How To Install Dual Subwoofer With Built In Amp

The benefits of adding polyfill are also explained in Post #two.
For all the materials needed and important links, go to the terminate of Mail service #ii.

Besides, run across the post-obit DIY subwoofers:

1. Animo's Elemental Designs' Dual 13Av.two Sealed subwoofer in Post #602.
2. Big Daddy's 15" Dayton Titanic MKIII driver and a massive subwoofer enclosure built by Elemental Designs in Mail service #614.
3. Large Daddy's 12" DIY kit in Post #621.
4. Big Daddy's upgrade of the Hsu cylinder sub with an Exodus Shiva driver, go to Post # 587.
5. CoMaToast'southward folded horn subwoofer in Postal service #779.
6. Large Daddy's DIY subwoofer with Dual TC Sounds Epic Drivers

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HOW I REPAIRED & UPGRADED MY SUBWOOFERS, BUILT A NEW One,
AND UPGRADED MY VINTAGE POLK SPEAKERS

Delight discuss your DIY subwoofers/speakers and any other enhacements in this thread. If you are planning to build, repair, or upgrade a speaker/subwoofer, you may want to read A Guide to Crossover Networks.

REPAIRING MY SUBWOOFER

Several years ago (1998), my wife and I went to the headquarters of Hsu Research in Anaheim, CA to buy a subwoofer. I had heard prissy things nearly Hsu subwoofers in loftier-end publications such every bit Stereophile. I had just purchased ii Definitive Technology Super Towers with 15" subwoofers and built-in amplifiers. My main trouble was how to best connect and adjust the new subwoofer. Even dorsum and so, I knew virtually the advantages of using multiple subwoofers in a small home theater room.

Nosotros were greeted by Dr. Hsu and spent several hours conversing with him and listening to music and movies with some of his latest designed subwoofers. At that fourth dimension, the top-of-the-line subwoofer made by Hsu Inquiry was HRSW12Va. It was a 12" cylinder-shaped sub that looked absolutely stunning. To brand a long story short, nosotros ended upward buying two HRSW12Va subwoofers with Walnut elevation at a total price of $ane,543.50 (in 1998 dollars).

Technical Specifications

Frequency Response: 20Hz - 500Hz
Power Handling: 500watts RMS
Nominal Impedance: iv Ohms
Sensitivity: 93db @ 1m. 2.83V
Terminate: Seamless black knit cloth over cylinder, choice of three top finishes
Size : 23 inches in diameter, 22 inches in height
Weight: 65 lbs.
Feet: Iii black anodized aluminum spiked feet.

The subwoofers did non have a congenital-in amplifier. The external 500 watt amplifiers were $650 each. I decided not to purchase the amplifiers as I had already purchased a massive Cinepro amplifier from the manufacturer at a high-cease audio/video bear witness in Orange County, CA. The half dozen channel Cinepro was capable of providing 750 watts per channel into iv Ohms, all channels running.

The subwoofers served us well for the past 10 years. They worked well together and played bass beautifully for both music and movies. They were not boomy at all. I was then impressed with their performance that I decided to name them Aimie and Suzie. Most of you lot probably own male person subwoofers that are too manlike. Ours did not really play bass, they sang information technology. Hither is a picture of Aimie.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, the unthinkable happened. Aimie decided not to sing anymore. Initially, I thought there was a loose cable or something may have gone wrong with the amplifier. After farther testing, I realized that Aimie had departed us. I then realized that I must take killed her a few nights earlier when I played the Dark Side of the Moon SACD so loud that I scared the living daylights out of her. I became very upset and didn't know what to do.

The next morning I chosen Hsu Research. The person on the phone was new and had no data about my subwoofers. I asked him to take Dr. Hsu call me. A few hours later, he called and I explained the situation. He said that he still carries the driver for my sub and it will be around $100. Since I simply alive near 50 minutes abroad from their warehouse, I told him that I will come and pick it up the next twenty-four hour period.

