What is the latest 'SOTA' on DIY subwoofers

[jinjuku]

Just curious what it the current performance and bang for the buck designs. Is it still the VBSS and Marty Cubes?

 

[ryanosaur]

Just curious what it the current performance and bang for the buck designs. Is it still the VBSS and Marty Cubes?

A lot of folk like the Devastaor designs, if you have the space as they can be very large.
GSG’s offering are well liked, especially if you don’t want to buy raw sheet stock and do all the cutting, and again their AIY systems scratch many itches.
For Drivers, I think Harbottle is top of the heap. Old DataBass measurements show flawless compression sweeps and outstanding performance.
New buzz has been popping up for One Audio Drivers but I know very little about them beyond hearsay.

 

[Verdinut]

I am using Dayton RSS390HF-4 15 inch subs as woofers in each of my three front speaker cabinets. If you have the space for ported 9 cf boxes, you would be able to get an excellent performance with an F3 at 21 Hz. This driver has a rather smooth FR over its operating frequency range. I think that @TLS Guy has some experience with it, at least he has experience with other Dayton subs and he should also be able to tell you about the quality build of their drivers.

I note that P-E is now recommending for the RSS390HF-4 a vented box of only 3 cf for an F3 at 27 Hz. If you don't need powerful output below that frequency, that small enclosure size should be ideal for that driver. Should you look for solid performance down to 20 Hz and below, I could verify with the BassBox Pro 6 software the possibilities with a bigger cabinet. There's a possibility that Dayton modified the Theile/Small parameters for this driver since I bought mines.

Dayton Audio RSS390HF-4 15" Reference Series HF Subwoofer 4 Ohm

Dayton Audio RSS390HF-4 15" Reference Series HF Subwoofer 4 OhmThe Dayton Audio Reference Series RSS390HF-4 15" speakers take the quality and performance of the much acclaimed RS line into the subwoofer realm. As with the rest of the Reference Series, the main focus of these subwoofers is...

www.parts-express.com

 

[panteragstk]

Interesting. I was about to post a similar thread.

I've got some decent-ish subs, and am excited to tune them independently, but they still can't dig as deep as I'd like them too.

I want to go with 4 of something, but what? I know the marty stuff is popular, but others squawk at the drivers they use, so I'm not too sure.

 

[ryanosaur]

Interesting. I was about to post a similar thread.

I've got some decent-ish subs, and am excited to tune them independently, but they still can't dig as deep as I'd like them too.

I want to go with 4 of something, but what? I know the marty stuff is popular, but others squawk at the drivers they use, so I'm not too sure.

GSG won't post, but may share FR charts with you in private conversation. Kevin is a really great guy to talk to. JasonGSG hasn't posted here since July... dunno what happened to him... could always PM him if you wanted to start a conversation.

That said, I am still not convinced that Pro Drivers are fully the solution people want them to be. Many folk seem happy with their SI Drivers. I've still not built mine, but MDF just dropped below $50 per sheet locally, so I may have to jumpstart that project!
Regardless, what is missing is that no one is going out and doing proper sweeps of Subwoofer Drivers anymore.
Data Bass is effectively offline, now.

I did see a guy do some in-room sweeps of 2 Harbottle Drivers... OMFG! It's pricey, but these absolutely appear to be the real deal!
Last I saw, Cody was working on an even more efficient design that may sacrifice a bit of lower end output for greater mid-bass which would rival even the best Pro Drivers... yet his guarantee is that they will still output clean down to 5Hz!

I think a really great solution may be if a GSG flatpack will produce the right combination of Size and tune to match with Cody's Drivers... and some good Amps and DSP will do the rest. FWIW, Cody says he never DSPs below 20Hz... all of his tuning is done above that point, yet he is still getting almost perfect compression and distortion measurements without blowing things up! Needless to say, its an involved process to do it right, but people are buying up his drivers and finished Subs.

 

[panteragstk]

GSG won't post, but may share FR charts with you in private conversation. Kevin is a really great guy to talk to. JasonGSG hasn't posted here since July... dunno what happened to him... could always PM him if you wanted to start a conversation.

That said, I am still not convinced that Pro Drivers are fully the solution people want them to be. Many folk seem happy with their SI Drivers. I've still not built mine, but MDF just dropped below $50 per sheet locally, so I may have to jumpstart that project!
Regardless, what is missing is that no one is going out and doing proper sweeps of Subwoofer Drivers anymore.
Data Bass is effectively offline, now.

