Building a Sub woofer doable?

[CharlieBee]

While cruising walmart.com for some mini dvd discs for camcorder I saw an ad for a Pioneer 12" 600 watt peak subwoofer for $58. They had maybe 20 speakers, and several other subs.

They recommended an enclosure of 1.5 cubic feet. Sub has 91dB sensitivity (is higher better?). 4 ohm and 20 Hz to 4000 Hz and two coils so each channel of my receiver can be hooked up. Is an separate amp needed? Is a Crossover needed?

I just want to improve my bass (only have 10" woofers) and the wife will not let me turn my Sansui 9090dp above a few watts. (it is rated at 125w/ch at 8 ohms rms and is a real powerhouse not like some of these newer, wimpy receivers, this thing is 53 lb with a hugh power transformer)

Has anyone made a cabinet for one of these subs? Would just a sub and cabinet work?
Is a duct needed? Any plan source?

Charlie

[kexodusc]

Building a sub can actually be very, very easy. I would however suggest you look at tested and proven kit designs from several places. Parts Express has a bunch of ideas for their Dayton drivers...for around the same money you're looking at, you can get a far, far, superior unit, and a tested and proven design. The cabinets can be purchased too. Look on the right hand side menu for subwoofer kits and cabinets etc...then check out the Dayton Audio drivers for some decent 12" options. If you don't plan on using this too much for home theater and are looking for more music "oomph", I'd recommend the Dayton Quatro line...
The parts express "tech talk" board is full of people that will be happy to help you out too. I don't think anyone would argue that you'd be way better off to ignore the Pioneer woofer.

I'm actually leaning towards building the 1000 watt, 15" Titanic MKIII for myself next month, great for music and HT, which is what I need in my system now that I'm getting into multi-channel audio. I built the 12" equivalent for my parents last year originally it was going to be for me, but I liked it so much, the possibility of a good, affordable 15" was too hard to resist....That 12" easily topped my $900 Paradigm subwoofer for less than half the price.

Good luck.

[Woochifer]

While cruising walmart.com for some mini dvd discs for camcorder I saw an ad for a Pioneer 12" 600 watt peak subwoofer for $58. They had maybe 20 speakers, and several other subs.

They recommended an enclosure of 1.5 cubic feet. Sub has 91dB sensitivity (is higher better?). 4 ohm and 20 Hz to 4000 Hz and two coils so each channel of my receiver can be hooked up. Is an separate amp needed? Is a Crossover needed?

I just want to improve my bass (only have 10" woofers) and the wife will not let me turn my Sansui 9090dp above a few watts. (it is rated at 125w/ch at 8 ohms rms and is a real powerhouse not like some of these newer, wimpy receivers, this thing is 53 lb with a hugh power transformer)

Has anyone made a cabinet for one of these subs? Would just a sub and cabinet work?
Is a duct needed? Any plan source?

Charlie

There are so many approaches and vendors for doing DIY subs, the choices are pretty staggering. Answers to your questions depend on the kind of setup you're looking for.

You can build a passive sub, which would still need a crossover unless you plan to just run the sub in parallel with the main speakers (something you probably don't want to do because all it really does is function like a bass boost switch).

Most subs nowadays are active subs with their own amp. This is because the low frequency peaks with home theater sources can put a big load on an amp. Most of them include the crossover.

If you decide to build a sub, the first question is what kind of cabinet you plan to use. Most of the time, the choice comes down to ported versus sealed. Ported subs are more efficient and can go louder, but they're also a lot more difficult to design properly. With ported subs, you have to precisely match the interior volume with the size of the port opening for specific performance parameters.

Sealed subs are easier to design and build because the port opening is no longer a variable you need to account for. Sealed designs are more forgiving if your measurements and woodworking skills are less than precise. Even though its less efficient and the dropoff in bass output begins sooner, a lot of people prefer the sound of sealed subs because it might subjectively sound tighter or more "musical" (whatever that means).

Adire Audio sells drivers and amps, and posts plans for different subwoofer configurations specific to the characteristics of those drivers. The links below are the sealed and ported application guides to Adire's 12" Shiva driver. You can either build your own cabinet with those plans. Or you can buy from another vendor like Acoustic Visions, which sells both prefinished cabinets and flat-packed precut kits that you assemble yourself.

http://www.adireaudio.com/Files/Seal...plications.PDF
http://www.adireaudio.com/Files/Vent...plications.PDF
http://www.acoustic-visions.com/~aco.../pricing.shtml

[poneal]

since it frequency goes up that high. Subs normally operate from 20-500hz at most. An excellent DIY driver choice would be the dayton 12" quattro. It has plans on the site for the box. This would be your best value for the money. Here is a link to the quattro and a plate amp.

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=295-555
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=300-804
This will get you what you need.

