Dustin B

You need to decide what driver(s) you are going to use and from that you can determine how much space you will need. The enclosure size has a huge effect on the sound of a driver. You'd likely hate a 0.9Q Tempest, but love a 0.6Q Tempest. And a Tumult would be the same, but the enclosure sizes to get the same system Q is different between them. You also may want to go ported or passive radiator instead of sealed. Also, fixing a sub to a location can be dangerous. I'd suggest borrowing or demoing a sub from a store and see how it sounds in your room when placed where you expect the built in one to go. If it sounds good your ok, but if you have bad roommodes in that location you will not be happy with any sub you build in that location (unless you only get peaks and no nulls; that problem can easily be fixed with an EQ).

They switched to new packaging a few months ago. The new packaging (which you received) has lowered their damage rates during shipping significantly and makes unpacking the sub significantly easier. Puncturing the box isn't the bid problem, rough handling usually is (there were no holes in your outer box were there?). The foam under the grille was placed there on purpose. Earily on they had a problem with a particular test tone causing the grille to rattle at high volumes. You pretty much never notice it during normal use though. Didn't matter, they slightly changed the grille design and added those piece of foam to eliminate it. As for the discrepency in listed height and how securely the sock is attached I don't know.

I hate losing posts due to server errors. Here's an abreviated second try. Yes, building a horn into your foundation is extreme. An infininte baffel isn't anywhere near that extreme. Given the cost of a Sunfire you are talking about, or Velodyne HGS of comparable size you could easily hire a carpenter to cut the hole, disguise it like a vent, build the manifold, mount the manifold and still have plenty of money left over to buy the drivers, amps and EQ. Disguised as a vent most guests wouldn't even know it was a sub or even think it was something out of the ordinary. The only limiting factor is an appropriate adjacent space (which I think a lot of people have). Why not make use of unused space to lean Hoffman's Iron law to your favor (instead of trying for a tiny box to lean it in the other direction). The Sunfire subs are neat. Impressive for their size. But even Carver hasn't figured a way around Hoffman's Iron law. And tiny cubes have one other major draw back with bass reflex designs. Making lots of bass means the need for lots of displacement. The spiders and surrounds available now will only let a passive radiator travel so far linearly. So in order to get enough displacement from them you have to increase their diameter. The larger their diameter and the smaller the enclosure the heavier they have to be to tune low (and you can only make a PR so heavy before it will tear itself appart). Don't tune low and you don't get extension and/or cause irregularities in the frequency response that you either live with or EQ out. The Sunfire has to sacrifice extension and/or linearity to get to the numbers it does at it's size, no way around it. I'd also be extremely surprised if there isn't any EQ in the amp it comes with. If you want to try for the small sub, stick with sealed designs, bass reflex ones can't be tuned low enough to provide clean low bass when that small. Which is why I'd take a 16" sealed cube Tumult over a 13" sealed cube 12" Brahma over a 13" bass reflex cube Sunfire without hesitation.

Well if zero size in room isn't good enough. I don't imagine the number of people willing to spend what a Sunfire costs is that much different than the number willing to cut a hole into their attic. I think I could get a Brahma 12" to put out more than a sunfire at 31.5hz. Won't do to well in the last octave and I'd have to put a steep subsonic filter to prevent it from killing the PRs. Would also have to be tuned up around 30hz to not over weight the PRs in an enclosure that small. Can the PR in the Sunfire travel twice as far as the driver. The PR should be able to displace a minimum of twice what the active driver can?

Well enjoy the Sunfire. I know I never will. I really hope I can make an infinite baffel sub happen soon. With no sub in the room and massive Vd I think the infinite baffel is the king of space/performance ratio

Agreed. But we are talking about brief peaks here. Human speech range frequencies should never go past 110dB peaks if the system is reference calibrated. Its the 120hz and under that could peak as high as 121dB (our ears can take a lot more bass SPL than human speech range SPL without damage). A typical action movie or two a day at these levels is very unlikely to damage your hearing (especially if it is clean at these levels). But listening to music for hours at a time at sustained levels of over 100dB, that is very dangerous to your hearing. At reference the bulk of a movie should be in the 75-80dB range. It was my understanding that a jet engine will be up closer to 140dB and will be generating those levels at bass frequencies as well as human speech range frequencies. Very dangerous to your ears. I wonder if flash bangs that SWAT teams use cause hearing loss. They can go off at 150-170dB, but for a very brief period.

