Dustin B

Passive radiators sure. My question was directed with ports though, as that's what you had said. To get sufficienty crossectional area in the ports for Tumults the ports would have to be too long for an enclosure of the appropriate size for the Tumults. Dan's only suggestions for porting Tumults was the use of folded slots.

I know Justin is interested in DIY from other posts on other forums. And a DPL12 based sub does not have to be big (Rava sized). Paired with a HS series amp I feel it would be a significantly better option than a Rel sub. If a 22" or so cube can be handled then a Tempest or Maelstrom will also be excellent options with an HS series amp. And if you got the money a Tumult can work in the smallest enclosure. Say a 16" cube with an HS500 and an appropriate LT circuit would kick some serious *** (but over $1000 for just the parts). By the way, how the hell are you planning on porting the Tumult? It's hard enough to fit sufficient porting for a Tempest into a 200L enclosure, little lone a Tumult (and going larger than 200L with a Tumult would be a bad idea).

If coupled properly you'll have 6dB more output than one over the bandwidth of the higher tuned one. Then you'll still have the same output as one for the bandwidth below what the higher tuned one will handle. Roughly anyways, really all you'll be doing if coupled properly is summing the two response graphs. Over 30hz those graphs will be nearly identical. As you go below 30hz the higher tuned sub will be contributing less and less. Sound quality at lower levels will be pretty much identical. All SVSubs have a very similar sonic signature.

Not worth its asking price I'm sure when compared to what could be done with around a 10th that asking price and a couple Tumults.

Rel's have a great amp and great connectivity. Don't expect much for output though. I forget, what was your budget again? Have you considered somthing like a sealed Adire DPL12, Tempest, Maelstrom or Tumult with an HS series amp. The HS series amps are every bit as good as the ones on the Rels and those drivers will be capable of significantly more output. Shouldn't need to go bigger than a 22" cube with any of them either.

I'd go for the 50 or 70 (leaning towards the 50). What Pioneer pre-amp you using? My concern is nothing will be attenuating the K-Horns to mate up with this lowpass.

You can specify when you order whether you do or don't want the logo. Both Adire and Stryke are offering logos on their drivers now since the car audio guys (which can bring in a lot of money) won't consider a driver unless it has a fancy decal on it. Are you planning on one in each main tower and feeding them the LFE signal? If so I'd recommend against this. Defeats the purpose of a sub, which is to get the production of low frequency information to be from a single source that can be placed in the best place in the room for producing bass (which is just about never the same as the best place for your mains).

Both are great drivers. The only real difference in pratical terms is the Titanic has almost 30% more Vd than the Shiva, but it also costs roughly %30 more. If you can't handle the size of enclosure a Tempest or Dayton DVC15" requires, I'd be looking at the Styrke AV12 over the Titanic.

I'm a little curious Ears, what made you change your tune? http://forums.klipsch.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=16017&forumID=73

Front vs down. No difference unless you get the front firing driver pushed up too close to a wall, or have the legs too short on a downfiring. Ported is a type of bass reflex design, passive radiators are also a bass reflex design (two different ways of accomplashing the same thing). Several variations of bandpass using ports and passive radiators (don't matter, they all suck). Sealed (also called acoustic suspension, of which the infinite baffel is another variation). Dipole and horn are two other loadings. There are a few other more esoteric ones as well. Then you have variations within. 4th and 6th order bass reflex. High to low Q sealed alignments. Different compression ratios for the horn loadings. Different baffel designs result in different roll offs with dipoles, etc etc. As for material, I don't care what it's made of as long as it's stiff and light. Bonus is when it doesn't cost much. Kevelar impregnated compressed paper pulp cones are really tough to beat in my opinion when cost is considered.

If you build a 214L sonotube with a pair of 3" flared ports just like your Adire allignment it will sound exactly the same as what you have right now. The shape of the enclosure makes no difference. All that matters is the net internal volume and the porting. Within reason of course, I'm assuming what you build is built well, and that you don't shink two dimensions as much as possible and make the third one more than 6'.

Come on Ears. Get it over with and put 8 Tumults in a infinite baffel

The closest commercial competition I can think of would be the SVS Ultra.

What allignments are you looking at? Keep in mind that a Tempest will reach it's linear excursion limits with less than 250W in larger vented enclosures. If you've got loads of space why not do 2 dual Tempest enclosures. Say 480L each tuned to 16hz with a pair of 6" PVC ports each. Parallel the voice coils and series the drivers (unless your amp can handle a 2ohm load, then parallel the drivers). I think your ears will give out before either these subs or the LaScala's will in that room.

