
Build Your Own Subwoofer 232
Gerard J. Pinzone writes "Here's a page that details the construction of a homebrew subwoofer." Another in a long line of "You can, but should you?" projects.
USENET would be a better laboratory is there were more labor and less oratory. -- Elizabeth Haley
Case only. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Case only. (Score:1)
Re:Case only. (Score:4, Informative)
In case you're thinking of a similar project, a good page with all kinds of information and links for designing and building your own subwoofers that actually sound good is here [scrounge.org].
Here [wssh.net] is a page of freeware loudspeaker design software and links to more. And another such page of speaker design software is here [tripod.com].
Re:Case only. (Score:2)
I made my own speakers at uni - total cost around £80 for a set of kick-ass 50W/side speakers (10" woofer). I used a freeware program to work out the speaker size and the port length to get them working. I've never been able to push them up to the limit, even outdoors!
Grab.
Amazing! (Score:5, Funny)
I just want to see how he hacked a router to do that.
Kidding...I'm not that much of a geek.
Re:Amazing! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Amazing! (Score:2)
Re:Amazing! (Score:2, Informative)
There's a similar question with -ing, which has led some British publications to distinguish between 'routeing' and 'routing', but most people just write routing for both.
Re:Amazing! (Score:1, Redundant)
Remove baseplate on router. Get plank a little longer than the radius of the hole you want to cut. Bolt to bottom of router using baseplate holes. Measure from center of router bit along plank. Drill hole through plank. Place this hole over center of hole you want to cut. Cut another hole, using plank as guide. Place bolt through plank and piece to be cut. Turn on router, swivel around bolt.
Voila! You have cut a hole with a router.
FWIW, I prefer the guy who uses the antique and archaic handtools over norm's "I have a $20,000 tool for just one job" manner. But Norm does have some neat tricks.
Re:Amazing! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I Am (Score:2)
home made. (Score:5, Funny)
I would have loved to see him try to build one out of parts of a microwave, stove, dishwasher, and drying machine while using a fridge to house it.
See what happens when you have old episodes of MacGyver on tape?
Re:home made. (Score:1)
Re: MacGyver (Score:4, Funny)
Actually, he meant, out of parts taken from another subwoofer...
See what happens when you have old episodes of MacGyver on tape?
MacGyver could break out of a turkish prison with a straw and a toothpick...
They really are good (Score:1, Redundant)
how is this news? (Score:1)
Oh well. Cool article!
Re:how is this news? (Score:2)
Re:how is this news? (Score:2)
Re:how is this news? (Score:2)
Could, or should?
I saw a picture in car audio magazine one time of a honda accord (old style) that had somewhere around 30 18" woofers in the back.
He just had 4 or 5 big sheets of plywood with as many woofers as he could fit screwed in to it. no boxes, and the back of the car wasn't even sealed.
It must have sounded like complete crap, but it was possible to fit them.
Re:how is this news? (Score:2)
Could as in properly sealed with dividers between each speaker space (speaker boxes with no dividers is a big no-no), and that each 12 had the proper amount of air space. IIRC we went with 4 JL 12w5s because they would work well with 1.5 cubic feet of sealed enclosure air space. To help make sure the air space was sealed screws were placed every 2 inches to hold the box together with a bead of silicon between the joints and then another bead along the inside of the box at the seams. We managed to fit all of this monster into the back of the 240sx without losing the back seat.
Overall an enclosure of this type is not hard to build, but building it inside the hatchback of a car is a PITA. Lets not even get started on what it took to get amplified sound to each speaker...
On a side note, it surprises me that more geeks aren't into screwing around with car stereo. There is math, electronics, wiring, music, etc... all in one place. Sounds like something that would be right up many geeks alleys.
Not a Subwoofer (Score:5, Insightful)
Next time get the title of the article right!
Re:Not a Subwoofer (Score:2, Insightful)
A driver, no matter what size it is, is not a subwoofer. Subwoofers can be made with a single 12" driver, with four 18" drivers, or even a 30" driver.
No, he doesn't tell you how to make a driver.
Re:Not a Subwoofer (Score:3)
No, the WOOFER is the driver. The entire unit, driver+enclosure, is referred to as a subwoofer.
Re:Not a Subwoofer (Score:2, Insightful)
Let these folks waste their money on the "experts" at the local auto sound shop.
Re:Not a Subwoofer (Score:2)
Putting both of them together may make a "subwoofer", if things end up wired appropriately, but neither a box nor a driver is very useful by itself. It's like having a CPU without a motherboard or any other requisite component, and calling it a "computer".
Next time, try to posess even a modest understanding of the topic before flaming the submitter/editor/whoever.