[fudgemik]

charlie bee first of all those 2 coils that u think u can hook up to each speaker terminal on your amp , i hope your joking!!!!!! all that means is it has a dual voice coil (DVC) and that gives the speaker more load configuring capabilities not more speaker terminals to plug it into, u should do a little research on dvc woofers......and yes if u took that pioneer subwoofer u could make it kick ass in your home.....no need for ports just a sealed enclosure, i say that cause almost all pioneer subs if not all of them are sealed enclosure(most low end speakers are , but atleast the box design is more forgiving to errors) and i dont care if they say 1.5 u better make it between 1.75 and 2 and dont forget displacement of the speaker......also there is no crossover on that speaker so i hope what ever u feed it is low passed at 100hz 12db slope, no information over 100hz............good luck..........p.s. to go thru all of the whole box building thing do yourself a favor and get a decent pioneer sub, not top of the line but not bottom of the line, like say the IMPP model, i like 12" subs............

[royphil345]

Ya' know those cheap passive sub / sat combos they sell all over the place? How do you think they work? Dual voice coil subs can solve many car stereo installation and impedance problems, but they were originally developed to solve the problem of using a single passive sub for stereo. How would you suggest he make that Pioneer subwoofer "kick ass" in his home? Hook it up to one channel and hope the bass comes from over there? Radio Shack used to sell a separate passive sub that used a dual voice coil driver along with some higher-end companies before powered subs became the norm.

Anyhow... I'm guessing that this Pioneer is a car sub with two 4ohm voice coils. So, if you hook up a channel of your amp to each voice coil, then connect your main speakers in parallel you're going to have about a 3ohm load at best (assuming you have 8ohm main speakers) That will probably kill a home stereo amp pretty quick. Might work if you have A and B speaker outputs and your manual says it's ok to plug 4ohm speakers into one of them. (A dual voice coil sub designed for home use with two 8ohm voice coils would be better) Still, it probably wouldn't sound too good without a crossover for each channel that matched where your main speakers begin to drop off and a stereo L-pad volume control to match the loudness of the sub to your main speakers. To do this right wouldn't be an easy job. (would need to be a pretty good speaker designer) Actually, with the store-bought passive subs you would hook the amplifier straight to the the sub. The sub had outputs to your speakers. Sub had a passive crossover that crossed the sub and speakers over at a fixed frequency. Crossover network in combination with choosing a driver of the right impedance and efficiency also ensured a proper impedance load on the amp and a proper volume level between the sub and speakers. Sorta' tricky for a beginner...

Which is one of the reasons powered subs have become so popular. Makes it very easy to match the sub to your speakers. Don't have to worry about as many factors when selecting a driver. Much better performance too. I agree with everyone who said you should take a look at building a powered sub. Since your system is only two channels, and your wife won't let you turn it up anyway, you shouldn't need a very big amplifier. You can find alot of powered sub amps on the web at pretty reasonable prices with built-in adjustable crossovers + all the connectors already installed. Just add a box and a driver. Since it doesn't sound like you're after the ultimate in performance, have you checked out some of the cheaper ready-made powered subs? Think some of them would sound better (especially if you don't need loud) than a first attempt at a passive sub.




A few words from some people who manufacture subwoofers for a living...


The primary advantage of the dual voice coil speaker is wiring flexibility. A single dual voice coil driver offers the user three hookup choices...parallel, series and independent. In a parallel hook-up the drivers impedance will be half that of each individual coil (a dual 4 ohm speaker would be a 2 ohm speaker in parallel.) A series hook-up results in twice the impedance of each single coil (a dual 4 ohm speaker results in 8 ohms if its coils are wired in series.) Finally, you can wire each voice coil to a separate channel of your amplifier, which can be useful if your amplifier is not mono-bridgeable or if you are bridging a four channel amplifier down to two channels to run your sub.

The independent wiring application is the one that brought about the need for dual voice coil speakers in home audio. Unlike most good car amplifiers, home amplifiers and receivers are typically not mono-bridgeable. For this reason, dual voice coil woofers were developed so that a subwoofer or center speaker could be driven from the left and right channels of the average stereo home amp/receiver. Since sub-bass frequencies are hard to localize, the dual voice coil subwoofer allowed sub-bass reinforcement within one cabinet and one speaker. This cabinet could be placed inconspicuously in a corner or along a wall of the listening room, with the obvious benefits being space-efficiency and lower cost than two independent bass cabinets or a larger cabinet with two subs in it. Many popular home subwoofer / satellite speaker systems still use this basic configuration.

[fudgemik]

royphill i should have been a little more clear on my post. U ask how can that dvc pioneer 12" sub kick ass in his home ?? Well i am assuming he has dolby digital receiver at least, then the subwoofer pre out from the receiver goes to an active crossover , then to an independent amp, then to his pioneer sub.......... if no crossover then a passive coil after the amp before the sub...............u were talking in regards to him using a stereo receiver (2 channel) and connecting it in the terminals with other speakers, of course that wont workout properly........, i was referring to 5.1 or higher receiver using the sub pre out.......not the main terminals on the receiver..............hope this helps him understand