Acoustic Elegance Subs

[Matt34]

You could get some better drivers then the Kappa IMO

AE speakers has some fantastic drivers The Lambda TD15H, 15M, 15S and 15X give you a pretty wide range of products for different applications. They also have 12" drivers in all those same configurations.

http://www.aespeakers.com/drivers.php?driver_id=10

AE Speakers is just north of me in Green Bay, WI and John Janowitz (owner) came down for my Sub GTG and brought a 15" driver with a 24" box and a couple of 18" passives with him, he/we assembled it in front of everyone, so we got some hands on with the drivers and passives, they were very very nice drivers, and that sub which sat in my house for over a month sounded spectacular and had output that downright SCARY !!!! It had as much output or more then the 18" LMS sealed. The build quality is much better then the Kappa's stamped baskets, while still having very comparable pricing for what you are getting.

AE speakers is producing the drivers for Mark Seatons products, as well as some new drivers for Salk Sound, so they obviously pass the test of some very scrutinizing builders here.... His 12" drivers and passives are the ones in the new SALK HT4, Salks cost no object speaker !!!

http://www.aespeakers.com/shop/catalog/

Get a 12" driver with 2 - 15" passives and that will be a freakin impressive sub, which requires very little power !!!
I will vouch 100% of the SQ from that sub...

True, but I think your jumping up a couple price brackets too.

He used a 15x in that passive box at your place right?

That's another option I need to explore.

 

[Warpdrv]

He brought a AH15H, with a couple of 18" passives, but were also talking about a serious subwoofer here, with not a huge impact in price.....

A AH12X plus 2 15" passives will set ya back $369.00. I don't think that is a serious investment for an incredible sounding product you will have in the end.

These drivers have excellent upper bass response, I would easily put it up against the SQ and output of my F112, no lie.


A single AH15X + 2-18" passives will run you $450.... I don't think that is out of line for something of this caliber of the end result you get, easily powered by a EP2500.

 

[Matt34]

He brought a AH15H, with a couple of 18" passives, but were also talking about a serious subwoofer here, with not a huge impact in price.....

A AH12X plus 2 15" passives will set ya back $369.00. I don't think that is a serious investment for an incredible sounding product you will have in the end.

These drivers have excellent upper bass response, I would easily put it up against the SQ and output of my F112, no lie.


A single AH15X + 2-18" passives will run you $450.... I don't think that is out of line for something of this caliber of the end result you get, easily powered by a EP2500.

Wow, I thought those driver were more than that. Does he have the plans avaiable for the PR sub you demo'd?

 

[Warpdrv]

Wow, I thought those driver were more than that. Does he have the plans avaiable for the PR sub you demo'd?

Make a 24" cubed box, double wall.

Cut out one face for the driver, and 2 for the passives, mount the drivers, mount the binding posts seal that sucker up and then fire it all up !!

You adjust the weights on the passives for what tune you want it to be, no heavy calculations involved...

 

[Sounds Good]

what needs to be changed to the kappa plans to use a AH12X?

 

[gmichael]

Make a 24" cubed box, double wall.

Cut out one face for the driver, and 2 for the passives, mount the drivers, mount the binding posts seal that sucker up and then fire it all up !!

You adjust the weights on the passives for what tune you want it to be, no heavy calculations involved...

This sounds like it would be an insane sub.

 

[Matt34]

Looking at the specs of the Kappa vs the AH driver, in this 12" product line, it doesn't look to me that you will gain all that much swapping the driver to an AH, with the kappa having a touch more Xmax....

The Kappa build looks like a solid well thought out build spec'd with good parameters and thorough well though out design.

Just thought I would throw out another low cost option that offers extremely good performance and SQ.... I have visited alot of drivers and different builds, commercial and DIY - the AE 15" PR build really blew alot of people away.

Well, I think I found what my next sub is going to be. 24" cube with that kind of output works great for me.

 

[Warpdrv]

Well, I think I found what my next sub is going to be. 24" cube with that kind of output works great for me.

Ah yeah.... output was off the hook....

And I forgot to add one of the most important pieces of this puzzle...

When I stated that the output was equal or possibly even greater then the 18" LMS, this was with the LMS - being powered by a CE4000 - 4000w bridged, and the Passive 15" AE sub was powered by either an EP2500 or QSC 2502, so it is a much more efficient design in that respect...

John has a ton of faith in these drivers... He straight out told me to hook up an extension chord up to the driver and - PLUG IT INTO THE WALL !!!!!
He begged me to find a way to blow up the driver.... hehehhe I told him if he really wanted me to blow up the driver I would - with an ARC welder or hook it up to a couple of legs of 3 phase... I guess you have to have been involved to get the point here... I chose not to employ any of these methods to destroy his driver - just didn't have the heart.