After I hung upwards, I decided to go online and get some information about subwoofer drivers. Of course, my favorite site for this kind of information is Parts Express. They are one of the best places in the globe for accessories needed for speaker edifice. After wasting several hours online, I realized that there are many other options available for a 12" commuter. It was then that I decided to be courageous and replace the dead commuter on my subwoofer with an upgraded model. I figured that you only live once and it is only coin. I ordered the Dayton Titanic Mk Three for $150 + Shipping. I was told that information technology will take approximately five days for the driver to get to my home. Here is a picture:

After I placed the order, I returned to my habitation theater room, I disconnected Aimie and decided to play some music and movies without her. It didn't accept me long to realize that Suzie was upset and her bass performance was not what I expected of her. Those of you who are familiar with my threads on subwoofers and standing waves know that the placement of one subwoofer in a habitation theater room is tricky. I decided to ignore Suzie and wait until the other subwoofer gets repaired. I closed the room and told Suzie that she better learn to deport or I will replace her with a new and improved woman.

The wait was finally over and the new 12" driver arrived. It was pretty heavy. I took it out of the box and set it bated and replaced the subwoofer in virtually an hr. I continued the wires and played some music and got excited that information technology was working. For the next several days I played lots of movies and music that independent heavy bass to intermission in the new driver. I calibrated my speakers again and to my surprise I realized that Suzie actually likes Aimie and cooperates with her. Initially, I had worries about mixing two different types of drivers, but the driver is just a small part of the moving-picture show. The enclosure (box) is far more important.

UPGRADING A SUBWOOFER

Several weeks passed and I began to enjoy the new and improved Aimie. Suzie was becoming jealous and was showtime to fight with Aimie. To make the matters worse, I had caught the upgraditis bug. It was coming to my dreams every night and asking me to upgrade Suzie. I am certain nearly of you have already caught this bug as it is very contagious. Finally, I succumbed to the bug and decided to get ahead and do what is not good for my bank account. Notwithstanding, I decided to document everything this time with pictures and guidelines for your benefit.

Afterward spending several days on the Internet searching for subwoofer drivers, I decided to experiment with long throw aluminum woofers. A visitor I had heard nearly with skillful reviews was Peerless (Tymphany). Their subwoofers are designed in Denmark and made in People's republic of china. Is there anything on this planet that is not made in Mainland china? Unfortunately, Parts Express was out of stock. I decided to order the Peerless 830952 (XXLS-308ALU, Long Stroke, 12" Aluminum Cone Woofer, 4 ohm for $222.35+Aircraft from Madisound in Wisonsin. Incidentally, Martin Logan'southward Completeness subwoofer uses a depression distortion aluminum-cone driver.

After waiting a calendar week, the woofer arrived and I got busy. Here is a picture show of Suzie in normal position.

This is Suzie upside down. Guys, please no lusting. She belongs to me.

This a motion picture of Suzie with her organ removed.

This is a moving-picture show of Suzie's inside with poly-fill material. Poly-fill is more often than not added to dampen the subwoofer's enclosure. Run into the benefits of poly-fill up in Mail #2.

I purchased additional Poly-Fill cloth from Parts Express. They are $ten.eighty a pound and rather expensive, just they are the best.

The final pace was to use Gasketing Tape around the interior edge of the driver for an airtight attachment to the enclosure.

Finally, the driver was attached to the cabinet. You can utilize either Phillips Pan Head Screws or Wood Inserts and screws. For large and heavy drivers, Woods Inserts are preferred.

This is the finished subwoofer.

After replacing their drivers and calculation more poly-fill to them, the two subwoofers felt equally if they had gone through a sex modify functioning. They scare me. I need to alter their names to masculine names. A few nights ago, I watched Journey to the Center of the Globe on Blu-ray. Even though the audio was only in Dolby Digital, the bass audio, when the dinosaur arrived, was shaking the foundation of our house. Ii thumbs up to Aimie and Suzie.

