10" or 12" subwoofer

[Early B.]

Thinking of building a DIY subwoofer for music only playing mostly jazz at moderate levels in a small room (12" x 17" x 8"). Looking at a couple of different drivers that offer both sizes. The cost between the 10" and 12" drivers is nominal. Which size should I buy and why?

Thanks.

[StopherJJ1980]

if the cost is nominal, go with 12...
Better to have the extra cone size if you need it.

[tryrrthg]

15" :) Keep distortion nice and low.

What drivers are you looking at? Ascendant Audio should be releasing their new drivers in the next few weeks. I'd wait to see what they have in store.

[hoosier21]

Thinking of building a DIY subwoofer for music only playing mostly jazz at moderate levels in a small room (12" x 17" x 8"). Looking at a couple of different drivers that offer both sizes. The cost between the 10" and 12" drivers is nominal. Which size should I buy and why?

Thanks.

Your not kidding that is a small room :p

Go with bigger is better

[RuSsMaN]

Flip a coin.

Go hardcore, build stereo subs.

[unc2701]

For your musical listening tastes, I'm gonna say 10". Ever notice how all the really expensive subs (ML, rel, etc) rarely have anything bigger than a 10"? Hmmmmm..... You don't need wicked loud or super low for jazz. Low mass drivers are the way to go here.

[Early B.]

Go hardcore, build stereo subs.

Yeah, I may do that eventually. Maybe two 10" passive subs with a 2-channel amp and some sort of crossover module. But before I do that, I'd have to hear the SQ difference between a good single sub and stereo subs in a small room.

[shack]

Size doesn't always matter. I would go 10", maybe even acoustic suspension. I've heard some nice rigs with "stereo" subs. I would definitely consider that option.

[tryrrthg]

I think a 10" driver (or even two) would run out of steam in that size room. A friend of mine runs an REL Storm (10" driver) in a room that size and he doesn't get enough output. two sealed 12's with some EQ would be great for music.

Your room is similar in size to mine, mine is a bit bigger. I'm about to finish a sealed Atlas 15 sub, which should be excellent for music. I'll be running some frequency sweeps and EQ with a BFD over the next few weeks. I'll post the results.

[RuSsMaN]

I'd have to hear the SQ difference between a good single sub and stereo subs in a small room.

You'll notice it when the cat playing the upright bass is standing over on the left.

Cheers,
Russ

[Early B.]

I think a 10" driver (or even two) would run out of steam in that size room.

Huh? Previous subs in that room have both been 10" and it's more than adequate. Hell, I was even considering an 8" sub.

[Early B.]

You'll notice it when the cat playing the upright bass is standing over on the left.

Damn, now I'm really intrigued. Two questions:

1. For placement of the stereo subs, should they both be in the front next to the speakers or can they be tucked away in the back? (I'm asking due to WAF considerations and aesthetics -- she'd never understand the need for two subs, but if I can hide them, she won't freak out).

2. Passive, active, or does it really matter? Pros and cons?

[unc2701]

Plate amps are good in that they have everything you'd need in a single easy to install component. However, I'm never impressed with their sound (or specs) and feel like you're usually better with a poweramp and a crossover. Is this going on the jolida? does if have a pre out? if not you're going to have to rig something up that'll take speaker level input.

One last thing to consider is that some plate amps have a built in EQ or boost circuit that lets you extend the bottom end of your response just a little further.

[unc2701]

Oh, and stereo sub placement- usually you try to put them as close to the speakers as possible. No many recordings really use a stereo mix for the bass, but when you hear it, you'll be hooked.

[madmax]

Just a guess but I'm thinking stereo 10" sealed box subs. Because of quickness maybe? How about this, 4x6.5" times two for stereo.
madmax

[unc2701]

Grab that 555 in the flea market & get a ICBM or paradigm x-something crossover. Tons of power, the option to go mono and way better quality than a plate amp.

6.5" is usually too small to get the low notes. There's a scan-speak revelator w/ an Fs of 30hz, but otherwise, you're looking at 40-50hz; too high for a true subwoofer.

[Early B.]

Is this going on the jolida? does if have a pre out?

Sort of. I don't have a subwoofer pre-out on my Jolida. I can have the Jolida modded for pre-outs, but it's not worth the effort. I had my sub hooked up to the CD player which has an extra set of line outs. Works quite well.