My buddy and I did some heavy listening tests of the sub back and forth in my room with the F112, (I really value his trained ear) and both of us were very impressed with it. I could not run that sub at full throttle in that room - output was beyond what would have been tolerable.... things were vibrating and shaking, I was getting concerned about my well being(hearing) and house.

The SQ for the sub was in between the sound of sealed and ported, closer to the sealed IMO.... It sounded great.

 

[Matt34]

Since we kinda derailed his thread I moved the OT posts to the DIY section.

 

[Warpdrv]

thought I lost my mind, all my posts were gone.... hhahahh

thanks for moving this, sorry to the OP...

 

[Matt34]

thought I lost my mind, all my posts were gone.... hhahahh

thanks for moving this, sorry to the OP...

I think I'm locked in on this build now. 24" cubed double walled with the PR18 and AV15-Hand I'm going to "sacrifice" 1db for a lower tune at 17hz and run it off one channel of the EP2500.

Going to see if the guy that did my Kappa boxes is still in town.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1129054&highlight=ae+sub

 

[Warpdrv]

I think I'm locked in on this build now. 24" cubed double walled with the PR18 and AV15-Hand I'm going to "sacrifice" 1db for a lower tune at 17hz and run it off one channel of the EP2500.

Going to see if the guy that did my Kappa boxes is still in town.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1129054&highlight=ae+sub

Just to clarify - you need Dual Passive 18" subs to go with that single 15" driver.

Please call John @ AE to figure out which driver will be best suited for that build, I thought I remembered there may be some advantage with the AV15-X, but he'll be straight with you, they are the same price - so nothing lost here.

 

[Matt34]

Just to clarify - you need Dual Passive 18" subs to go with that single 15" driver.

Please call John @ AE to figure out which driver will be best suited for that build, I thought I remembered there may be some advantage with the AV15-X, but he'll be straight with you, they are the same price - so nothing lost here.

Yup dual PR...and they are currently on sale!!

 

[Warpdrv]

Yup dual PR...and they are currently on sale!!

I don't think a ton of people order alot of those PR's, so his stock is probably piled up, so its a perfect time to snatch them up for $100.00 each.

I held those Passive's in my hand and they are pretty heavy duty, in fact that was the first time I have ever seen one, so I was intrigued. pretty cool...

And the Driver was much heavier then I had anticipated as well, it stuck out in my mind, I didn't give them much credit before I had one in my hand - that soon changed. I was very appreciative that John came to my house, and on top of that the sub was unassembled which gave many people that behind the scenes look at what goes into a build, holding the drivers and passives - the quality of the box construction and watching it all go together.

 

[Matt34]

I don't think a ton of people order alot of those PR's, so his stock is probably piled up, so its a perfect time to snatch them up for $100.00 each.

I held those Passive's in my hand and they are pretty heavy duty, in fact that was the first time I have ever seen one, so I was intrigued. pretty cool...

And the Driver was much heavier then I had anticipated as well, it stuck out in my mind, I didn't give them much credit before I had one in my hand - that soon changed. I was very appreciative that John came to my house, and on top of that the sub was unassembled which gave many people that behind the scenes look at what goes into a build, holding the drivers and passives - the quality of the box construction and watching it all go together.

Right on, I have a new found respect of what a passive radiator can do after getting my Polk SDAs.

 

[sawzalot]

Now when going this route do you just go with one or do you guys think two are best and if two do you need two 2500's or just one for both.I am just asking as I am pleased with my kappas.Thanks for all the insight.

 

[Matt34]

Now when going this route do you just go with one or do you guys think two are best and if two do you need two 2500's or just one for both.I am just asking as I am pleased with my kappas.Thanks for all the insight.

I'm just going to use one due to space as the numbers look very impressive with just a single sub. You can run two of these subs off one EP2500 they are pretty efficient setups. John does not recommend running the 2500 in bridge-mono to power one of these.

 

[Warpdrv]

I'm just going to use one due to space as the numbers look very impressive with just a single sub. You can run two of these subs off one EP2500 they are pretty efficient setups. John does not recommend running the 2500 in bridge-mono to power one of these.

All the amps at my GTG were setup with bridged amps, and that was what was pushing his, and he was watching it pretty closely, at one point got a little jumpy when we were pushing them hard as the driver was really moving pretty hard, I think he was concerned that one of the passives was going to jump out of the box... It was really getting pretty loud...

 

[just-some-guy]

very interesting.

 

[fredk]

Your comments about the GTG are interesting Warp. For fun, I briefly modeled the 15H vs the CSS 15SDX. It looks like you are trading off bottom end for more headroom above 60Hz or so.

It sounds like its a worthwhile tradeoff.