You think the story ends here. Think twice. Now, Big Daddy is full of confidence and has a spare working 12" driver that he removed from Suzie. What is he going to practise with information technology? Maybe he should build a new 12" subwoofer.

BUILDING A NEW SUBWOOFER

In the next few weeks, I spent a dandy bargain of time researching subwoofer edifice on the Net. I realized that the virtually difficult role of making a subwoofer is the cabinet. Y'all need to take the tools and good carpentry skills.

Speaker Enclosure Material
Speaker enclosures can exist made of anything rigid plenty to not vibrate and cause baloney. The most common materials are Plywood, Particle board, and MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard). Plywood is more than resistant to water, probably the strongest, and lightest. Particle lath and MDF are much denser and may have better sonic properties. MDF makes the nicest looking boxes and is easy to work with.

My carpentry skills are adept, but I don't have all the tools, particularly for cut a nice round round opening on MDF forest and a square cut for the amplifier. In addition, the cost of making a cabinet and buying the necessary tools would exist a lot higher than buying ready-made cabinets. Therefore, I decided to gild a ready-made enclosure. After doing an exhaustive search, I limited my choice to three sites.

Subwoofer Enclosures:

1. Nigh sites offering subwoofer boxes with two choices of carpets: grayness or black. HiFi Sound Connectedness offers high quality boxes that are painted in black and the prices are very reasonable.
2. Klaus Audio offers custom made boxes with carpet finishes or plain woods finish that you can paint or stain and varnish. Y'all tin order custom fabricated enclosures in different sizes, with choices of Slot or Flared Ports. This is by far the all-time site for subwoofer enclosures.
3. The last pick is Elemental Designs. They make keen subwoofers, but they are not necessarily the most bonny ones. You tin guild custom subwoofer enclosures from them, but their prices are high.
4. Ready-fabricated subwoofer kits are also bachelor from Parts Limited. They come in unlike sizes and prices.

I finally decided to order a gear up-fabricated vented subwoofer enclosure from HiFi Audio Connection. Since I did not possess the necessary cutting tools, I made the decision that the subwoofer will be a passive one with an external crossover/amplifier. The cabinet I ordered was $64.95 + Shipping. Information technology arrived in less than a week. Immediately, I marked where the driver was going to be installed and drilled very pocket-size holes for the installation screws. This is a film of the empty box.

The first stride afterwards drilling the holes was to attach a 15" pair of wires with small Disconnects from the within to the speaker last binding posts. Who came upwardly with this name? You need disconnects to connect something. It does not make much sense. They are available at the auto department of Wal-Mart or the electrical section of Home Depot/Lowes.

Before doing any boosted work, I had to install spikes or legs. I knew from feel that subwoofers need to be moved around for optimum bass sound. I therefore decided to install casters instead of spikes. I was in no mood to carry a heavy subwoofer around.

Next, I covered the inside of the box with Dampening Sheets and filled it loosely with Poly-fill material. You lot can apply i/2" Acoustic Foam or 1" Acoustic Foam instead.

Every bit I stated before, Poly-fill from Parts Express is first-class, just very expensive. You need two numberless and it will cost you over $20. Standard poly-fill cloth is available at Wal-Mart and almost craft and fabric stores. They are a lot cheaper.

The final footstep was to connect the woofer to the wires with female person disconnects and adhere it with blackness screws to the box. To brand sure the subwoofer is attached to the enclosure without whatsoever air leakage, information technology is a good thought to put a layer of gasketing tape around the edge of the interior of the subwoofer driver.

This is the finished subwoofer.

I then moved the subwoofer to my two channel room and connected it to the my vintage Polk RTA-15TL speakers. Fortunately, I had an old DBX 300 watt subwoofer amplifier and a HSU Research crossover network that I had purchased with my two HSU subwoofers in 1998.

