the difference between the UM18 and the JTR driver at 33mm. Just sayin, limiting it to that makes more on par with the Si 18 and others with less excursion. I guess it depends on the person. They won't notice if they never try.
Real world it's quite a bit less than that, and you'll melt an ultimax with 2500 watts. It gets even more obscure when many of these amps will burst 2x their RMS. FWIW I've run both, and I have melted ultimaxes. It's not particularly difficult to do. 3dB just isn't that much. If I want "more" I want at least 6-10dB more. If you're that close to the limit a couple more mm of travel ain't gonna make things right.

I agree sims state what you've posted, I just didn't see as much of a difference real world. Of course YMMV.
 
I agree with you, I would not use 2500 watts for the UM either, I would build a bigger box so 1000 watts was enough.
 
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How did you compare them and how did you determine they were 7 dB less powerful? There is more than people think in properly comparing subs, speakers, etc.. A properly ported Si 18 tuned to 16hz should have more output than the XTZ 3x12 at 12-40hz, so what frequencies were you comparing, etc..
Side by side comparison same place measured with Umik 1 and REW


In the range from 20 to 80hz the average was 6,3 dB
 
Was it max output or sensitivity?
 
3 dB only matters if one needs it to not clip or bottom out. If you are not than that extra 3dB is just not used.
 
if you go the diy route, swapping one UM18-22 with a PA460 will save you ~$220 and could possibly be a more enjoyable setup
I know this is an old post but The PA460 is a LOT cheaper and I could get that combo right now .
I wonder if it'll work with this enclosure

I could get a miniDSP right away if I go with the PA460
 
1500 to 2500 is almost 3 dB, noticed only if needed though. The ultimax has usable excursion to 28mm and running it at 1500 watts in a 4 cubic foot box yeilds 22mm. So this design leaves more excursion on the table and not ideal for this driver. Now if all one needs is that of course it will work, and work great. The difference between 22mm and 28mm is bigger than the difference between the UM18 and the JTR driver at 33mm. Just sayin, limiting it to that makes more on par with the Si 18 and others with less excursion. I guess it depends on the person. They won't notice if they never try.
I have no experience with that plate amp. In general I would avoid them if at all possible, even if I am sure there are reliable plate amps in existence, as there are also those that are not, and if you've got a whole cut in your enclosure for particular one, and that one proves unreliable... I don't need that headache, and I don't need to test the reliability with a regular vibration torture test. My unreliable speculation is that it was more a combination of the plate amps having a more punishing environment to begin with, and that those particular amps are probably cheap junk with crap QC during manufacturing. But that's only unreliable speculation, so...

My experience with UM-18s is that they're not what PE promises (higher Qtc, faster/sooner roll-off than suggested by their recommended box sizes), but that's still better than most anything you'll likely find as a finished product, especially available at a retail store, for the price of a kit and a cheap pro amp, at least in terms of doing what it does well, giving you gobs of useable, relatively high quality low frequency output at a reasonable cost for the driver. To be fair, a DIY kit and a finished commercial product is not a fair comparison, at all.

4 cubic feet will function as a sealed alignment, though they will likely perform better, deeper, with less power if you give them more air. With 4 cubic feet, I did need to give them an aggressive shelving filter and 'transform' their roll off to get flat extension in-room below 20 Hz, though it was hardly a problem. Within my listening requirements, I never approached limitations that seemed like it was finding the limits of either the drivers or the amplifiers rated to 1000 watts each at 4 ohms. With those amplifiers honestly rated to provide 1000 watts, in outdoor sweeps from 10-300 Hz, at equivalent voltage, they got moving to what sure looked like full excursion, if not very close, and the enclosures were rocking and sliding on the moving blanket... Can it actually do that excursion at 10 Hz and a '1000 watt' equivalent signal output? I don't know. Perhaps not. If that was a priority, I might investigate further and the importance of more box kicks in. At 30-40 Hz, where they benefit from a higher Qtc system resonance through that frequency range, I would certainly think so.

With two of them, comparatively speaking, with proper DSP compensation and integration methods, compared to your other commercial options, they should be able to pound hard and dig low. I would mention, though, that if you're looking to use them for anything resembling a 'Hi-Fi' or audiophile application, count on about 12-13mm of excursion that is relatively noise/distortion-free to a critical listener. For me, in my setup, with my room, and my listening needs, with two of them, that was actually plenty. Once integrated properly, they sounded pretty good, and SPL, extension, power handling, power delivery, or excursion was not a limitation for my use. Even if I believe they would perform better with 8 cubic feet, I didn't want to have two 8 cubic foot enclosures in my living room, so I did the best I could with what I had, and eventually just upgraded drivers.

If YOU have the stomach/space and optimal placement location possibilities for two enclosures with 8 cubic feet or more of internal volume, cool, and in which case there are probably a lot of other options available in a similar price range that others can give you much better information comparing and contrasting, depending on your priorities.
 
Old posts and do t even remember anymore. I have owned 12 Dayton drivers and they perform just as good as their eminence counterparts for cheaper. So I am happy. None of the drivers I have ever owned matched max output from specs. All I can do is compare with each other and Dayton performs like others.
 
Old posts and do t even remember anymore. I have owned 12 Dayton drivers and they perform just as good as their eminence counterparts for cheaper. So I am happy. None of the drivers I have ever owned matched max output from specs. All I can do is compare with each other and Dayton performs like others.
HA!

I got suckered into a Necro thread!
 
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