fire pinch

---------------- On 12/29/2003 12:11:32 AM TheEAR wrote: Pincette a Feu, Maudites fuites d'air,tout comme la vache folle venue de nos voisins il faut les boucher au plus sacrant.J'espere que t'as de la bonne colle au sirop d'erable. Mon petit Soleildefeu Signature est proche a 31.5hz.Comme je le vois ce Tumultuex haut parleur est gourmand,nourrit le au Krell. ---------------- LOOLLLL!!! Comme tu es si poétique avec ce jolie soleil de feu... oh et ce sirop d'érable Je me demande si ca coute plus cher au gallon qu'un gallon de colle! LOL! hmm...

Before the end of this week, I will begin to finish completely the sub. Ill buy the wood veener tomarrow and everything I need (a new gasket too). So... what Im thinking now is that it can get more powerfull than now. This is a quite big air leak around the woofer! I didnt expect to have an air leak with the Tumult gasket. But well, I said to myself, why not trying with the Tumult gasket alone, and well see after. Now I see!! Once the sub will be really finished, I will post an objective review, this will be the review with charts which compare the Tempest, Tumult and VTF-3. Unfortunately, I dont have anymore the VTF-3 on hands, BUT I have again the maximum power it is able to do at some frequencies. I must fouiller / search for these notepads.txt, where I stored all the informations in that mixt-minded hard drive! I had another idea too... to bring the Tumult in some stores with my SPL meter and some papper / pencils, and to bench the subs. That would be SOOOO COOOL!!! I know greatly some people at one dealer, where they sell Paradigm subwoofers. If they can have the Seismic line in stock now or soon, it would be even more interesting. Ive talked last month at those people and they seem to agree of my offer. When I'll be ready and that the sub will be entirely done, I will call them again and I'll see what I'll be able to do with them. For a guestimate, the sub should be finished at least for next week, but maybe this week too. It depends of how much time I have and for now, Im not too much buzzy, which is a good news. ============= OH!! And for the Krell amp yeah... but I think that this PLX2402 is really enough. For the moment, I have to turn the gain all the way UP, completly, but because of those air leaks, I think that they reduce somewhat the efficiency of the sub. OHH! and another thing that I have to add too... A friend came to my house yesterday, and I cranked up the sub until I could reach its limit. So I cranked it up until I could hear some sort of distortion. Crankin, cranking, crankin DOHHH!! the voice coil hited a bit the back plate OMG, turn down the volume!!! This is CRAZY how this sub sounds so clean, deadly clean until the voice coil hit the backplate!!! We can call this an awesome quality, but we can call this a fault too... how can you know that you have maximum the sub can do without noticable distortion? I guess that this is a question of time, to be more familiarized and accustomed to the sub!

