well good for you doing what works best for you !
i recently scored 2 perfect rare Allison Aboustics dual 8" push =pull sealed subwoofers ! and they should pair perfectly w/ the top of line AL130 speakers which are the L & R of the 2 channel and the L & R of the all allison 11.2 HT system!
i am using the dimensions of them to scale up to a similar dual 12" servo sub push pull DIY model !
but i suspect the pair of dual 12" open baffle wireless servo subs fr the GR research kit will blow them away!
w/ DSP tho you really can’t have too many subs ! and a combination of open baffle ported and non ported should be ideal ! sure do not fancy ported tho !
I bought 4 subwoofers and I'm absolutely not doing a DBA! Hah!
I just received shipments of 4 subwoofer drivers and they will not be going into a distributed bass array.
I'm replacing my left and right speaker stands with powering subwoofers with 2 subwoofer drivers each. I call them powering because they will be powering the 2-way monitors that will sit on top. Here's a beauty shot of the insides.
The amp has all the DSP power I could need to produce perfect speaker measurements. I wonder if JA at Stereophile would wax poetically if I priced them high enough?? 
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@audiokinesis - duke, may I ask about your sense of things, all things room and equipment equal, if you feel that a distributed bass array will still give better bass accuracy, depth and cohesion with mids and highs than what erik is working on? Or is there too little known in his particular implementation to say? Thanks much : ) In friendship - kevin |
@erik_squires Fascinating project. Many questions though. I assume your current speaker position lends itself to relatively flat uncorrected response--true? We want details! What drivers are in your monitors/subwoofers? Who is building those cabinets? I assume your crossover points will largely be by trial and error? If your plate amp is 3 way, you will be removing the crossover from your monitors, right? Thanks and good luck.
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The floor to ceiling bass traps, and wall to wall traps on the floor behind the entertainment system is in large part why I can avoid doing Distributed Bass Arrays and still get excellent results. That not only tames room modes and help EQs work better but also improves speaker placement choices.
Yes. See above. Speaker placement is not something I have a lot of flexibility with so significant room treatment has been added to the listening area.
For details on the monitors see here. The subwoofer drivers are Dayton 10" RSS265HF-8.
The final design and construction is ordered from Solen.ca (tariffs and all)
Sir, are you mocking me? WTF? Let me fully answer your question below.
That is correct. A large part of the reason for this project is that I want to rethink the mid to treble crossover. I did a measurably good job with the original but having done an active 3-way center I realized just how easy doing it better would be if active. I know audiophiles for some reason think they can install a subwoofer by trial and error. Honestly mostly it turns out to be garbage they are happy with. Sorry. They cross too low and are left with too many compromises. Yes, in this case by comparison the DBA approach removes a lot of complexity assuming you use the DBA to a high enough crossover point (80Hz or so) and so has a much higher success rate than setting a single subwoofer or two by ear. I know I’ve been teasing you all by using the term subwoofer. It is true that Dayton markets this driver as a subwoofer, and for good reason. It has good output to 20 Hz and significant excursion and power handling capabilities without being completely inefficient. This driver also has another important feature:
Lets stop talking about subwoofers and talk about this project as a new 3-way speaker system. Instead of thinking of adding a subwoofer and crossing around 40-80Hz I’m now thinking 150 - 300 Hz. The determining factors are:
Generally speaking I want to cross my new woofers as high as possible while still maintaining excellent off-axis response, not something a lot of commercial speakers have. In other words, I cut them off before they start to beam. Having the woofers located under the mid-woofers means I can cross higher without fear of the ear locating them, unlike a subwoofer appliance. By crossing high (150-300Hz) I reduce the load on the mid-woofers, increasing dynamic range but also has the extremely beneficial side-effect of reducing audible distortion even while playing low. I wrote much more about picking crossover points in my blog here. |
@kevn wrote: "duke, may I ask about your sense of things, all things room and equipment equal, if you feel that a distributed bass array will still give better bass accuracy, depth and cohesion with mids and highs than what erik is working on? Or is there too little known in his particular implementation to say? Thanks much : )" In my opinion a distributed multisub system offers superior in-room bass smoothness and accuracy, and that over a wider listening area, compared with two subs located underneath the main speakers. Either can of course be equalized, and either can be used with bass trapping. In general the more bass sources located in acoustically dissimilar locations, the greater the net in-room smoothness. Bass extension in a given room depends largely on the characteristics of the individual subs. If we’re talking roughly equal dollar amounts, a single large sub will usually go deeper than multiple smaller subs. "Cohesion with mids and highs" is largely a system-integration issue, but @erik_squires’s approach of locating the subs beneath the main speakers allows him to use a higher crossover frequency and/or gentler crossover slopes than a distributed multisub system can get away with. So Erik can cross over at 300 Hz if that turns out to give him the best results. We are all constrained in some ways in what we can actually do, so we optimize within those constraints. I’m quite confident @erik_squires has made fully informed choices to get the best results (acoustically and aesthetically) given his priorities and constraints. A few years ago at T.H.E. Show in Long Beach I showed a system which had subwoofers build into the speaker stands. The woofer itself was angled at 45 degrees to reduce the force vector in the horizontal plane and thereby reduce rocking. So despite my preference for a distributed multisub system when such is practical, I’ve also done something conceptually somewhat similar to what erik is doing. Duke |
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