[Early B.]

Alright, you guys talked me into trying the stereo sub thing. Just gotta save up the funds for it over the next couple of months to make it happen.

[tryrrthg]

Here (http://www.partsexpress.com/projectshowcase/drake/index.html) is a nice little design for a smallish sub. The drivers are on sale right now at PE for $104 each

DAYTON RSS315HF-4 12" HIGH FIDELITY SUBWOOFER (http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=295-464)

A pair of those powered by a Nady XA-1100 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002D0RR6/qid=1137100623/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3898630-5552048?n=507846&s=electronics&v=glance) pro amp (if you can deal with the fan noise) for $155.99 shipped, gets you two pretty nice subs and a ton of power on the cheap. Get yourself a crossover like unc2701 said and you'd be in business.

[Early B.]

Here (http://www.partsexpress.com/projectshowcase/drake/index.html) is a nice little design for a smallish sub. The drivers are on sale right now at PE for $104 each

DAYTON RSS315HF-4 12" HIGH FIDELITY SUBWOOFER (http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=295-464)

How does this driver compare to the Dayton Titanic MKIII and which one would be best suited for music?

[unc2701]

[QUOTE=tryrrthg

A pair of those powered by a Nady XA-1100 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002D0RR6/qid=1137100623/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3898630-5552048?n=507846&s=electronics&v=glance) pro amp (if you can deal with the fan noise) for $155.99 shipped, gets you two pretty nice subs and a ton of power on the cheap. Get yourself a crossover like unc2701 said and you'd be in business.[/QUOTE]


if you get a pro amp with volume knobs on it you can get a cheap pseudo-active crossover (http://cgi.ebay.com/Crossover-woofer-adjustable-NO-POWER-REQUIRED_W0QQitemZ5844856589QQcategoryZ14931QQssPa geNameZWD1VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem) The ICBM works better, but $20 is hard to beat. If you hooked it up to the CD player like you mentioned, you'd just control the volume using the knobs on the amp.

edit: dammit, urls are being bitchy- cut & paste.

[tryrrthg]

How does this driver compare to the Dayton Titanic MKIII and which one would be best suited for music?
Not really sure. I know they're marketing the one I linked to as a "High Fidelity" driver, so it's hard to say. The titanic obviously has more excursion, etc. You could give PE a call and see what they say.

If you're thinking Titanic you might want to wait to see what Ascendant Audio is coming out with because you already know theirs drivers sound good.

[Early B.]

If you're thinking Titanic you might want to wait to see what Ascendant Audio is coming out with because you already know theirs drivers sound good.

Yeah, I e-mailed Chad early yesterday but haven't received a response yet. I wanted to inquire about the Assassin 10" and 12" drivers.

[burdette]

How does this driver compare to the Dayton Titanic MKIII and which one would be best suited for music?

You could ask that on the PE forum. Lots of knowledge there.

I think.. THINK.. the 12" Titanic is a copy of the NHT 12" classic driver. Other PE driver lines are copies of other nonPE drivers. I used to know of a site that talked about all that and now I can't find it (don't even know if it still exists).

Here is a good general site:
http://www.diysubwoofers.org

This site has a LOT of different drivers:
http://www.acoustic-visions.com/~acoustic/products/subwoofer_drivers/by_size.shtml

[Early B.]

Just ran across this pretty monstrous sub...

http://www.aadsound.com/products/2000/s2000.htm

Down to 18 Hz with two 8" drivers. Sometimes (woofer) size doesn't matter.

[Airplay355]

Weird how a company with "American" in it's name has things that aren't available in the USA. Doesn't sound very American to me.

[Early B.]

My previous sub was an Onix Rocket UFW-10. I went on the av123 forum and noticed that Onix uses the PE 500 watt amp for its UFW-12. I wonder if they use Dayton woofers, too. Hmmm.

Decided to try out the Dayton Titanic MKIII 10" kit. With free shipping and a money back guarantee, the price was hard to pass up. It comes in a basic black box, but the sub will be hidden from view, so I don't care. If it sounds good, maybe I'll eventually buy another one and have stereo subs. Hmmmm.

[Early B.]

A question about stereo subs -- is signal separation the issue that they resolve?Currently, my sub (when it arrives) is only receiving a signal from one channel, so there's no left/right separation in the lower registers. Will stereo subs will fix that problem? Or is it a problem at all?