I heard the numbers where just a little higher than 10% when the Sunfire was pushed down in the last octave. Also remember the Tumult will be a fare ways off its' 34mm Xmax in an enclosure this small with 1500W. So in this design it will be extremely linear until the amp starts clipping. And yes Adire can offer everything in one box. They are planning on offering packages around the Tumult that include either their A750 or A1500 (can't quite do a 16" cube with this amp though) plate amp and a Linkwitz Transform that can be attached to the amp inside the enclosure. 16" cube vs 13" cube, noticably larger yes, but not that much. This is what the Tumult was designed for. A sealed enclosure using a Linkwitz Transform circuit and lots of power to get loud, very clean bass from a small enclosure. There is a huge thread on HTF all about what people wanted from the driver. Doc, full dolby reference can as for as much as 121dB at the listening postion from your sub. Mind you 5-10dB below reference is the loudest I'll watch, but still, having some clean headroom over what I'll need is a good thing.

But I seriously doubt the Sunfire is at anywhere near 2% THD at that level. Also the Sunfire is using a passive radiator, this 16" Tumult cube is a low Q sealed design not a bass reflex. Better than HGS18 performance from a 16" cube for ~$1k is impressive to me. Go to a 24" cube with a pair of 18" dual spider PRs from Stryke for an 18hz tune and goose it with 1.5kW and the sunfire won't have any hope of keeping up.

Down around 20hz it would take almost 3 Tempests to equal it Over 5L of very linear Vd. Have been told by Dan Wiggins to expect with 1500W and an appropriate LT you could get over ~103dB at 20hz with less than 2%THD from a sealed 16" cube (using 1.5" thick walls). Did you check the weight. It weighs 48lbs all by its' lonesome.

That definately is one great audio myth that doesn't seem to want to die. Smaller driver means "musical" bass. Couldn't be more wrong. As the others have said there are many excellent 15 and 18 inch subs out there. Below 100hz there are many other parameters that have to be considered as a whole in releation to sound quality; and cone size is really low on the list. Now cone size does have a direct relation ship to Sd which has a direct relationship to Vd. This won't affect sound quality that much, but Vd will determine how loud the sub can get down low. The 10" and the 15" may both sound great when implemented properly at 90dB, but up the volume on a passage to over 110dB and the 10" will have problems. 10" drivers (unless used in multiples, 3 or more) simply can't move enough air to make a good sub. Personally I don't think I'll ever use anything smaller than a 15" driver in any sub project I embark upon (unless I'm building a bass horn, then a 12" might be ok). If you want to stop craving more bass. Do this: http://t-3.cc/users/kloneaudio/page13-12Shiva1.html But with this driver instead of the Shiva: http://www.acoustic-visions.com/tumult.htm And power it with a few Crown K2 amps. If over 60L of Vd can't keep you from craving more bass, you'll be deaf in a short period of time. Now in reality the above would be pretty much insane. You'd likely be more than happy with a 4 of these drivers: http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&User_ID=9428728&St=8456&St2=-60279683&St3=74253110&DS_ID=3&Product_ID=118185&DID=7 And a QSC RMX850. This would toast a KSW15 in sound quality and output. The RSW15 won't be much competition for it either. Best of all it will run you <$800 total to complete, if you have the tools and an appropriate room. If you can find a good 200Wx2 used amp stable into a 4ohm load for less than $300, you can drop the price even further.

What I want to get an oppertunity to hear (afterwords I'm confident I'd want to own too) is this: http://diy.cowanaudio.com/unity.html http://www.lambdacoustics.com/unity.html A 107dB/W/m horn with excellent dispersion control. It uses a compression tweeter (there is another tweeter you can use that lowers sensitivity to 103dB/W/m but really ups the power handling) and 4 midrange drivers that end up acting like a single acoustic source from 300hz up to over 20khz. Add some high quality 15" drivers and actively biamp with an active crossover to handle from 300hz down to a crossover to a subwoofer and you are in business.

