I feel it's time for a SUBWOOFER upgrade!

[33klfan]

Once again, i feel the urge to improve my home theater. It's neverending i'll tell you. For now, my 2 channel is wonderful, so now my HT needs attention. The speakers are chorus ii's as mains, klf-c7 center, and rs-25's in the rear, and rw-8 sub. For the sub category, i'm thinking under $1000. Since it would be for HT, i want the deepest, and lowest distortion sub for my price range. My room is only 11.5'x11' but i have to keep it open for whenever i move my system into a bigger room in my future house whenever that may be. I'm sure any sub around that price range would be good musically as well, just in case. If it's possible it would be nice to use the sub for both my two channel system and ht system, if that's possible. I'm thinking it might be a pain with adjustments though switching from ht to 2 channel with levels and all. I could use the rw-8 in the 2 channel system i suppose. Of course i would prolly rather use the nice new fancy toy for it though. I always read about hsu, svs, and sunfire. All seem pretty even. If i don't have to spend as much as i said that works too, but i just want a true quality sub that will make my movies come to life. Please generate your thoughts. I appreciate it.

[Islander]

Why would you need to reset your sub, depending on whether you're listening to music or to a movie? If you set the sub to integrate properly with your main speakers and to have as smooth a frequency response as it's able to give, it should be right for both. Bass instruments will sound the way they were recorded and movie explosions will be as loud as the director intended. There shouldn't be any need to pump up the volume for movies if your sub is up to the job.

[jwatson364]

get the synergy sub12, i had the sub10 and it wasnt enough......the sub12 really is top notch with everything i was looking for!

[TheEAR]

"For the sub category, i'm thinking under $1000. Since it would be for HT, i want the deepest, and lowest distortion sub for my price range."

Sunfire , not capable enough for the money. You cannot have extreme compactness and high output with low distortion. I had all the top Sunfire subs,great ...for its size,onnce you taste(hear) the real deal it is over.

SVS Plus series ,good choice as well as HSU's VTF3 HO (not below) .Here you get some good output and solid extension.

Epik Subwoofers this new company simply offers OUTSTANDING VALUE for the money. eD(Elemental Designs),same as Epik ,OUTSTANDING VALUE. They best slightly SVS and HSU the older guard in the price performance departament !

The rest...DIY ,here you need to eat some MDFdust. Not practical, but offer absurd levels of performance per dollar invested.

[33klfan]

Well, don't know about low distortion, just low port noise. I just want a real solid performing sub that hit's you deep in the chest. I will check those new brands out.

[33klfan]

How much work would it take to do a DIY. Are they pretty much plug and play, or any soldering involved or any meticulous work involved. I am pretty handy with woodworking. I just didn't know what's all involved with the sub and amp placement and damping materials. So i take to buy one the epik and ED are the tops next to the jl audio which is out of my budget. Thanks.

[Canadian_Dude]

Check out these guys. They make speaker kits that come with an amp and driver and all you need is to build a box for them. On their site they even have drawings for cabinets that have been tested and work.

[wuzzzer]

Do the speakers you have sound good together? I was just curious since you have a combo of Reference, Legend and pseudo-Heritage series speakers.

For a sub I absolutely love my SVS for HT.

[33klfan]

Yeah, i think they do. I haven't like ab'd the center to say another chorus ii in the center, but i read where a lot of people say the klf-c7 matches well and from my standpoint i would have to agree. The rs-25's are surrounds, which are kind of least important, but still make an impact when in use. I don't really have room for anything else for surrounds. I know it's kind of mismatched, but it seems to work well.

[TheEAR]

DIY involves mostly cutting the brace holes and driver/port holes.As most cutting can be done at your local HomeDepot(providing the saw is set up correctly and cuts are precise).

Soldering,not even. I solder my cables as I am very skilled,and will not damage/overheat the parts... but no soldering is needed.Today's better sub drivers have push connectors and you can crimp plugs to connect to the terminal plate.

Since this is not a DIY forum. Check out on avsforum,there is a DIY section and I am a bit too active there. I am building several EBS subs,cost very realistic. The only drawback,the size . As EBS stands for Extended Bass Shelf . The ideal way to obtain very deep bass in quantity besides IB designs.

Sound quality is tops,as compression is nonexistant at sane volumes.

before embarking read DIY forums,it may as it may not be what you are looking for. One thing is sure,price performance ratio is so high it aint even funny.

[33klfan]

Yep, i'll do some research over there, and see if i want to do it. Knowing that i can get a much better sub with better dollar for dollar ratio, i am definitely considering it. Now, if i don't do a diy sub, i noticed that epik castle is my price range even though the shipping adds a bit, and the ED A7S with the upgraded amp, looks good too. Would those be very similar in bass characteristics. Thanks.

[michael hurd]

http://www.acoupower.com/18b.php

[33klfan]

Wow, that's a huge sub, Michael. I think i'm looking for something a little smaller. Should 15" or 18" be my choices or can i go smaller. As long as i can make it about the same size as the epik castle or so, that should be good. Thanks for the link, btw.

