DIY - Sealed Subwoofer's (External powered)..

[elangoas]

Thanks @diyaudio , @flat_listener

There are some cylindrical subwoofer enclosure (bass tubes) aval that is meant for car audio.. Are any of these cylindrical enclosure good to be re-used for home audio.. If this is good, then end caps i can make them thru carpenter..

 

[flat_listener]

Laminates are about 1 mm thick, so you need 5 layers to get about 5mm for a sturdy sub

My dear Sir,

I mean doing it with 3 or 4 mm plywood... to achieve at least 12 or 16 mm wall thickness. 5 mm thk won't give sturdiness to a sub.

Thanks @diyaudio , @flat_listener

There are some cylindrical subwoofer enclosure (bass tubes) aval that is meant for car audio.. Are any of these cylindrical enclosure good to be re-used for home audio.. If this is good, then end caps i can make them thru carpenter..

By all means... if it matches your woofers volume requirement.

 

[elangoas]

Today tried to check aval of readymade cylindrical enclosure, but they were not aval..The ones aval are for car audio enclosures..

There is aval of flexi plywood..But couldn't see it in flesh..Will try other timber Depot..Is this a good enclosure for subwoofer?..

Anyways, getting cylindrical enclosure is minimal..Will now try to source home audio subwoofer drivers and decide on the sealed enclosure dimensions based on specs & recommendations..

 

[diyaudio]

My dear Sir,

I mean doing it with 3 or 4 mm plywood... to achieve at least 12 or 16 mm wall thickness. 5 mm thk won't give sturdiness to a sub.

The curve adds strength. You may find several projects of sub builds using sonotube made of paper just about 5 mm thick. Comparison of straight walled enclosure with a curved cylindrical one is not and apples to apples comparison. One may choose flexiply, its just costlier, has plywood layers separated by a rubber layer and a bit hard to find

The ones aval are for car audio enclosures..

Car sub enclosures will work fine if the internal volume suits your requirement.

 

[Ravindra Desai]

Now, considering Home audio subwoofer drivers from Peerless & IWAI.. Peerless has 15inch subwoofer driver.. Please share recent prices of subwoofer drivers if anyone got it recently, also contact details..

Any insights if cylindrical enclosure for a subwoofer aval locally?.. Any drawbacks of if that will be a sealed enclosure?..

Hello elangoas,

I just completed a 12" subwoofer build in a ported enclosure. It uses iWai driver.

I have 8" SW in a sealed 12" cube whose details I have shared elsewhere on forum. The link is in my signature.
The 8" subwoofer is simply great for the size and cost. (See, I said size and cost.....)

However, I wanted to build something !!wow!! without any compromise.
That led me to iWai 12" driver.
I designed the enclosure based on the T-S parameters given. The enclosure size is 15" x 15" x 32"
It is ported because I wanted that LOW extension. The enclosure is made from 18mm MDF and is braced inside at half height for rigidity.

The driver has a rubber surround so I was worried it will give that ringing smooth bass that most like but critical listeners hate.

Coming to the point:

This build is a beast that eats my 8" SW raw!
The bass is bloody tight and goes damn low. I almost never use such adjectives, but it was needed here.
The feeling of heaviness reminds you of very expensive systems.

Titanic track # 1: A Life So Changed
My whole hall (17ft x 19ft x 12ft) shakes and window panes rattle giving me goose bumps.

I tried Jazz. The plucks of the strings.....hmmm

I am driving it with my digital audio processor with my single board 3 x 20W amplifier.

This build has opened up tremendous possibilities for me. I am thinking of making very high quality active 2-way towers for stereophiles. Let's see...

Do let me know if you want to take it forward and I will share the build plan.

Thanks @diyaudio , @flat_listener

There are some cylindrical subwoofer enclosure (bass tubes) aval that is meant for car audio.. Are any of these cylindrical enclosure good to be re-used for home audio.. If this is good, then end caps i can make them thru carpenter..