I did see a guy do some in-room sweeps of 2 Harbottle Drivers... OMFG! It's pricey, but these absolutely appear to be the real deal!
Last I saw, Cody was working on an even more efficient design that may sacrifice a bit of lower end output for greater mid-bass which would rival even the best Pro Drivers... yet his guarantee is that they will still output clean down to 5Hz!

I think a really great solution may be if a GSG flatpack will produce the right combination of Size and tune to match with Cody's Drivers... and some good Amps and DSP will do the rest. FWIW, Cody says he never DSPs below 20Hz... all of his tuning is done above that point, yet he is still getting almost perfect compression and distortion measurements without blowing things up! Needless to say, its an involved process to do it right, but people are buying up his drivers and finished Subs.

I think GSG is still at the top of my list. Just need to nail down which box with which driver. I'd love to go cheap on the drivers just because I'm VERY curious to how well the cheap drivers actually perform.

IF I go full marty, I'm looking at $1k+ just for boxes. Cheaper drivers will make that easier to swallow and help keep my amps in the mix longer. Potentially.

 

[isolar8001]

Some damned impressive cabinet work over on AVS....this guy is good.

A step by step guide for turning 15 sheets of MDF into...

www.avsforum.com

 

[jinjuku]

Thanks to the thread you posted I now know you can get sound absorptive additives for paint.

 

[ryanosaur]

Some damned impressive cabinet work over on AVS....this guy is good.

A step by step guide for turning 15 sheets of MDF into...

www.avsforum.com

View attachment 64102

Ya. Tarponater does amazing stuff. I've seen some other builds he's done for folk and they are always well built and finished nicely.

 

[Verdinut]

I am still not convinced that Pro Drivers are fully the solution people want them to be.

99% of PRO Subwoofer drivers are not real subwoofers, as they don't produce adequate response below 35 Hz. Home A/V drivers with the proper Thiele/Small parameters should be used for a good DIY project.

 

[lovinthehd]

They had better be pretty damn good at these prices! https://www.harbottleaudio.com/harbottle-drivers

 

[isolar8001]

They had better be pretty damn good at these prices! https://www.harbottleaudio.com/harbottle-drivers

Holy Frijoles !!!

 

[lovinthehd]

Holy beans?

 

[ryanosaur]

Cody and Nathan were sharing a shop. They do everything by hand. And where Nathan is more a woodworker, Cody specializes in building insane Drivers.

FWIW, the NSW6021-6 from Eminence is a $1300 Driver (msrp). Last I saw, Cody was asking ~$1500US for his 18" Drivers.

Pick your poison.

 

[Verdinut]

I am using Dayton RSS390HF-4 15 inch subs as woofers in each of my three front speaker cabinets. If you have the space for ported 9 cf boxes, you would be able to get an excellent performance with an F3 at 21 Hz. This driver has a rather smooth FR over its operating frequency range. I think that @TLS Guy has some experience with it, at least he has experience with other Dayton subs and he should also be able to tell you about the quality build of their drivers.

I note that P-E is now recommending for the RSS390HF-4 a vented box of only 3 cf for an F3 at 27 Hz. If you don't need powerful output below that frequency, that small enclosure size should be ideal for that driver. Should you look for solid performance down to 20 Hz and below, I could verify with the BassBox Pro 6 software the possibilities with a bigger cabinet. There's a possibility that Dayton modified the Theile/Small parameters for this driver since I bought mines.

Dayton Audio RSS390HF-4 15" Reference Series HF Subwoofer 4 Ohm

Dayton Audio RSS390HF-4 15" Reference Series HF Subwoofer 4 OhmThe Dayton Audio Reference Series RSS390HF-4 15" speakers take the quality and performance of the much acclaimed RS line into the subwoofer realm. As with the rest of the Reference Series, the main focus of these subwoofers is...

www.parts-express.com

@ryanosaur

I verified with the BassBox 6 Pro software, and Parts-Express did not publish the full potential of this driver.

Based on the Thiele/Small parameters currently published on their website, with a vented box net internal volume of 7.6 cubic feet tuned at 17.5 Hz, you could get a flat response down to 30 Hz with an F3 at 19 Hz. If you have the space for such large enclosures, I would strongly recommend that you at least try one of those very affordable low distortion drivers. At present, I am using three of them in my HT system. They perform very well with an excellent transient response providing for instance a tight and clean drum sound production.

Should you need more details, I would be pleased to provide the requested info.

 

[Verdinut]

Just curious what it the current performance and bang for the buck designs. Is it still the VBSS and Marty Cubes?