Your mention that making a proper enclosure isn't easy is quite possibly the understatement of the century. The moving parts (drivers) of a completed loudspeaker assembly generally only account for ~10% of the final retail cost - and you're lucky if they spend even that much on it. The rest goes toward crossover parts (if needed), hardware like fancy gold-plated terminals, paying someone to solder it all together, and, mostly, a quality cabinet to put it all in.
The cabinet is primarily responsible for making the speakers at your local high-end shop sound better than those sold by your friendly neighborhood appliance whore. It is big, expensive to build, and expensive to ship.
The selection of design and materials is a very non-trivial exercise. Not surprisingly, the more difficult, time-consuming, and heavy designs tend to work better. More expensive materials (think Corian, granite, or good MDF, versus OSB) tend to sound better. Good engineering early on in the project can yield a shift toward zero for all of these variables, but everyone here knows that good engineering is similarly non-free.
And speaking of engineering, it takes a lot of it to build a good driver from scratch. Common practise is geared more toward modifying an existing sample to do more of what you want, instead of building new. The variables are numerous, the parts non-obvious, and the mathematical predictions for what-does-what lacking. But if you really want to know about it, a good place to start might be back-issues of Voice Coil Magazine.
Lacking a bit.. (Score:1)
Re:Lacking a bit.. (Score:1)
A subwoofer is a combination of driver and enclosure designed for greatest efficiency and flattest frequency response at frequencies from 80Hz on down.
Another article (Score:1)
Re:Another article (Score:1)
Check out Hometheaterforum.com (Score:5, Informative)
The DIY section on avsforum [avsforum.com] also has some info.
DIY subwoofers [diysubwoofers.org] is another place to start.
In fact a google search [google.com] yields about 16,000 results with the words "DIY" and "subwoofer".
Which brings me to...
Is this really news?
-S
Re:Check out Hometheaterforum.com (Score:2)
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_4_2/ta
or my current fav design (for no particular reason, other than it looks cool), the passive reflex enclosure
http://www.diysubwoofers.org/prd/
and acoustic-visions.com (Score:2)
Note: I have no affiliation with Acoustic Visions other than a very satisfied customer.
BTW, I am now a nerd for hire. See here [hollan.org] if you're looking -- would accept H1B transfer or TN1, preferably in the Dallas area or relo back to Canada.
Subwoofers are a cool DIY project (Score:1)
you know (Score:2)
this is news? (Score:1)
For More Homebrew Goodness... (Score:2, Interesting)
YES, you should (Score:1)
If they can, you can too. (And if you *can't*, please turn in your geek badge right now
Besides, your (legal, of course) MP3s and Quake III Arena will sound much better with one!
Re:YES, you should (Score:2)
How well does it work with il-legal MP3's? Has anyone tested this??
Not too detailed... (Score:4, Informative)
Loudspeaker Design Cookbook by Vance Dickason (Score:3, Informative)
I own the 4th and 5th editions of this book, and it has everything you would ever want on enclosure design. You can pick it up from Crutchfield, or I'm sure Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc. should carry it.
Re:Not too detailed... (Score:2)
Sure they are a pain in the ass to calculate and not many is up to the task but built right it hurts to listen to them. The punch you get out of a quarts wave pipes (simplest horns) is pretty amazing.
I think the reason hornes arent that popular is that they are hard to calculate and very difficult to build. Take the time and you have a speaker that blows most others away.
Score -1, clueless (Score:5, Informative)
Yes!! You should!!! (Score:3, Informative)
I've built a couple Subs based around the Shiva Mk II driver this guy used, along with a 250W plate amplifier from partsexpress, and it is amazing. Easily produces useable bass down to 20 hz in a sealed enclosure (F3 of something like 17.3 hz in a 1.7 cu ft. box, if I remember correctly...). An adire sub kit easily rivals subs in the $1000-$1200 range.
Listening to one of these explains why audiophiles don't like those Sat/sub computer multimedia sets, and tend to call them a "bunch of crap". None of them produce any useable bass below 50-60 hz, and a lot of HT systems are designed such that the sub only STARTS playing from those frequencies down.
Having said that, I don't see why this is front page news on
Re:Yes!! You should!!! (Score:1)
How is that? Do you really want your sub trying to produce 10khz tones?
Re:Yes!! You should!!! (Score:2)
Re:Yes!! You should!!! (Score:2)
He built a bass tube not a subwoofer! (Score:2)
You can buy your own plans for tubes or boxes all over the place.
A subwoofer is the actual speaker which he just popped into place right?
You can even download software to help you download dimensions:
subwoofer enclosure software [tripod.com]
Re:He built a bass tube not a subwoofer! (Score:1)
A driver is nothing until you put it in an enclosure.