With the help of an SPL meter and test tones, I calibrated the audio with a crossover frequency around 50Hz. Since the commuter was over 10 years old, information technology did not demand a break-in menses. With a lot of feet I started playing music. It was so much ameliorate than before that tears of joy came to my eyes. A few minutes later my wife walked in from work and asked me if I had bought new speakers. I showed her the finished subwoofer. She was very impressed with the new audio and commented that I should start a subwoofer manufacturing business. Motility over Elemental Designs. Big Daddy is in town.

REFURBISHING AND UPGRADING AN Quondam AND WORN-OUT SUBWOOFER

In 1989, I bought a DBX 15" down-firing sealed subwoofer. It was a passive sub, but had an internal crossover network set up at 120Hz. I also bought an external DBX subwoofer amplifier to drive it. Currently, I am using that amplifier to bulldoze the subwoofer that I built for my 2-aqueduct organization (encounter pictures above). The sepcifications of the onetime subwoofer are listed below.

Specifications
Dimensions: 24" H, 18" W, 18" D
Recommended Power: 20 - 250 Watts
Nominal Impedance: 6.3 Ohms
Sensitivity: 90.5 db
Crossover: Fixed at 120 Hz, 12 db/Octave
Woofer: xv" Polyvinyl Acetate-Coated

I used the subwoofer with 2 pocket-size Infinity satellite speakers in a 2.1 system. Subsequently a few years, I bought meliorate speakers and stopped using that system. The subwoofer was by and large in the storage room picking up dust and going to waste product. Recently, after I upgraded my Hsu subwoofers and built a new sub, I got the urge to upgrade the former and forgotten monster. The cabinet had small-scale scratches and a couple of the legs had minor cracks and were a scrap loose.

I decided that before I practise anything, I should club and buy the textile needed to repair the sub. I went to my favorite speaker-building Web site, Parts Express, and ordered a 15" Dayton Titanic MK III woofer, one Subwoofer Terminal Plate, and dampening sheets. I besides went to Dwelling house Depot and bought 4 casters, several corner brackets, wood repair epoxy putty, and some screws. These are the pictures and the specifications for the Titanic MK III 15" commuter:

Specifications of the 15" Titanic MK III:

Frequency range: nineteen-500 Hz
Power treatment: 800 watts RMS/1,100 watts max
Impedance: 4 ohms
Frequency at Resonance (Fs): 24 Hz
Sensitivity: 91.7 dB

I had to wait about 5 days to receive the material I had ordered. This is a pictorial demonstration of how I refurbished and upgraded the subwoofer:

Stride 1. I removed the woofer, the speaker terminal, and the crossover that was attached to the last.

Step 2. I used the corner brackets to reinforce the old subwoofer's legs, repaired the cracks with wood epoxy putty, and attached the casters.

Pace 3. I widened the speaker last opening because the ane I had ordered from Parts Express was slightly bigger. Then, I attached the new last plate with small screws.

Pace 4. I attached the dampening sheets to the within walls of the cabinet.

Step five. After attaching two modest wires with disconnects to the speaker terminals, I filled the cabinet with poly-make full material.

Step 6. I tested the new woofer to make certain information technology was not defective, connected the wires from the terminal, and fastened it to the cabinet enclosure.

Step 7. I attached my new visitor'south logo to the subwoofer and placed it in the rear of my home theater room and ran a long RG6 subwoofer cable from my Denon receiver to the location of the new subwoofer. Keep in mind that I already have two modified 12" Hsu subwoofers in that room. In add-on, the 2 Definitive Technology Super Tower front speakers take 15" powered subs inside them. That makes 5 subwoofers all together. Even so, but three of them are continued to LFE out. The ii congenital-in Def Tech subwoofers are connected to the front pre-outs.

The crossover and volume control from Pyle Pro controls the subwoofer.

Step eight. To power the subwoofer, I decided to use an external powerful amplifier, not one of those amplifier plates.