Hi all, I decided to write a little preview before writing my true review. This one will be more about subjective comments and little objective datas. How it is The Tumult is in a 2.75 cubic ft box (external volume), which give me a Qtc in the 0,6s. Not finished yet, it is made with 3/4" of MDF, front baffle double walled but it is in my point of vue heavilly braced. When the woofer pump a lof air, the cabinet vibrate just a little and stay sturdy, to my big surprise. The sub is powered by a QSC PLX 2402 amp, which can deliver 2400W into 4ohms bridged (1 KHz, 1% THD). The air leaks I succedeed to remove some air leaks around the woofer by unscrewing it and srewing it again, but still, there is a quite big air leak around one screw. Still that air leak is less noticable that all of those I had before. I can listen to the subwoofer at a quit loud volume before hearing it. So its why I want to write a review later, as I think that this air leak can downgrade the subwoofer performance. I'll buy another gasket and I will apply it under the Tumult gasket. Distortion level First at all, I really didnt expect to have such INSANELY low distortion from that sub. In that price range (1500-2000$), I really dont know of ANY sub which can surpass it in sound quality. During the Christmas day, when the familly was there, EVERYONE just couldnt beleive how much good it sounded. The thing which surprise me the most, is justly the level of distortion. Compared to other subwoofers that I know and heard, the distortion is none audible until it reach almost Xmax!!! To detect any distortion when the woofer excursion is high, you have to be really beside the woofer and god, I tried one time and I will never do it again. Why didnt I try that? Because I wanted to know how much far I could blast the woofer and once I saw the excursion suprassing 2" peak to peak, I began to be more cautious so I turned up the volume a little and a little and a little... UNTIL HOW MUCH??? I DIDNT KNOW!!! Well, I said to myself, no distortion yet, so why not pushing the sub farther?? I was affraid... So I began to saw my amp clipping!! YESSS my 2400W amp, not 1000W or 1600W, 2400W began to clip, I began to see the red clip LEDs flashing. Of course, before, I decided to set the "clip limiter" on. I couldnt beleive that the bass was so clean again, and this is when I put my ear near the woofer that I could hear the cone stressing. But in that time, the woofer pumped so much ear that I became a bit deaf of one ear during a few minutes. So for the moment, I dont even know when the woofer can bottom out, quite dangerous if we can say for the woofer!! In fact, I knew one time... I succeded to hear the woofer voice coil hitting the back plate a LITTLE (little sratch) so I rapidly turned down the volume. This was during a DJ Daniel Desnoyers song, where there was a LOTS of rumble (very low frequencies behind the track which were played in BURST). So for the moment, what Im doing when I want the max from the Tumult is turning up the volume until the amp clip or If I hear any strange noise coming from the woofer. In simulation softwares, with 2400W of power, the woofer should never pass 70mm of excursion p.p anyway so maybe its why I have some trouble to really bottom it out. The Xmag of the woofer is certainly like 75mm peak to peak (68mm for Xmax p.p). *UPDATE* this can be because also of those air leaks, which reduce the effeciency of the subwoofer. Tightness, accuracy, and dynamics Any kind of musics, that Tumult can take. Ive fired some rock and roll, hard rock, techno (boom), alternative, slow rock, classical, this sub can keep with anything. Really fast transient response, the Tempest and the VTF-3 (at home) as examples are slower compared to it. It would really surprise those who hear for the first time a 15 inchers. It kicks as fast as my floorstanders, each time you hear a kick drum, the sub just reproduce it whitout letting any traces behind. In other words, very articulate. As a stright comparison vs the Tempest and the VTF-3, they just couldnt touch it. The difference is often heard when in a song, you have the kick drum + the bass at the same time. With the Tumult, you can hear the bass and the kick drum very distinctively and clearly, like they should be heard. The kick drum thumps rapidly and dynamicaly in your body while the "main bass" is just at the good volume and very "even/natural sounding" behind. With the Tempest and the Hsu, this is about the same thing, as they are subs which are very good in accuracy, but the transition is like softer and not as DYNAMIC and distinctive. But hey, we are talking about different woofer techology and also, different type of enclosure. The Tumult beeing sealed can help for those quick attacks but also, the woofer itself, with its very low distortion, really helps too for having high level of dynamics and lightnening clean impacts. Frequency range Despite the Tumult is sealed, I got surprised by its frequency response. This is certainly due to my room which doesnt boost alot the bass between 30-50 Hz but which boost it more around 20-30 Hz. I have good extension from it until about 18 Hz then it drop off quite fastly after. Because of the main air leak, and maybe some others, I couldnt play any 16-25 Hz quite loudly. So I cant judge now the claims of some other people who mention that at 20 Hz, its simply amazing, you just feel the air and you dont hear the woofer at all. This is true for the moment, at low to moderate SPL (until 100 dB), but passing that, its frustrating, I cant tell. Power Hahaha... Yes, it does have power as you can guess And this is very strange when I take some reading with my SPL meters: the Tumult release more energy than my Tempest at the same SPL!!! At first, I thought that I got more SPL than my Tempest at a certain volume but it wasnt the case. Its maybe the way the Tumult works, having more dynamics and clean impact, Im biased for this... or having more mid-bass impact? Can be possible... and I expect this because the Tumult sounds more even between 40 and 80 Hz while the Tempest is more bumpy around 30-50 Hz. For performance numbers, for the moment, Im able to get a good 110 dB @ 20 Hz. I wish I could place a higher number there but I cant judge too much how clean is the sound, always becasue of those air leaks. However, I menaged to get a continuous 119 dB @ 40 Hz! (add 2 other dBs at the best spot, it is again on a piece of furniture. Air leaks around higher frequencies are less noticable and therefore, the distortion is more easily audible so I could push it farther. Anyway, those performance numbers and the SPL curve response will come in the review, which will be for the most part objective, and it may be a bit subjective too if I detect any major differences or if I think that I should write other things. When I say this, I suppose that for the review, the air leaks will be gone. This is all what I have to say for the moment... if you have any special music request for testing, as I didnt specify any kind of singer or music group to be the most general possible, feel free to ask me. Because I dont know too much what most of you listen to, I preferred to not include any kind of music groups in my preview.

