Sealed vs. Sealed Isobarik

[jbandpc]

I have an Adire Audio Tempest in a sealed ~5 cubic ft enclosure. Help me understand Isobarik configurations... Let's say I purchased another Tempest and wedged both drivers in the box in a clamshell configuration. In the process, we'll say I loose a cubic foot due to trying to keep the back of a driver from sticking out of the cabinet. Since, theoretically, isobarik Tempests in a 2.5 cubic ft enclosure would perform like one Tempest in the 5 cubic ft enclosure, would the isobarik Tempests in a 4 cubic ft enclosure do anything but good? I know I would have to feed it more power, but other than that...

What, exactly, would be gained? Lower Q, so tighter bass, right?
Other than money, what would be the downside?

[Weister42]

I have an Adire Audio Tempest in a sealed ~5 cubic ft enclosure. Help me understand Isobarik configurations... Let's say I purchased another Tempest and wedged both drivers in the box in a clamshell configuration. In the process, we'll say I loose a cubic foot due to trying to keep the back of a driver from sticking out of the cabinet. Since, theoretically, isobarik Tempests in a 2.5 cubic ft enclosure would perform like one Tempest in the 5 cubic ft enclosure, would the isobarik Tempests in a 4 cubic ft enclosure do anything but good? I know I would have to feed it more power, but other than that...

What, exactly, would be gained? Lower Q, so tighter bass, right?
Other than money, what would be the downside?

You're talking about having the subs facing eachother right? From what I heard since the subs will be wired out-of-phase from eachother, normally this will cancel out most of the bass, but in your case you're electronically out-of-phase AND acoustically out-of-phase, so you'll end up with a in-phase bass and canceling out any distortion or inaccuracies the subs may produce. The end result is tighter bass punch and accuracy to the max, and your amp won't work as hard driving an out-of-phase load.

I tried this with some cheap wal-mart subs and it did went lower than just one and somewhat more punchy, but it sounded like crap.(95% it's the speakers fault though, the other 5% is, well, I guess I'll blame it on me)

In my opinion the subs these days are made so well that they produce very low distortion. Adire Audio's subs are known for accuracy and excellent mechanical construction, so if I was you I would use the other one in a normal configuration to gain more SPL.

[N. Abstentia]

Along with the distortion cancellation, isobarik allows you to halve the enclosure size. So, you might want to find out what the frequency curve of your sub looks like in an 8 cu.ft. enclosure.