[michael hurd]

Go for as much surface area on the driver as you can, it will reduce needed excursion for the same relative SPL level, also reduce distortion ( many forms ) such as IMD, Bl induced distortion, power compression, etc.

Try to fit as large an enclosure as possible, this will reduce needed power input, and keep the driver at safe drive leveles over long durations. ( unless you have a driver with extra-ordinary heatshedding abilities )

[33klfan]

ok, thanks for the advice, now i just have to pick out different brands and enclosures

[TheEAR]

Michael,

The Genesis Device is my style O sub. I may contact them soon,as I will equip myself only with the most over the top subs. Who needs mass market? The Genesis Device will blow them away.

Talk about OUTPUT,sick output.

[michael hurd]

Ear: if you are ordering from Acoupower, give me a buzz before you do. They have some items of interest to me, and I will gladly order ( if in quantities ) to get better pricing.

About March / April would be a good time for me. Call or Email me.

[33klfan]

I have been talking with the guys over at avsforum, and i am down to possibly a 6 cubic feet sub with 1 css sdx15, 2 css 1821 pr's and an o-audio peq amp or behringer ep 2500 amp. Some discussion over there seemed to eliminate the behringer even though it has more headroom and power. The other option is a tempest-x with 2 css 1821 pr's and the o-audio amp. Any thoughts here?

[SpinDoctor15]

Anyone here have any experience with the Parts Express kits? A friend of mine recommended the Dayton 12" kit:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=300-762

This might be an option for you, depending on what the "reviews" are on this sub kit...

[DrWho]

I have been talking with the guys over at
avsforum, and i am down to possibly a 6 cubic feet sub with 1 css
sdx15, 2 css 1821 pr's and an o-audio peq amp or behringer ep 2500
amp. Some discussion over there seemed to eliminate the behringer even
though it has more headroom and power. The other option is a tempest-x
with 2 css 1821 pr's and the o-audio amp. Any thoughts here?

That
SDX15 looks like a very solid setup. I would stick with the O-Audio amp
because you really need the signal processing capabilities to correctly
dial in the sub.

One thing to note is the subsonic on the O-Audio amplifier:

http://www.oaudio.com/docs/manual.pdf
I
went ahead and modelling some of the nonlinearities for the combo of
the amp and sub and think you should go with the 20Hz subsonic filter
setting. This is going to dramatically reduce distortion while taking a
little bit extra advantage of the excursion available on the passives.
You might also find yourself needing a few dB cut around 35Hz depending
on how loud you like to listen (and depending on the acoustics of your
room). Just something to keep in mind if you find things sounding a bit thicker (for lack of a better description).

So
what, this is gonna cost about $800 plus a cabinet? Sounds like it
totally nails your $1k budget if you can afford an ~18" cube box in
your room. I didn't look to see if more performance could be achieved
for the same dollar.

Btw, you might find these measurements interesting:

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/subwoofer-tests/8158-diy-css-sdx15-sealed-100l-new.html

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/subwoofer-tests/8159-diy-css-2xsdx15-sealed-140l-new.html

Keep in mind that these are sealed enclosures, which means the
distortion is going to drop considerably when a port is added to the
system. The larger cabinet is also going to reduce the power
compression, so you're probably looking at a very solid 110dB instead
of 105dB (depending on how you read the measurements, you might
consider it a good 115dB compared to 110dB).

As a reference, you can compare the above with some other measurements:

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/subwoofer-tests/6015-index-subwoofer-tests-manufacturer-model.html

I think you mentioned JL Audio earlier on, so I thought I'd mention
that you're looking at better performance with your current proposal
(at what, 1/4 the cost?).

And since I seem to be on a marathon of rambling, I thought I'd add
that you'll want to try and make sure your finished product behaves as
close as possible to the simulations. So that means building your
enclosure to be very rigid and well braced without airleaks. Liquid
nails does wonders for any minor blemishes in the woodworking. It also
means that you
should try to find a way to get the passives as close as possible to
the active driver. Any distance separating them (both on the inside and
outside) reduces the efficiency - especially it seems at lower
listening levels (which reduces the output at the tuning frequency). It
is also good to make the drivers fire away from
each other so that their physical movements try to cancel each other
out and help prevent the enclosure from rocking.
If you add some damping material inside the enclosure, try to keep it
minimal since you're going with passives. So pretty much, you only need
to add damping to one wall of each set of parallel walls (so in a cube,
it'd be a maximum of 3 walls with damping material). If you've got each
driver and the amp on its own wall, then really you only need damping
material on the top panel of the cube (you probably don't want to put
material on the amp to avoid trapping heat onto it). It also doesn't
hurt to offset drivers so that they're not in the middle of their panel
- effectively removing the compounding effects of any resonances that
might happen on the panel surface (we're getting real tweaky by this point....).

Anyways, I hope this helps.