subwoofers and specs whats it all mean?

[slowpolky]

Howdy, i am currently looking at subwoofers ,I want a sub for my 20 by 11ft room with 8ft ceilings .I live in an app complex so i have to be concervative but i still want to have that low frequency effect without the rumble of the high wattage ,can i buy such a sub? There is some specks that i see but dont understand ie, the hsu says 25hrtz m ex mode, 32hrz m out m at 200 watts , how does this translate into actual sound i hear at low volume levels

[reeltrouble1]

well you could spend a few hours reading and getting your learn on, but the jist is the lower the hz the deeper the bass tones the sub will play, but all subs can play tones loud enough to bother your downstairs neighbors. get a sub that can play down to a least 30hz or so, Polk has some great new subs, there is a device made by Aurelex you can put under the sub to help the tones from going into your downstairs neighbors house, but you will still have to use caution, several receivers have settings you can use which will compress the sound further for late night viewing.

Enjoy your hunt.

RT1

[thuffman03]

Subs in an apartment building. Did that for a while and made a lot of people not like me. Even at low volume I found that base travels pretty far.

[slowpolky]

can you buy a sub that will put out a frequency that you cant hear but feel? if so ,how low is that frequency?

[reeltrouble1]

you need buttkickers. I suppose a sub could be made with a filter that cuts off all tones above 20hz but there are none I know of, kinda defeats the hole purpose of audio.

RT1

[Ender]

I believe you want a musical sub rather than an HT sub. A sub that does well at low volumes and tries not to rumble too much (though bass, by virtue of being low frequency, will rumble somewhat).

What's your budget? I was told the Totem Acoustics Storm subwoofer was particularly good at this.

[slowpolky]

whats a buttkicker do? i saw them but never knew what they did, do you put them under your ht seating? and how do they tie in with the movie?

[slowpolky]

my wifes only gona let me spend 350 but i could kick her but into giving me 450 maybe , after a ton of foot an head massages

[cnh]

Slow..

I would buy some of the material that Reeltrouble mentions if you live in an apartment. I have my own house my neighbor is about 30 feet away but can hear my sub through the house walls when it gets going!

Let's put your sound into perspective. Specs are relative but what should one look for.

Yes, subs can hit frequencies you can feel but not hear. But you're not going to find one of those for sale for much less than 1500 dollars or even much much more! And that will really drive your neighbors nuts because it'll be vibrating his walls, ceiling etc. Human hearing has a lower limit of 20hz and frequency below that is subsonic and is felt more than heard.

A good rule of thumb is what Reel mentioned above get a sub that will at least get you to 30hz or below within a +/-3 decibel tolerance at a watt rating RMS of at least 200 or more Watts with low distortion--preferably less than 1 percent or so. If you can listen to your sub...do so. Also pick it up, heavy is GOOD. Rap on it to see if it echoes....you want it to be pretty dead silent when you hit it. And so on. Also see if you can find numbers for the sub's dynamic peak level. This means how many watts it can hit for very short bursts when it is necessary (it can't sustain that wattage--but its good to know those numbers for HT effects).

Ex. 200 watts RMS BASH amplifier with no more than 1.5 percent total harmonic distortion at 50hz tone burst. +/-3db from 28-160hz Dynamic peak 425 watts!

Hope this helps some....

cnh

[slowpolky]

That helps alot, I think the polk 505 goes down to about 30 so thats gona look good with the rest of my setup and can be had for my price range, hey maybe even 2 of them just for showing off to my friends who are superficial rather than in the know

[cnh]

Polk PSW 505 a nice sub at its price point! Can get them well below 400 dollars....www.onecall.com

cnh

[treitz3]

can you buy a sub that will put out a frequency that you cant hear but feel? if so ,how low is that frequency?

Yes. It's called a rotary sub and with installation it comes to around 40K. To answer your next question, at or below the audible range of hearing.

[slowpolky]

40k !!! holy s*** i could buy a pair of prada socks with that money

[McLoki]

For a sub in an apartment, I think the secret is to place the sub RIGHT NEXT TO your seating location. Sound decreases by 6db every time you double the distance from the source to your ear. If you place your sub across the room, your neighbors may be able to hear your sub better than you can.

keep your sub close to your seating position and your LFE channel turned down.

Michael

[slowpolky]

thats super intresting mcloki, that brings me to a new option, having 2 psw303's placed real near my seats vs 1 psw505 further away. From a value proposition it seems better, plus i have thrown away my wifes couch and bought this huge 4 seater ht leather power reclining thing , so maybe 1 psw303 on each side of that would be good as opposed to 1 psw505 or 404