Yep, it's a push pull design. All drivers pull into, or push out of the box at the same time.

Well, magnet weight is starting to get towards showing some real specs, but essentially useless. Adire is the only manufacture I know of that provides you the T/S of the drivers in their subs. Very few will tell you something as simple as what the tuning point is.

TheEAR, You actually thought a manufacturer would divulge some real specs on their equipment? Silly wabbit

A Shiva won't compete with an Ultra. A Tempest yes, a Shiva no. The Stryke AV12 will compete with the Plus series driver though. The Shiva is a good match for the base model SVSubs (with the ISD anyways, first iteration I'd say the Shiva had a clear edge). SVS has the tube custom made, it is much thicker and denser than sonotube and isn't designed to be peeled away. SVS uses baltic birch for the endcaps and base plate. Baltic birch is about 3 times the cost of mdf. It adds a lot of difficulty to the build, but flush mounting an amp like SVS is possible. Won't add much cost but will add a lot of time. The flared ports are available to us for about $15 a piece. So for the base ones that adds $15, for a plus or ultra clone that adds another $45. Then there are the other basic things like heavy fabric, legs, grille, stuff to hold the driver/legs/base plate/grille in place, wiring, binding posts. The packaging for shipping. You'd be surpised how much good packaging will cost. SVS is far from over priced, but yes if you have the tools, skills and desire, building a sub is by far your best option. Take your typical commercial box sub, parts cost is likely less than 20% of the final retail price. With SVS it will be in the %50-%70 range. Ron has also stated that by his calculation in the first year of operation he and Tom were making about a $1 an hour. SVS IMO is the best value period in commercial subs currently available. By a large margin over retail stuff and a small margin over other online guys like Hsu. Sold in brick and mortar an SVS 20-39PCi would easily be going for close to $1500.

I highly doubt it will be the equal of four Ultras. The new sub is four dB12 drivers and four 4" flared ports (50"^2) in ~200L vs four TV12 drivers, 12 3" flared ports (85"^2) in a little over 400L.

The 130 was mentioned at 25hz. There is no way it will be doing 7hz at 130dB. What was said is that with the variable tuning (ie plugging ports) you can get extension down to below 10hz. But this will be at a major output expense as I'm guessing it will be severely underported with all but one port plugged. As for more box evidence, the size comparison was to a B&W AS4000, not other SVS cylinders. Some of you may also find this interesting: http://www.adireaudio.com/home_audio/loudspeakers/exact_series/sadhara.htm

Um, you sure abou that. First post is dated 08/02/02. I'm positive the Ultras are not what TV is referring two. This new beast should be an interesting sight.

Large and small were very bad choices of names for the feature. When you set a speaker to large it will recieve a full range signal sent to that channel. When you set a speaker to small it will have all it's bass below 80hz stripped off and sent to the sub (this isn't quite true, as we are dealing with crossover slopes here, but it's the idea). Yamaha uses 90hz, Marantz uses 100hz, some others uses 80hz, and some allow you to change this (some of the really high end stuff even lets you select different slopes). You might find this interesting: http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htforum/showthread.php?&postid=739537#post739537

This likely isn't the case but I did it once by accident after I quickly hooked my system back up. Make sure you are using the sub-pre out and not the sub-in that is part of the multi-ch inputs (they are pretty close together). To check if it's not the sub, you could run a cable from the left or right output on your DVD player directly to your sub. You'll have no volume control (so start with the level on the sub very low) and will be feeding it a full range signal, but if it works you'll know it's not the sub. Also are your other speakers set to small. If the mains are set to large you won't get anything sent to the sub when playing 2ch stuff, only LFE from DD or DTS soundtracks will get sent to the sub in this case (and from center and surrounds if set to small; prologic should get sub action in this case too).

Another issue will be proximity to the TV. The subs won't be sheilded and could mess up your image. You have to leave air around the amps to allow cooling. I'd make the fit around the baffel snug (even going so far as to use a compressible foam material). But the rest can be open. In other words just make the cabinet wall an extension of the baffels of all three subs. If you fee like it, sure line the inner walls of the cabinet with polyfill or foam, but I don't think it will be necessary.

Hmm, that's even trickier. You'll want to lay the KSW on it side with the amp up and flush the front of the cabinet up with baffel of that sub on all four sides (if you can remove the sub's legs you probably should). You'll want to do the same with the M&K, but it can keep it's normal orientation. I have no idea what the ADS design is. If it's a passive radiator design I think you are screwed. If it's ported with the port and driver on the same surface like the KSW you are ok (if they are on different surfaces you are screwed), and sealed you are ok. Basically you'll want to keep anything generating sound out of an enclosed area.