I am working on the possibilities with the 12 inch version of the Dayton RSS390HF sub driver. So far, it can be a good alternate choice to the 15 inch driver since it doesn't need as big a box to produce most of the subwoofer frequencies output by the bigger driver.

Dayton have also slightly modified the Thiele/Small parameters on the RSS315HF-4. Later tonight or tomorrow, I should be able to provide more specific info with regard to the currently available driver, which has the newer published T/S parameters, with some calculated box specifications and frequency response obtained by the use of the BasBox 6 Pro software.

 

[ryanosaur]

@ryanosaur

I verified with the BassBox 6 Pro software, and Parts-Express did not publish the full potential of this driver.

Based on the Thiele/Small parameters currently published on their website, with a vented box net internal volume of 7.6 cubic feet tuned at 17.5 Hz, you could get a flat response down to 30 Hz with an F3 at 19 Hz. If you have the space for such large enclosures, I would strongly recommend that you at least try one of those very affordable low distortion drivers. At present, I am using three of them in my HT system. They perform very well with an excellent transient response providing for instance a tight and clean drum sound production.

Should you need more details, I would be pleased to provide the requested info.

By all accounts, the Dayton HF Sub Drivers are well respected. I know you and TLS have both used them to very good effect.

 

[Verdinut]

@jinjuku @ryanosaur

I have added the more recent Thiele/Small parameters to the BassBox 6 Pro software for the 12 inch Dayton RSS315HF-4 subwoofer for a new design configuration.

In a box with a net internal volume of 4.6 cubic feet tuned to 20 Hz, we can get this driver to provide a smooth frequency response down to about 23 Hz with an F3 at 20 Hz. I recommend using two 3" pipes as vents with the use of one elbow for each. It's on sale at $183.98 (instead of $229.98)

Several years ago, I built a pair of 3 way speakers using this driver. It's a really amazing performer:

Dayton Audio RSS315HF-4 12" Reference Series HF Subwoofer 4 Ohm

Dayton Audio RSS315HF-4 12" Reference Series HF Subwoofer 4 OhmAs with the rest of the Dayton Audio Reference Series speakers, the main focus of these subwoofers is ultra-low-distortion. Second, third, and intermodulation distortion are kept extremely low by utilizing three short-circuit paths...

www.parts-express.com

 

[shadyJ]

They had better be pretty damn good at these prices! https://www.harbottleaudio.com/harbottle-drivers

You could almost buy a JTR RS1 for those costs, and I bet you the driver in the RS1 alone would give any of those a real run for their money in terms of fidelity if not outright outperform them, and it would certainly have superior deep bass performance.

I did see a guy do some in-room sweeps of 2 Harbottle Drivers... OMFG! It's pricey, but these absolutely appear to be the real deal!
Last I saw, Cody was working on an even more efficient design that may sacrifice a bit of lower end output for greater mid-bass which would rival even the best Pro Drivers... yet his guarantee is that they will still output clean down to 5Hz!

Trading deep bass output for mid-bass output is not worthwhile, in my opinion. Getting lots of mid-bass is easy, but clean deep bass is much harder to do. Who cares about getting 130dB at 60Hz? No one would ever use all of that. However, they would use all of 105dB at 16Hz pretty quickly. As for clean down to 5Hz, the question is at what drive level? I have an 8" bass driver with less than 10mm of Xmax, and it can do clean bass at 5Hz ---- at 40dB.

 

[Verdinut]

@jinjuku @ryanosaur

For the 12" Dayton RSS315HF-4, I recalculated another box which is the optimum net box volume using BassBox 6 Pro software. The recommended net volume is 3.283 cubic feet, lets say 3.3 cf which is close enough. Box should be tuned to 20 Hz for an F3 at 21.75 Hz. That's an interesting volume for a ported sub with excellent performance.

If the 15" RSS390HF-4 requiring 7.6 cf for optimum performance would take too much space, I would strongly recommend this 12 inch sub. I know that this driver can compete with commercially available products for a fraction of the cost.

At present, it's available on special for $183.98 instead of $229.98. It's an excellent deal for anyone who wants to build 2 to 4 sub cabinets:

Dayton Audio RSS315HF-4 12" Reference Series HF Subwoofer 4 Ohm

Dayton Audio RSS315HF-4 12" Reference Series HF Subwoofer 4 OhmAs with the rest of the Dayton Audio Reference Series speakers, the main focus of these subwoofers is ultra-low-distortion. Second, third, and intermodulation distortion are kept extremely low by utilizing three short-circuit paths...

www.parts-express.com