Thanx for the interest You are like me Prodj, I hate that when others use exaggerated words, it makes reviews and comments very biased for any people who are reading them. You think that a certain sub will make your dream true when you hear that it can shake the hell of ALL the house but in fact, it is just able to vibrate a bacterium!!! I will never use any exagerate words, I'll be as accurate as possible when saying some verbs which describe the power factor. If I say that something really shake, I can back up my claims with some videos. I have a digital camera which is a webcam, video camera and at the same time a camera: this is an Intel Digital Pocket Pc Camera. It is now quite rare on the stores since Intel decided to discontinue their cameras. I have some videos which show that the Tempest is able to shake a frame which is against the wall in another room but upstairs (20-30 Hz effect), so quite near my bedroom. I have another video where we can see a dish moving on the desk next to me of 4" during a bass test, there was a spoon in it too Well, for the moment, Tumult included, Im able to rattle things in the bedroom, BUT my pants are not!!! I had the idea to post one of my videos, but I dont think that Klispch accept any *.avi* files... or I dont know, I can try to compress them into *.zip*. I could show the Tumult in action, live from Quebec As for sealing the back of my sub, I really didnt detect any air leaks problem behind. To hear better the air leaks and in order to be more sure, I fired some very very low bass test and I could really detect that they were around the woofer, near the top and the bottom of the woofer. Tomarrow, I will unscrew it and screw it again... Im pretty sure that the problem will be gone away after doing this. Thanx for the suggestion thought

Here are my very first impressions! Firstly, and I was sure about this, I can hear some air leaks around the woofer and I knew it would happen because I didnt place very well the woofer and each of the eights holes (for screwing) are not exactly near each other. I was so in a hurry to hear that sub that I went too fast for placing the woofer, and you must take care because it is very and VERY heavy, approaching 70 pounds! But well, in that time, when I just saw that the woofer wasnt well placed, I said to myself "oh **** off for the moment, I will test it like that". Despite the air leaks, the first thing which surprised me is how POWERFULL the sub was for a sealed box, AMAZING! It has a lot of impact and energy, pants vibrating (no exagerating here, I didnt say shake, I use the right word) definitively more than what the Tempest can do and I didnt expect this... with my SPL meter, at the listening position, I've hit SEVERAL times 118-119 dB without any audible stress and distortion from the driver, and it wasnt maxed out. What is very surprising too, is that whatever at 5mm of excursion peak to peak or 30mm, the bass sounds like the SAME, its like if the distortion level hasnt moved! I cant judge for any higher excursion for the moment because from about 1" peak to peak, I begin to hear some air leaks!!! So yes!! The XBL6600 technology is that true and that impressive, Im now an XBL freak! And boy, what a power sucker... when I crank it up a more, I can see all the lights upstairs flashing (not totally) and changing of intensity. I wonder if the 15Amp current outlet that I have in my room will be enough if the woofer will be really pushed to its limit! That is for now... this is sad, I cant comment too much more for the moment if I want to cure my air leak problem fastly. But remember, I said first impresions. I will correct that air leak problems tonight or tomarrow, and If it will sounds right after that, without any air leaks, I guess that I will really hear the TRUE sounds of the Tumult and I'll give other impressions, with more precisions. Now, I cant considere that Im hearing the truth of it and Im somewhat upset because of those air leaks, and they are audible from the listening position which is 3 meters away!