When size isn't a consideration I think the Tempest is still the biggest bang for the buck. Mainly because with a large enclosure you can get away with very inexpensive plate amps. People on a really tight budget can save a little cash by going with the Dayton DVC15" driver which is almost equivalent. That is unless you can do an infinite baffel. Then you have to seriously consider the Dayton 15" IB driver. But buying multiple Tempests and running them in an RDO mode wouldn't be much more money and would allow you to pick the Qts rather than being stuck with a Qts of 0.65. My biggest bang for the buck may change to the Styrke AV series if inexpensive high power amps continue to become more common place and their preproduction numbers are met by the production units. But hopefully Adire will get XBL^2 motors into the Tempest and Shiva and then I think the edge will go back to Adire (I'd love to be able to put 4 Tempests with XBL^2 motors into an infinite baffel). The Tumult is also very interesting. There really isn't a driver like it out there right now. It will end up a little on the expensive side compared to what people are used to with DIY, but there really aren't any other drivers out there that can do what it can. Really all the drivers I listed are excellent values. They all vary with what allignments they would work best in though. So you just take your budget and size/placement considerations and the top three for each person will end up changing.

That's not hard. Tempest could do it. The Shiva, DPL12, Maelstrom or Brahma from Adire all could as well. Dayton has the 12 and 15 inch DVC as well as the Titanic series that could. Styrke has the AV12 and AV15 as well as the HE15. Blueprint has the 03 series. One caveat on 03 series and HE15 though, you'll have to EQ out an inductance hump or crossover to them below 70hz. Adire also has a preorder on the Tumult right now (this driver is freak'n amazing; capable of over 100dB from 20hz on up in a sealed 16" cube with less than 2% THD, and this is nothing compared to what it could do in larger enclosures). The enclosure will dictate how "musical" a good quality driver will be. All of the above are good to excellent quality drivers. Put them in an inappropriate enclosure and they will sound like crap. Put them in a proper enclosure and they could easily sound as good if not better than the RSW15. This isn't to say they will be able to match the output of the RSW15 above 30hz (although some will be able to beat it). Below 30hz even more could keep up. But again this will be quite dependant on the enclosure used (and in the case of output, dependant on if enough power is supplied). If you want to trounce the "musicality" of the RSW15 look into infinite baffel or dipole designs.

Compared to a KSW15, you're in for one hell of a treat It will be a bit like going from a KSW15 to an RSW15. Tempest won't get quite as loud as an RSW15 above 30hz, but you'll get that last octave in all its' glory.

No need to rip stuff down to get that in your house. It's modular. There are 6 sperate sections there. So you can bring them in one a time and put them together. From their website: "5. It must be easy to ship, handle and install. 6. It must be modular, so the customers can start with just two modules and add more modules later."

Well, if they didn't have to equalize to get the extension to 18hz I might agree. They need a bigger horn so they don't need to equalize for the last octave. I'm sure you've seen this before, but this is what I'd call a bass horn. http://www.royaldevice.com/custom3.htm

The Behringer Feedback Destroyer 1124P is always mentioned as a great inexpensive option (~$125). As for better quality ones that don't do an A/D D/A conversion I'm not famaliar. HTF and AVS should be able to provide recommendations for higher end ones though.

That page doesn't provide enough details for me to say I would or won't consider it for a crossover. My gut says no though. And I sort of fall into the "accuracy" camp. So I'm not a fan of adding lower harmonics that aren't there.

Can't do the horn for under $800 though Now the basement one I can understand (holes in the floor can be bad), but if you have a closet or an attic that is appropriate it can be a great option. Symetrically mounting the drivers in pairs cancels any mechanical forces on the enclosure and it's connection to the roof (so no new rattles over a standard sub). But for appartment dwellers, yes not an option. If you have a very understanding landlord could be in a duplex or something similar (done well the hole could just look like a vent of some sort). And if you own a house your option. It will be last on my list, projector, HTPC and full set of Adire HE series speakers kits will come first. But if things go well where I'm at, I hope to have one in a year or two. And when I move, one of the criteria for my new place will be the ability to build an IB sub.

