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A warning to all about HUGE Subwoofers

So I just bought a Velodyne HGS18 yesterday and its amazingly awesome. Enough so that I know that it can crack concrete and after playing with it a while i genuinely have realized this has the potential if unleashed to destroy a house.

I decided to do a test tone to see how it did and at 10HZ this thing will rattle your whole house (I listen to rap amongst other things, I'm no stranger to playing loud bass)and that is with very little volume. Be careful when you look at subs in accordance to your building.

I always thought the subs that had that potential were awesome and amazing which they are (at least this one) However it isnt fun be afraid to turn up your sub for fear of tearing down your walls. It wasnt that bad but it seems that in 2 seconds or less if its going to loud and low it could do some damage. I can only imagine what it would have done my volume was any higher or if i let it go without being next to the volume switch.

On a side note hearing frequencies that low is an amazing improvement and far better than I had anticipated
128x128systembuilder
mceljo
1,357 posts
 
I would suspect that it would only be a significant structural issue if your house has a resonant frequency that the subwoofer if matching. Sounds like you might be experiencing this situation.

I heard a subwoofer demo at my local dealer that was done with a JL Audio subwoofer and it was really impressive. The only thing that rattled in that room was a single light fixture that need to be fixed. They said that they had do some maintenance on the light fixtures from time to time to minimize the rattling.

My little Martin Logan Dynamo 700 subwoofer was rattling my laminate floor over the subfloor. I put the spikes on and it got worse so now it's converted to forward firing and is working perfectly. Similar issue on a smaller scale.
bifwynne
2,206 posts
 
Interesting post. FWIW, take a look at some of my recent posts relating to my new impedance buffer and also on potential hearing loss. As regards the impedance buffer, I mentioned in part that my sub woofer crosses over to my main speakers at 45-50 Hz. Yet there "seemed" to be very little SPL generated out of the sub, presumably (??)because there's not a lot of input source in the lowest registers. My point here is that if my surmise is correct, then I'm curious about your your source material. Could it be low frequency noise??

As regards, hearing loss, I think the thread is self explanatory. Watch out for excessive SPL for extended periods of time. As I recall, SPL of 115db can cause permanent hearing loss after just 30 seconds!! ETM!
bizango1
276 posts
 
My dog fears my JL subs. She gets up and runs down the hall to mommy and hides under the comforter when I play it loud.
kurt_tank
1,189 posts
 
Interesting.

A question for you though:

Precisely what instrument are they playing, (especially in rap music), that goes that low in the frequency response?

(Just curious is all.)
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
Kurt tank,
I believe that the lowest frequencies you can get from upright double-bass and tum-tum if recorded with no overdubbing and filtering.
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