Several years ago (1993), I got an exceptional deal on two Carver M-1.0t Amplifiers from a retailer that was going out of business organisation. Currently, I use one of them to drive the two Polk RTA-15TL speakers in my ii-aqueduct system. The other one was connected to an onetime Yamaha receiver to drive ii speakers in the family room. I wasn't using that system very oft. I decided to disconnect the amplifier and have the receiver drive the speakers. I figured that the amplifier will get much better use with the new rebuilt subwoofer. According to the Owner'south Manual, the amplifier is rated 1,000 watts RMS into viii ohms, single channel. My subwoofer is 4 ohms. I am assuming that the amplifier tin can power the subwoofer upwardly to 2,000 watts RMS, more than enough to create an convulsion in Southern California.

The Moment of Truth

I calibrated my system after I broke in the new subwoofer for several days. This new subwoofer is unbelievable. Information technology is powerful, accurate, musical, thunderous, tight, loud, and damn beautiful (sonic wise). This is by far the best subwoofer that I have ever owned and I have owned many over the years. It rocks.

I know what some of you are thinking. Big Daddy is a bass freak and has gone completely mad. Permit me tell y'all something. The thought of multiple subwoofers is not well-nigh louder SPL. It is all about getting a polish and even bass beyond the unabridged room. My sound system is calibrated perfectly with the help of Audyssey MultEQ and my old reliable Radio Shack digital SPL meter. Every speaker in the room is calibrated perfectly to 75 db. This includes the subwoofers. When I walk around the room with the SPL meter, the bass sound varies betwixt 73 and 78 db. In the main seating expanse, it is perfectly 75 db for all three seats on the sofa. This is outstanding performance for a dedicated habitation theater room. Those of yous who have i subwoofer should try this. You will notice that the variation across the room is much larger. In fact, there may be locations in your room with terrible bass response.

Some other fifteen" SUBWOOFER

I congenital another 15" monster subwoofer for my HT room. I had upgraded an one-time DBX sealed subwoofer a couple of months agone. Although its performance was expert, it did non mix well with the other iii ported subs in the HT room. I decided to have the driver out of the that sub and put it in a new ported cabinet.

The driver was the same 15" Dayton Titanic MK III that I had originally purchased a few months ago from Parts Limited. See pictures and specifications in Postal service #1.

I also purchased five sheets of 1/2" Audio-visual Foam at a price of $8.97 + shipping per sheet of 18" 10 24" and one pound of Poly-Fill cloth for $ten.fourscore + shipping and standard generic poly-fill up from Wal-Mart for $3. I mixed the two.

The chiffonier was from HiFi Audio Connection at a cost of $74.95 + shipping.

Cabinet Specifications:

Precision Constructed with 3/four" MDF
Blackness blanket: Seven Sprayed on layers for a long lasting, durable, water resistant enclosure (same technology as spray-on bed liner)
Includes Built-In Terminal Cup(due south)
Slot Ported Enclosure
Width: 21", Height: 16", Depth: 18"

Offset, I marked and drilled small holes for the driver, and covered the inside of the box with dampening cream and filled information technology loosely with Poly-fill up material. I likewise continued a prepare of speaker wires to the within of the speaker final binding posts.

Next, I used Gasketing Tape around the interior edge of the commuter for an closed zipper to the enclosure.

The concluding step was to connect the wires to the driver and employ Wood Insert Nuts from Professional Hardware & Supply Co. to attach the driver to the cabinet. Forest inserts piece of work better than regular screws for large and heavy drivers.

This is the finished subwoofer.

I placed it on the new sub riser that I had recently congenital.

I used the same Pyle Pro external crossover and Carver amplifier as described before.

I now have enough subwoofers for every room in the business firm, including the bathrooms. My wife says that our firm is fully SUBWOOFERIZED. I don't hold. I think I should build an 18" or 21" before I fully retire from subwoofer building.

MATERIALS NEEDED AND LINKS

Continued in the adjacent post.

Source: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=74527

Posted by: rossgother1977.blogspot.com

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