What about free-air subwoofers? (Score:2)
Regardless, why is this a big deal? I used to build boxes back in high school. They usually sounded awful but not always. Just had to get them sealed up and calculate the dimensions properly.
I had two JL 10W1's that sounded pretty good for a relatively cheap speaker.
Re:What about free-air subwoofers? (Score:2)
Not exactly. Free air subs just don't have to be boxed, but they still need an enclosure. Most of the time these are used in cars and the trunk actually becomes the enclosure.
Good=Loud? (Score:2, Informative)
-Chris
Re:Good=Loud? (Score:1)
Buy an iSub and sound stix. (Score:2)
Re:Buy an iSub and sound stix. (Score:1)
What is missing (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't even a good explanation for how to create a subwoofer enclosure. It is completely missing any information on the critical variables that describe the attributes of the low frequency driver as well as the procedure for designing the enclosure and crossover network to work with the driver to produce an optimized system. You can't just throw any old speaker into a given enclosure and expect a decent result. If you don't design the enclosure around the Thiele-Small parameters for the driver you put in it you are basically throwing the driver into a pretty box and ignoring the most important factors...how the completed system will perform.
And I wouldn't be a good slashdotter if I didn't mention are several computer programs that help with the design of speaker systems. They are really helpful for designing a subwoofer. I used such a program to design the subwoofer in my car.
Re:What is missing (Score:1)
Re:What is missing (Score:2, Troll)
The title of the article needs to be, how to build a homebrew low end subwoofer that will be the same as the $49.95 KLH units at best buy.
Ick..
Who said this was insightful? (Re:What is missing) (Score:2)
Personally, I preferred the NHT, but "whatever floats yer boat", or, in my case, "whatever shakes yer gutters off the house". And yes, it really did.
I agree that this is hardly news, but it's not a bad little diy thing, either.
Mark
Commerical cylindrical subs (Score:1)
Oh, and they are an Internet sale only company - you buy subwoofers directly from them, there are no other dealers between you and them.
And I don't own a SVS ... yet ^_^ (and neither do I work for them)
Re:Commerical cylindrical subs (Score:1)
I can recommend one 200%.
nuttin special (Score:1, Insightful)
Mislead and then let down by /. yet again! (Score:1)
Wow, so what he built his own enclosure. This is common practice in both home and car audio and hardly worth the post on
I build an enclosure for 2 subwoofers for my car when I was 16 years old. It's not hard, and there are many MANY pages just like this one out on the web.
Another in a long line of "You can, but should you?" projects.
Well if you can handle power tools, and a couple of simple caculations to get the right enclosure and port size for your subwoofer, then HELL YES! I still have mine in my car that are custom fit, and sounds better than the cheap enclosure i had before. I even used pvc pipe as the ports
wow, staggers the mind! (Score:1)
Ha! That's nothing! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ha! That's nothing! (Score:1)
Re:Ha! That's nothing! (Score:2)
An interesting a do-it-yourself project, but can you talk with elephants [google.com] using it, let alone load it into an Isuzu Trooper?
That seems to have been the going standard for servo-driven loudspeakers for a decade or two.
I had the unique experience of sitting rather directly beside a (somewhat lesser, but similar) dual-cone 15" unit for an evening as I played DJ. I'll spare the details, but do allow me to say that visiting The Throne after returning home that night after having everything homogenized (shaken, not stirred) by the subwoofers was uniquely euphoric experience.
[I'd include more prominent links to Intersonics/Servo-Drive [intersonics.com], who still sells these monsters. But their web page is "currently down for reconstruction." Dumb shits. Their old page was at least informative, not to mention existant. groups.google.com for more information, I guess...]
Wait, but ... (Score:3, Funny)
Might as well build a waveguide (Score:1)
Re:Might as well build a waveguide (Score:1)
That tube is only going to resonate at a few frequencies that are harmonics of each other. Yeah, you will hit one certain spot really really hard, but other frequencies will be attenuated.
Re:Might as well build a waveguide (Score:1)
i got another tuned woof plan that puts a 15" in the top of an openhead drum and tunes by filling drum with water till its where you want it.of course you could split hairs all day but this really is projects for experementation. if you want audiophile go spend the money.
moljnir! (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmmm (Score:2)
You Have Got To Be Kidding Me (Score:2)
There are many fine sites out there with information on building subwoofer enclosures. While the construction of this one was fairly robust and adequate, the design will likely have a very poor response. There are too many no-no's here to cover for a SlashDot comment. Y'all should try some real sites for a start:
this is*BOOOOOMMMMM* sweet! (Score:1)
J *BOOOOOMMMMM*
*BOOOOOMMMMM*
Wouldn't this design inherently suck? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wouldn't this design inherently suck? (Score:2, Funny)
There is one trick to doing this right (Score:4, Informative)
This has to be the worst Slashdot how-to ever. There is absolutely nothing geeky about doing it blind like this, especially considering how much information is available about doing it the right way. So kids, don't do this at home; do better!