Any driver in any enclosure is never a good idea.
Typically, the enclosures made for car SW are compact. SW drivers designed for cars have a reasonably high QTS. This results in a peaking response. Most people feel it is LARGE bass. Critically minded will easily make it out that it is acting as a 1 frequency wonder.
So be careful.

Regards,

Ravindra.

P.S. In the attached pictures, kindly ignore the 4" driver at the top. It has its own isolated space. It was made so that I could experiment with active two way configurations with different drivers by changing the face plate. The enclosure height of 32" is without the top enclosure height.

 

[elangoas]

The curve adds strength.

Thanks for the inputs.. Today i found ready made cylindrical enclosure for car sub-woofer, but they are ported.. They are made for 12 inch drivers and tall.. Since am looking for sealed one, also assuming that the enclosure height will be less for sealed than ported for the same 12 inch driver..Am thinking if i can get one of that enclosure, cut the ends and make plywood discs and make it sealed enclosure.. Would this work?.. (but first, i need to be sure if the home audio driver of 12 inch would fit in precisely on that cylindrical enclosure)..

An other option is Flexiplywood which the timber depot confirmed on the aval, but couldn't see it in flesh.. Need to check the cost..

If any of the above two ideas doesn't materialise, then will take the usual cuboid shape..

Hello elangoas,

I just completed a 12" subwoofer build in a ported enclosure. It uses iWai driver.

Great to know your build and experience.. Cheers..

Am planning for dual sealed subs for this DIY activity, will be powered by an unused Sonodyne stereo power amplifier..

Do let me know if you want to take it forward and I will share the build plan.

Sure.. Am still evaluating options, nothing concrete yet.. I will need your help / guidance for this DIY activity.. I was abt to ping you for inputs.. I will ping you with details, when i have some clarity / freezed on the specifics.. Thank you very much once again..

 

[Ravindra Desai]

Sure.. Am still evaluating options, nothing concrete yet..

Hey, I will be trying this driver in a sealed enclosure. That will reduce the height by 40%.
I will want to go with sealed (more compact) but only if it retains its magic at the very low end.
With the ported enclosure, I did not have to do anything in the DSP. But, if required, I'll use it to get more out of the driver. A sealed enclosure is also more forgiving to the drivers and so I'll try pushing it to the limits.

I'll keep this updated.

Regards,

Ravindra.

 

[diyaudio]

The driver has a rubber surround so I was worried it will give that ringing smooth bass that most like but critical listeners hate.

The driver surround has almost no impact at bass frequencies, rubber surround, foam surround or pleated surround of pro audio drivers, all work fine.

Any driver in any enclosure is never a good idea.
Typically, the enclosures made for car SW are compact. SW drivers designed for cars have a reasonably high QTS. This results in a peaking response. Most people feel it is LARGE bass. Critically minded will easily make it out that it is acting as a 1 frequency wonder.

Car enclosures come in various sizes. Similarly, car sub drivers come with various Qts, a free-air subwoofer has Qts above 0.7. Drivers for sealed/ported boxes have Qts lower than 0.5. The published specs never match the measured specs. If the sub is tuned low then the free field response of the sub matters very little in the room. Room modes will swamp out everything and the misalignment will get lost. A single sub will always be a one note wonder in room at some frequency due to a mode and have missing note at some frequency due to a null, the extent of which depends on the room.

 

[Ravindra Desai]

I realized that I need to tighten my sentences made in post 52:

Since this thread is about sealed enclosures and since @elangoas is mindful about keeping it sealed, it will not matter as much since a sealed enclosure can tolerate volume errors as much as 30-35%.
My statement about an over damped enclosure giving a peaking response is true for ported enclosures. However, it was misleading in the context of sealed enclosures.
My apologies.

Regards,

Ravindra.

 

[elangoas]

@elangoas is mindful about keeping it sealed

The only reason for opting for sealed is that, am novice to subwoofer build.. Don't want to screw it up (first time) with incorrect port placement & port diameter.. Sealed is simple to attempt for a novice DIY like me.. Just seal the cabinets..