My pick would be 4 Dayton 15" IB drivers in a infinite baffel (symetrical square manifold arrangement of the drivers). Power with either two PE 300-794 amps, or a single inexpensive good quality proamp. I doubt there is a commercial sub out there that could match the output and sound quality of this type of setup (at least not until you get to subs that cost as much as the cars most people drive; even then it would be close). $440 for the drivers, less than $300 for the amp, a few bucks to build the manifold and then add a parametric EQ (extra cost of the other subs too). Not an option for most people (lack of ability or unwillingness to cut a whole in a roof/floor/wall), but for those who can do it, should be a no brainer. This link can tell you everything you need to know about infinite baffel subs. http://f20.parsimony.net/forum36475 There are other drivers that would work as well, but the Dayton 15" IB is the best price/performance ratio right now. The Adire Tempest run in a resistively damped operation mode would be very similar and allow you to vary the Q just by swapping out resistors. Or you could even install a variable resistor and lower the Q for music and increase it for home theater use.

It's the HE15 that has the hump due to a high induction (problem faced by most really high excursion drivers). As far as I know the AV15 doesn't have this problem. To solve the inductance hump an EQ will work fine (or just crossover the sub below 70hz). Roommodes that are peaks can be solved with an EQ. Roommodes that are nulls can't be solved by an EQ. Trying to boost a null is like trying to shine a light through a black hole by making it brighter, you won't get anywhere. The only way to solve roommode nulls is by playing with placement and/or room treatments. Carpeting the walls will not affect bass frequencies. You'd need upwards of 6ft of insullation behind that carpet to have any effect on bass frequencies. Room treatments can also tame peaks as well and should be the preferred method from a sonic stand point. But using an EQ to tame them is much much easier. Bass room treatment usually involve either bass traps (big insulation cylinders strategically placed in the room) or helmholtz resonators. Two to three inch thick acoustic panels can also make a big difference to the sound of you speakers if placed where the first wall reflections would occur (each side of the room and the roof). With all three (bass traps, helmholtz resonators, acoustic panels) I just know of them and what they are used for. I haven't done the research yet to know how to properly build or place them.

Will depend on how they couple. Stacked you are pretty much guarenteed 6dB gain over 1. Placed in opposite corners it's hard to say without actually trying it. Placing subs that receive a mono signal in seperate places is tricky to get right. You now have two sets of room modes, and interaction between the two subs to contend with (as compared to one set of room modes and no interactions between subs). It's possible to do, but requires a lot of playing unless you have a nicely symmetrical room, but even then it will take some work. 350W for an AV12 should be great, and 700 for a single AV15 will be more than enough.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htforum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=98319&highlight=velodyne+1812 You could buy five Revel B15 or three Aerial SW12 subs for the cost of this thing.

Well there are various ways to do it. But here is the method I use. Cut >19" squares out of your MFD sheet. You'll need 6 of them. In pairs spread a thin even layer of your standard carpenter's wood glue on one and then set the other on it. I put brad nails in the corners to prevent them from sliding around while drying. Then I stacked the three resulting 1.5" thick pieces and put some concrete patio blocks I had laying around on them. Let them dry over night. Next day I used a drill press to make a guide for drilling perpendicular pivot holes for the circle jig. Then I used a router with a spiral up cutting bit and the circle jig to cut to little over 3/4" depth from each side turning the square into a just as large as I wanted (little over 19" so there would be a bit of a lip overhang) circle. I then used a round over bit to round over one edge on both endcaps and both edges on the base plate. Then I set the router to a depth of 1" with the 1/4" spiral bit again. And slowly trimmed the non rounded over edge down until it just fit into the sonotube. Then I cut the driver and port holes. After this I spread some polyurethane clue on the edges of the endcaps, slid them into the sonotube and brad nailed them in place while the glue dried. I also caulked where the endcap and sonotube joined on the inside.

No fancy designing required. You could do a more or less exact copy of my Twins with either a Shiva or Dayton DVC12". The only things I'd do differently are use 10 or 12 inch grille and flush mount it (instead of 8" that isn't flush mounted). As well as put threaded inserts in the bottom of the legs and attach the base plate with bolts instead of the method I did. http://dustin.bunnyhug.net/twinstart.php This sub is quite impressive in bedroom sized rooms. In living rooms I much prefer the added Vd of the Tempest though.