Gee ... (Score:2)
Your post has to be the worst Slashdot troll ever. Wait, I just did the same thing to you! The difference between you and me and the author of the article and slashdot is that the author and Slashdot have put up.
Me, one day I'll spend $60 for a cheap boomer that comes with it's own amp. I applaud the author for doing better.
Re:Gee ... (Score:2)
My objection this: Of all the thousands of how-to pages available on the internet, why did this one make it to the front page of Slashdot? A subpoint was that if the guy had discussed his work from a "nerd" angle, it would have made a good /. piece. As it was, I thought it failed as slashdot material, and I still stand by this.
I did indeed notice that the author points to a page where a more careful procedure is explained, and that just makes things worse. Why wasn't that page the subject of the /. article? Still better stuff is available, and I'm sure Google would help you find some of it, but that's not what I would do. When I was designing my speakers I actually (gasp) WENT TO THE LIBRARY! Do people still know how to use these? Anyway, I'd be shocked if there were stuff on the internet that comes close to the quality of what's published in peer-reviewed journals.
In any case, I made my speakers the nerdy way, and that should be the /. way. I don't want this place to degenerate into "news for short-attention-span nerds." For example, if there are speaker how-to's posted, they shouldn't gloss over the very stuff that distinguishes a crappy speaker enclosure from an outstanding one.
I think I'll keep my JBL SB-5 (Score:2)
I have built subs for my car, but the only problems is that even when you get the sizes calculations right, it just doesn't always sound right. So this time I have settled with a pre-built one, the advantage here was the I tried a few in my car to find the one that sounded right in my car.
Re:I think I'll keep my JBL SB-5 (Score:2)
Lowest frequency at 45Hz? Are you kidding? Any shoddy, thrown together homebuilt sub can handle at least 35, and ones like this guy has built can hit low 20's and high teens without a lot of effort.
Regards,
levine
Too bad more highschoolers dont read /. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Acoustic suspension (Score:3, Interesting)
Ported subs just don't seem to have the *punch*, and it's tiring to listen to music which has a lot of info near the resonant freq of the port.
I read at +3 (Score:3, Informative)
(For those not wishing to slashdot OSDN, it's for gspeaker, a gpl software for determining speaker enclosure sizes)
No Frequency Response readout (Score:1)
hmm.. (Score:2)
Somethings missing... (Score:1)
Want to build your own sub?.. (Score:3, Interesting)
club audio project (Score:2)
I could go the conventional route and just hang a bunch of Peaveys around the place, but I'm also considering using a big subwoofer under the stage and mid/high speakers on the walls and hung from the ceiling instead. I think this might give better audio quality as well as being easier to do -- not to mention safer, wouldn't want those big speakers falling down.
Does anyone have recommendations on such a setup? Are there any subwoofer speakers available that can handle a large space?
Building is fun. (Score:2)
To build a complicated case is more expensive for a speaker manufacturer than to put in a speaker element that handles higher power. For your amplifier its better to have a nicer load.
Go high range! (Score:2)
BTTF (Score:2)
*sigh* Maybe some DIY stuff should be left alone
Re: (Score:2)
Re:enclosure, not subwoofer (Score:2)
"He didn't build the computer, he built the case for it."
A loudspeaker includes a number of components. A driver, such as the Shiva contraption, is one of them. A box is another.
He assembled these components together. He built a speaker.
Your next statement is similarly non-sensical. I'll convert it to an analog which you might understand:
"...he used the BP-6 motherboard, which I believe is only available seperately, although there are some places building and selling computers with BP-6 motherboards already in them."
Does this statement not disprove itself? Or is there some magic additive which must be included in a loudspeaker/white-box computer before it may be considered as a whole instead the sum of its parts?
Is it a pre-requisite that such finished products carry an endorsement from Apple or Sony before they are recognizably complete systems? Or perhaps some other subtle nuance I've managed to miss in my many years of building complete systems myself?
Please explain further. I fear that if you're correct, my speakers and my computers may suddenly disintegrate themselves into seperate parts.
How is this news? (Score:2)
YES (Score:2)
No, this guy's speakers aren't that great.