Thanks @diyaudio , @flat_listener

There are some cylindrical subwoofer enclosure (bass tubes) aval that is meant for car audio.. Are any of these cylindrical enclosure good to be re-used for home audio.. If this is good, then end caps i can make them thru carpenter..

I spoke to one of the car audio circular enclosure suppliers in Delhi.. He said that the circular enclosure is made of "Paper roll" and the thickness is 12mm..

Is a "Paper roll enclosure" thickness of 12mm good as MDF/plywood?..

 

[Ravindra Desai]

I spoke to one of the car audio circular enclosure suppliers in Delhi.. He said that the circular enclosure is made of "Paper roll" and the thickness is 12mm..

Is a "Paper roll enclosure" thickness of 12mm good as MDF/plywood?..

No!

Regards,

Ravindra.

 

[elangoas]

No!

Regards,

Ravindra.

Thanks Ravindra.. This clears my doubts..

 

[Ravindra Desai]

Hello,

I just completed my the sealed version of the 12" subwoofer.
I had also carried it to the HFV Pune meet yesterday.

Attached is a picture for your ready reference. The enclosure size is 17" x 15" x 15".

I am planning to build an externally powered, active crossover, 2-way speaker using this and the pioneer 16cms dual cone speaker mentioned here:

https://pioneer-india.in/buy/car-entertainment-car-speakers-g-series/ts-g615/

I believe it will be a great combo that I hope will impress the Stereophiles. Let's see.....

If anybody has any experience with the 6" pioneer speaker, do let me know.

Regards,

Ravindra.

 

[diyaudio]

I ve used 4" Pioneer under dash furrange whizzer cone speakers.
6" may have similar characteristics. Use slightly large enclosure since Qts may be high. You may also need to Eq the highs, many car fullrange drivers have less highs.

 

[Ravindra Desai]

I ve used 4" Pioneer under dash speakers.
Use slightly large enclosure since Qts may be high. You may also need to Eq the highs, many car fullrange drivers have less highs

Bass will be diverted to the 12" subwoofer, but still it will get a generous isolated space. I, normally would have used the 4" but found the 6" launched recently. So it became a no brainer.

Regards,

Ravindra.

 

[elangoas]

I am planning to build an externally powered, active crossover, 2-way speaker using this and the pioneer 16cms dual cone speaker mentioned here:

Vow..Great.. Should be awesome.. So, technically a 2.2 stereo set-up..

 

[Ravindra Desai]

Hello,

I just finished the prototype of the externally powered, 2-way, active crossover speaker using Ahuja 12in FR + iWai 12" SW.
6" Pioneer dual cone was not available and I did not want that to be a bottle neck in the long run. Not including the 12" FR would have been a mistake!
Attached is a picture for your ready reference. The dimensions are 15" x 15" x 34"
It looks very compact but is very heavy. Takes very little power and sounds very detailed and very big.
This may be something that stereophiles can take a serious look/ listen at.
I have to spend time with it and closely observe it as the 12" FR breaks in.
As @elangoas rightly said in post # 65, it will technically make a 2.2 system.

Regards,

Ravindra.

 

[tuff]

I see the David and Goliath comparison...

 

[diyaudio]

What Eq was needed for 12"FR, if any?

 

[Ravindra Desai]

What Eq was needed for 12"FR, if any?

No eq was needed. None done.
However note that the 12"FR is in an over damped sealed enclosure. It will exhibit peaking response around 100Hz.
I negated that by diverting the bass right up to 163Hz to the SW which is in its correctly calculated enclosure.
I enjoyed that flexibility in this kind of set-up.

Listening impressions:

The system sounds very detailed and true.
The vocals have opened up and the vocalist now seems big and sits right in front of me rather than on the stage.
The system has become revealing in the sense that it picks up small details easily. So we need to be careful about the quality of the media.

It is like taking a picture with a point and shoot camera and you like the face.
But you click the same face with a sharp prime lens and it will reveal skin or make-up blemishes, if its not perfect.

Regards,

Ravindra.

P.S. Based on my past experience, the 12" FR will still change its tone over the next few days. Lets see.....