Cheap car subwoofer for home use

[homemade]

I just couldn't stand it! I just wasn't happy with the low end of my homebuilt khorns and I had this 3.6 cubic ft. oak enclosure in my storage room with a rotted out Eminence 12inch subwoofer. I knew that my khorns blew away that Eminence speaker. Heck, the speaker couldn't handle 25 watt/channel amp at lower freq. I started to search for a suitable 12inch subwoofer for the enclosure and came a cross a car sub that is an MA Audio 121XQ dual 4ohm 12incher that modeled out to a 100liter enclosure. It has an f3 of 27hz and can output 120db from 30hz on up and 105db at 25hz. I found one on ebay for $50 with shipping included. I wasn't expecting a whole lot but went ahead and put it into the enclosure and wow! Couldn't get the cone to bottom out with the same old JVC 25watt/channel reciever! Finally finished the cabinet by staining and varnishing to match my khorn and bought the 250watt plate amp from parts express and hooked them up tonight. I ended up with 2 3.5 inch (inside dia.) ports aprox 13.5 inches long. This thing will rattle the windows in the other room easily! The khorn just won't compete in the under 40hz range with this budget speaker! The only problem is keeping everything from rattling in the room and the back of the speaker has a rubber cap and steel mesh grille that vibrates (only noticable when khorns are turned off). This speaker only as an xmax of 10mm but doesn't bottom (probably distorts though) and puts out way more than enough to augment the khorns. Organ music and special effect music come through great! No need to run an eq. on the khorns again! This speaker was putting out over 115db of bass at my listening position in my smallish room (13x14ft with 9 ft ceiling and couch against the back wall). I thought the khorn was suppose to have the most bass output!Anyway, I have perhaps $200 invested. Maybe I should have bought a better driver like the Dayton dvc or Shiva but I was too skeptical about spending that kind of money. I have seen these MA speakers go on ebay for around $35 a week or so ago also. A must have for the final touch. If I had to do it again (build the khorns or such) I would build something like the Heresey (or smaller high efficiency speaker capable of going down to the 70hz range) and run some subs instead of taking the time to build some khorns.

[formica]

I'm one of the handful of members here, who swear by using a sub with all the Heritage units, including the Klipschorn. They are all very dynamic speakers, but just miss those bottom octaves. If you listen to anything other than jazz and classic rock, there is a good chance you have been missing something.

Good news is your time building a khorn wasn't lost... as it's more than just bass extension. I've had/have Heresy, Cornwalls, and Khorns with subs... and the sound does improve significantly as you move up in price.

Bad news is that bass is addictive... and you still have room to upgrade.

Rob