For a little more money, just my opinion, I would look so much more for the 15" version. It would be closer to the low end of the SVS Pci and you would get quite a lot more punch too

First look of the subwoofer... OHH! And it was a PAIN IN THE *** to install the woofer too! This sucker weight so much!! Well, easy to take away and to walk with it, but damn hard to place into the hole of the enclosure!!! I wanted to place it carefully without dropping it. I will test it this evening (Eastern time) and I'll give my first impressions

Hohoho!!! The Christmas time is coming, and I wanted to make sure than the Tumult sub would be ready for Xmas It is now, but in fact, the finish is not applied again on it. Still, this week for sure, it will be tested and heard! Im gonna try to make the most complete review I can do. It will not be as professional as some professional reviews found on the net (Tom Nousaine is an example) but still, I'll try to do my best. I thought about giving first my impressions, and when the sub will be truely finished, to give a review. I'll have at hand the Tempest + the Hsu VTF-3 as a direct comparison... Stay tuned!

Are you a Canadian? We cant see in your profile. Because Paradigm subs are a great deal for canadians Otherwise, yes SVS is a great choice Did you considere too the new Hsu STF-3?

jkjome85, Take a look at your private messages!

"I have sabotaged the race." lol Well, I hope that everybody know that it wasnt a real race Yep, this time, I wanted to try a nice oak veneer but painted in black because all my other pieces of audio gear are black. It is true that I have a lot of time left for finishing the sub (considering the virtual race) but I will not be able to resist to the temptation! I'll most likely want to test and hear the sub as soon as it is finished without the finish. I cross my fingers for the next week, the time I'll probably be ready for hearing the sub. I think that this is more than probable because Im ending the school this week so I'll have plenty of time on the subwoofer. By the way, should I start a new topic when my sub will be finished + review or I continue with this one? It's because I already started to post some pics here so I wonder if I should stay here or not when all the work will be finished... OR I shouldnt post at all!

A little more pressure on Formica!!! Almost finished, without the finish Here is a little sneak peak, you'll know better this time how "small" the sub will be:

hahaha!!!

---------------- On 12/5/2003 12:10:42 PM formica wrote: A simple vented tempest would surprise you compared to the KSW & LF ... Ask firepinch the difference a Tempest made compared to his HSU VTF3... Later... Rob ---------------- Effectively Formica! At 20 Hz, according to my tests with the VTF-3 and the Tempest, to match the Tempest output, I would have to buy another VTF-3 Im in a hurry to know what kind of output I will get of my Tumult despite it is sealed. However, with that much power I will give to it, I expect it to belt 120 dB somewhere certainly, and at least 115 dB at 20 Hz. For such a small sub, at $1350 TOTAL, I think that this will be a serious sub for the money -> size, output and sound quality wise. Plus, I dont know if any sub at this price range will be as much braced as mine, but anyway Im not too well informed on this so I prefer to not place a judgment on this (because The_Ear still looks a lot for the build quality ). However, for subs costing near the one of Formica, I think that for the build quality, his sub is a clear winner Im still surprised again!!! I really didnt expect your sub to be braced like that Form! As you can see, the DIY world can give us some really nice subs when you really think about many solutions, not only huge "easy pour" finished, huge cylinder or huge boxes (Ears doesnt seem to like them and he has often those thoughts when we talk about DIY subs hehe )... however, we must have time and for some designs, a lot of it

---------------- On 12/4/2003 1:46:20 PM formica wrote: Where are you building it... looks like a bedroom? Thought the bed and the Tempest took all the space? If you ask frankie nicely, he may be able to fix you up with a couple of "easypour" logos... ---------------- lol! Well, no... the sub is built in the basement but for taking pictures, I must bring the cabinet in my bedroom because no more battery power from the camera... I must take pictures from my computer. Looks like the sub wont be finished this week... I had too much school work (electronic projects etc)

Here is a pic of the enclosure that I took yesterday althought now, the sub looks like a bit more finished than what you see on that pic.