[madmax]

Localization is where you can tell (because of some flaw) where the bass is coming from. Sometimes you can't even explain how you can tell. Stereo subs minimize this because it comes from around each speaker instead of a single place. Some recordings have different bass coming from each channel as well. In this case you would be missing some of it if hooked to a single channel or would be loosing soundstage if you combine it from both channels in a single sub.
madmax

[Early B.]

My previous sub was an Onix Rocket UFW-10. Decided to try out the Dayton Titanic MKIII 10" kit. With free shipping and a money back guarantee, the price was hard to pass up.

OK, I got the kit today, put it together and hooked it up. First, the build quality is much better than I anticipated and superior to the Onix. The amp is quite substantial and the driver is a bad little mofo. The cabinet was nicer than expected; it has the auto bed liner look and feel to it. A couple of coats of poly would make it look real nice.

So how does it sound? My preliminary assessment is that it sounds as good as the Onix for my purposes. Let me explain -- I have the sub volume at around 9 a.m. with the crossover at 50 - 60 Hz, so it only fills in a small amount of the lowest notes, when necessary. Many of the songs I play hardly engages the sub. Nevertheless, I can tell when it's not on, but not always. It sounds quite different from the Onix when turned up. It has a lot more punch and less finese than the Onix, so therein lies the tradeoff. Got it turned up high right now with some heavy bass tracks to loosen her up. In the process of switching out subs, I realized that my placement isn't the greatest, but I gotta keep it hidden.

Overall, I'm pleased with the performance. However, with music only, I'd have to give the nod to the Onix because it is more musical at louder levels. If you listen mainly to rap or rock, etc., then I'd suggest the Titanic because it hits harder without sounding boomy.

[aaharvel]

all else being equal, go with the bigger driver if you louder bass. However I think a smaller sub is more accurate with music - again, if all else being equal.

[madmax]

Great writeup! The original titanic 12" was always noted as very musical while not that great for HT. It has not been available for quite some time though.
madmax

[Early B.]

I hooked up the sub to my HT system just to see how it sounds there even though the room is too large for it. Sounded pretty decent, but the driver was working real hard to keep up. I feared for it and turned the volume down before the poor thing exploded. While I believe in a smaller room it would do well, I would still recommend a ported sub. There are a couple of excellent options in its price range such as the Hsu STF-2 and SVS PB10.

[Early B.]

Back to the stereo sub idea -- I was interested in this concept so I rolled my HT sub into the living room where my 2-channel system is located for a demonstration of the stereo sub concept and connected an RCA cable to the extra "white" inputs on my CD player (other sub was connected to the corresponding "red" inputs).

Results -- I heard absolutely no difference whatsoever. Therefore, I see no reason to pursue the stereo sub thing. I'm not saying it doesn't make a difference, just that in my little experiment I couldn't tell the difference.

I wonder, though, why stereo subs are recommended *if* bass is actually omnidirectional. Doesn't seem like the stereo imaging thing would apply to bass. I'm puzzled. Can anyone help me out on this one?

[unc2701]

You need to find a recording that uses stereo bass. If it's not in the mix, then you won't hear any difference. Bass is far less direction below about 80 hz, but you can still tell where it's comming from. Do you have Beck's latest? I seem to remember it having some interesting bass from each speaker.

[Early B.]

How do you know if a recording uses stereo bass (before you buy it)? How many are out there?

[unc2701]

You don't. I'd bet that some engineers/producers will consistantly record tracks that way, so once you find a few recordings, you could use www.allmusic.com to find other recordings that they've done, but there's no telling.

In my recording experience, usually no one really even thinks about it. You spend forever getting the drums mic'd just right, then spend about 30 seconds setting up the bass, punch it to the L&R busses and that's that.

If I have time this weekend, I'll poke through my vinyl and see if I can find some fairly common recordings that have it. Try Dark Side of the Moon or Wish you were here. I don't know for sure, but I'd put money on them. Also try anything that's been produced by the Dust Brothers.

[Early B.]

Thanks, unc. I'm a jazz enthusiast. Just wondering if anyone knows whether or not any jazz recordings are mixed with stereo bass.

[tryrrthg]

Ascendant released their drivers, with some VERY nice intro prices.

http://www.ascendantaudio.com/index.htm