There are some good points, however. He's doing nothing of note constructionwise, but the larger choice of the sonotube has significant advantages and disadvantages. Big plus: tube shape means walls CANNOT flex from pressure. That allows for potentially thunderous reproduction of the sound coming out, without overhang or weakening of the fundamental. Big minus: the sound coming out is strongly colored by the inside of the enclosure being the second worst possible shape in the universe- worst is a sphere. Testing has shown that these shapes are the best possible for the outside of an enclosure, but the worst for the inside.
What I've found works best for really serious bass is multiple drivers of gradiated sizes. My mains are running 6.5/8/10/12 drivers series-parallel like a Marshall cab- wattage is comparable to four of the weakest speaker (6.5) series-parallel, because that's the one that'd blow first. I have a narrow but absurdly deep cabinet, internal walls, bottom two sections ported and the top two open-backed. I had acoustic foam in there but found that it sounded better in the mids to leave it totally open, since all the resonance and reverberation goes straight out the back. The bottom, with the 10 and 12, has two good-sized ports, but since the box is so big (and it's running acoustic suspension drivers, too) the port only extends the lows further- it is not tuned high enough to make 'one note bass', it's reinforcing the really extreme lows.
If you want a REAL geek audio project, make some supertweeters like I did. Small piezo drivers (I'm using some fairly rigid and tough-to-solder-to ones I got in bulk), mount them on something solid while leaving the middle free to flex (rigid mounting like superglue, not a soft gasket), and then take some envelopes with that clear cellophane stuff that crackles easily if you rumple it. Cut out rectangular pieces big enough that you can make an 'M'- you're going to be making a degradation of the Lineaum cylindrical driver. That requires a piece to translate piezo flex into true linear motion- as shown in the *spit* patent- this skips the bridge piece and applies flexing-disc vibration directly to the leaves of the driver. In doing so it fails to be a proper line source- but the weight of the moving mass is that much less!
Take two 'leaves' and superglue them together at the base. You can trim them a bit so there's a slight ) shape to the part that'll be glued to the piezo. Take a bit of acoustic foam, superglue the outside of the sandwich of cellophane on one side to it, attach it to the speaker to the side of the piezo (which you should have wired up already). Then do the same to the other side- you want a 'm', seen from the top, with the middle bit resting directly on the piezo. The 'm' shouldn't be too tall, but it does have to form full half-cylinders- it shouldn't be flat. Finally, if it's all good, put a dot of superglue on the middle of the piezo, and allow the center of the 'm' to be attached permanently.
How it works: pressure from the piezo displaces the cellophane. Since it's two loose semicylinders, it flexes, choosing to compress together at first rather than shift the whole structure outwards. Surprise! The semicylinders form an exponential horn- and you've just compressed the throat, forcing air out! In addition, the wave will travel outward from the center, until it dissipates by air resistance and eventually the acoustic foam mounting at the far end. This tweeter goes up forever, way beyond CD capabilities, very cleanly, and it also has phenomenal dispersion characteristics- very wide soundfield, virtually no beaming. The difference is not subtle.
In a perfect world, lots of people could work with this technique and develop it as free software is developed. I've seen the patents on the _refined_ version of this- involving a bridge piece between the (not truly linear) driver and the base of the cylinders- and until the patents expire, this is officially proprietary.
I am sure that will dissuade MANY slashdotters from getting cellophane, piezos and superglue, and building their own supertweeters. Don't you people know developing on ideas someone else had is wrong? Remember, whoever-it-was who said, "If I have failed to see farther, it is because I wasn't allowed to stand on anybody's shoulders, so there" ;)
Why have I taken so much effort to communicate this technique? Because I'm a speaker designer myself. I have numerous ideas that are in fact mine, and hybrids of those with things like the Linaeum cylindrical driver, some of which are just terrific. And I'm very annoyed by a reality in which I cannot function as a simple artisan and idea-haver, without patent-wrestling with corporations- and in which I can't even go ahead with my own stuff, as corporations will take anything that's really good, and patent it since I won't, possibly even stopping me from using something I've invented. It makes you want to hide and never build anything.
There's nothing to do but go ahead anyway, but understand that my 'outing' of a homebrew way to do a degraded form of the Lineaum piezo driver patent is a combination of 'power to the people' and simple bitterness. What would have happened if the person to make the first cone driver had locked it up with patents, filed extensions, retained control of it to the present day? There'd be virtually no speakers, is what.
I feel the ideas that MOST deserve patent protection are the ones that most harm the scientific environment through their being guarded by lawyers. 'swinging sideways on a swing' patents are harmless. The ones that are REALLY GOOD are the ones that NEED to disseminate out into society.
Re:Hebrew Subwoofer? (Score:1, Offtopic)