---------------- On 12/1/2003 1:31:02 PM jstanton wrote: But why on earth are you going to go sealed in a small enclosure with that Tumult? My feeling is that it's not gonna do all that great in such a small enclosure...doesn't give that monster enough room to "breath", so to speak. But numbers will tell the story in the end... ---------------- I wanted to go sealed first, because of the small enclosure. Moreover, I'll get better sound quality all around, tighter and the sub will normally go almost as deep as a ported one in my room (See how well my sealed Tempest did in my test). I still beleive that I'll get flat response down to at least 25 Hz, and I won't be down of 10 dB at 16 Hz. I know that I will not get the full max SPL of what the Tumult can do, but with 2400W of power, dont forget this, I think that I will get very good SPL! Better than those who run their sealed Tumult with only a 1000W amp ... those people often (some might use VERY low Q alignments) dont even use the full potential of their woofer! Still, maybe next year, I'll perhaps make a vented enclosure for the Tumult to get more SPL if I wish it.

In progress pictures should come soon, today, evening time

Just to get Formica more stressed haha, I just wanted to write this for the hell of it. All my braces are finished and they are sticked to the cabinet. I succeded to remove my glitches done by the router by simply sanding and now, it looks like the router did a perfect job, fortunately . Tomarrow, I'll stick all the other pannels (back, sides and top) and I'll round some corners so the sub will be "pre-finished". I had the idea to test the sub before applying a finish (oak wood veener) but still before testing it, I'll have to buy quite a lot of things: a pair of gold plated binding posts, eight T-nuts, a Flextra tube for sealing all the possible corners, and 12 ga wires. I'll have to get too a XRL to RCA converter because of the QSC PLX amp which has XLR inputs and my Paradigm X-30 unit which has RCA outputs . So Formica, you still have some time left!!! If you can have your amp before the end of this week, you may............"win!"

Wow, I didnt know that some $100 router could do that job!!! Well, since the very first sub I've done, I always use the same old router which is by the way a Kraft man and the problems with it came slowly. Now, the troubles are worse than ever!!! I tried to continue the brace after I wrote my last post and you know whats happened? The spiral upcut bit got out of the router! LOL!!! And it was really well tighted because I tried a second time (I tighted the bit like before), and it went out of the router another time!!! But during the second time, I didnt damage too much the circle hole (ahhh, unfortunately for you Formica ). Tomarrow, I think that Im gonna change of bit (dont think about the sexe thing those who are french dudes lol!) because seriously, next time, if I use the router without changing anything, it will explode enormously in my face ! Definitively, the bit is really finished (except mine on my body ). Hiiiihihi!

CH... de TAB... de ROUTER A M**DE!! Talk about a DOLLORAMA ROUTER!!! I Just missed one brace because of it!!! Since the beginning, I knew it wasnt so trustfull but I kept using it. Just for cuting 3/4" of thickness with that **** router, I must go by FIVE PASSES for an entire circle because the cutter is so burned LOL!!!! Can some DIYers tell me if they are able to cut one 3/4" thick hole in ONE pass with their router? I'd feel better with a new one for sure! AHHH!! I guess that for now, I'll have to live with that glitche and I'll have to continue my work with that VERY NICE and uglyfull router! Even if I cant see that 1/8" scratch (on a circle) from the outside, Im still really angry of whats happened!

HAhaha Formica!!! I just wanted you to react, goal achieved Well, seriously, you go near Quebec city sometimes? That would be cool... Im not the one who travel so much since I dont own again an *offical* car. I drive the car of my parents! Damn I feel cheaper now!

Formica, Will you pay also the unleaded fuel used for coming in Montreal also?

Dual vented AV-15!!! Lets say that you bust me a lot in pure SPL output in advance! You can certainly get between 120dB and 125dB at 20 Hz out of these! Im out of the competition LOL!! I think that jstanton will be a better opponent for you!!!

What sub(S) will you use Frankie? Damn haha! I feel like a bit stressed now, I dont expect THAT much with my sealed Tumult!