what's the ultimate sub build? :)

[CECAA850]

Hey Cory, I remember back when we were talking about port size and wondered if you'd ever seen THIS?

[babadono]

My wife hates helping me move speakers but bless her heart does every time I ask. It prolly doesn't help that I always yell at her oorah! Marine lets go! Lol that's why I married her. Always wiling to lend a hand.

Awesome she's a keeper. Mine too. Always(almost) willing to help. Hoorah!

[AllenTacey]

Small Size

Power Efficiency

Low Cost

To my knowledge you can only have two of these three qualities at any one time.

There are more amps of this nature but do not have low cost...but all three are built into Carver qand Hafler amps. Carver M-400 is a ten inch cube weights about as much as a wet goose and puts out 201 watts per channel and 500 in mono mode and both amps are very tight on their use of electricity is low heat at high outputs...

[Thaddeus Smith]

i was talking about subwoofers, not amps.

[Paducah Home Theater]

Weighed my boxes today, 140 pounds without the actual driver, times two. After subs and hardware it will be pushing 500 pounds, before granite.

[derrickdj1]

Get these guys at your local gym to help with the lifting, lol.

 

click:

[Paducah Home Theater]

http://www.jamesloudspeaker.com/products/131

 

I drool over this bad boy at least once a week.  It's even named the ultimate.  

[Scrappydue]

Why? Doesn't even seem that impressive. It's a 21" woofer with two Passives. You could build similar. Bet that thing is 4 grand at least. Prolly more line 5-6 though

[Paducah Home Theater]

Why?

They're the sexiest cones I've ever seen for one. Yes probably horribly overpriced. Stupid simple box. 5" voice coil on the active one, I bet it can slam.

Edited December 15, 2015 by MetropolisLakeOutfitters

[Paducah Home Theater]

Interesting tidbit for ultimax builders (Derrick), when I was talking to Mark, he pointed out that the ultimax’s don’t really have the impedance that people think. When wired in series you’re supposed to have 4 ohms, but if you look at data-bass’s page for it, on the impedance curve, you have to get below 10 hz before the impedance is less than 8 ohms. Even at 7 hz you’re probably at 6 ohms. He claims that if you stuffed the box with R-19 insulation then you can gain another 1 ohm. On the upper end, it dips below 8 ohms above 40 hz, but that’s not the frequencies that are hard on your amp, and it still only gets down to like 6 ohms, and again, “stuffed real good” with R-19 supposedly adds another 1 ohm. So during normal hardcore home theater use even down to 7 hz, you’re looking at a minimum of nearly twice the impedance that everybody thinks it is. I don’t know why these are rated at 2+2 ohms. You have to be at 2 hz to even be close to that, and it’s still like 5 ohms wired in series, you never hit 4 ohms. This came up because I asked how on earth he can take four of them and run them in parallel, especially with a Speakerpower amp that’s built like the iNuke 6000 where it’s in forced bridge mode, in which the amp “sees” half the actual load. If these were rated like other drivers I see, in this situation the amp would be seeing a ½ ohm load with four 2+2’s in series with them all in parallel, with dips being even worse. I'd say this is crazy talk but this came from Seaton himself, and the impedance curve backs it up. I don't understand the R-19 part but I've got a roll of the stuff ready to go in. He said it's a measurable difference as compared to polyfill.  At the minimum though, between 10 and 35 is where all the magic for home theater is, and every bit of that is 8 ohms and higher.  I'm going to wire mine as if it's a 4+4 ohm sub with this in mind, apparently he is.  Kind of looks like the stereo integrity is about the same situation.  
 

Edited December 15, 2015 by MetropolisLakeOutfitters

[CECAA850]

I don't understand the R-19 part but I've got a roll of the stuff ready to go in.

 

Just don't ever use it in a ported sub.  It's fine for sealed.

[derrickdj1]

I don't have polyfil in any of the subs.  I use the wool like stuffing from the Chase boxes for the sealed and some added R 15.  The Ultimax don't really do less than 10 Hz for the super low stuff.  People reporting these type of numbers are getting cabin gain with their sealed subs.

 

Load above 4 ohms are a good thing.    I guess if one wanted to really make the boxes and subs fit the room, figure out where cabin gain start and pick a driver F3 equal to the cabin gain.  Then make the appropite size box/es.

[Quiet_Hollow]

Doesn't even seem that impressive.

That's due to their somewhat realistic specifications.

[jason str]

 

Doesn't even seem that impressive.

That's due to their somewhat realistic specifications.

 

 

If all manufactureres rated their subwoofers in the same way it would be an easy choice but like SVS & most others they are just trying to pull the wool over customers eyes so one cannot make an educated decision on what may be better.

[Paducah Home Theater]

Why? Doesn't even seem that impressive.

Doesn't even seem that impressive.

That's due to their somewhat realistic specifications.

6 though

I don't even see what's not impressive about the specs. Keep in mind that it is passive, it does not have an included amp. That means there is no DSP magic going on. Only reason some of these factory built subs are as flat and low as they are is because they're EQ'ed before you ever receive them, and that's assuming they're honest about the measurements. Being flat to 20 hz with no EQ/DSP or room gain is pretty impressive to me. Sealed 18" ultimaxes in the recommended box is 3 db down at 31 hz, at 18 hz they are 10 db down. These are only 3 db down at 20. Huge difference, would take a lot of EQ and extra power to do what these will do naturally.

Edited December 16, 2015 by MetropolisLakeOutfitters

[Scrappydue]

You find out the price and I'll tell you if it's impressive. How bout we start there.

[Paducah Home Theater]

Let's just assume they're 4-8 grand each. It wouldn't shock me. Seaton is charging 5.5-8 grand for four Ultimax's and nobody's batting an eye at that.

Edited December 16, 2015 by MetropolisLakeOutfitters

[Scrappydue]

Let's just assume they're 4-8 grand each.

not impressed for that amount of money. not even close. 

Seaton is charging 5.5-8 grand for four Ultimax's and nobody's batting an eye at that.

i think you are getting a little fired up about these too. isn't this a new product? has he sold any of these? i mean I've met the guy and he is crazy smart. but to take a 275$ driver and sell it for 5-8 grand? dont see him selling a whole ton of those except to guys with lots of money who are scared to death of diy.  

[Paducah Home Theater]

i think you are getting a little fired up about these too. isn't this a new product? has he sold any of these? i mean I've met the guy and he is crazy smart. but to take a 275$ driver and sell it for 5-8 grand? dont see him selling a whole ton of those except to guys with lots of money who are scared to death of diy.

That was my entire point though. Ultimax's are cheap. Sealed boxes are easy. He's turning this combination into an $8,000 product.

Same thing with JTR, two sealed 18's and he is saying they should be worth $7,200.

James isn't the only company charging a premium for what appears to be a simple design. At least they use sexy/exotic drivers.

Yes somebody is buying this stuff. Seaton sold out of the Terraforms with ultimax drivers.

I imagine I won't be one of the guys shelling out for the James but that doesn't mean they're not sexy and not worthy of trying to copy.

Edited December 16, 2015 by MetropolisLakeOutfitters

[Paducah Home Theater]

Hell as far as that goes let's consider Wilson's "thor's hammer". It's two ported 15's! Apparently a big selling point is that the drivers have dual spiders. The thing costs $21,000. That doesn't even include an amplifier. Somebody's buying them.