DIY semi-decent budget ($6/$700)

[Habanero Monk]

Ok after perusing and lurking about a bit I was looking at a builds using two Infinity Reference subs per box.

Seems to be a popular build right now and seems to maximize my Christmas gift to myself. I paid off my Yamaha amp so onto this now. The LSi9's sing but need something on the bottom.

Any suggestion (are there 12" Polk or other drivers I should look at). Also I could do two Dayton HF (but two and not four). Not sure what I am gaining or losing (volume obviously) but the Daytons individually are better but are they 2.5 times better? 10" drivers don't seem to save me much budget wise.

Had a member at Polk Forums suggest two Dayton Audio DVC385-88 15" DVC Series Subwoofer and Crown XTi.
Music mainly.

 

[jinjuku]

The dual opposed Infinity will outperform the 15" Dayton. While the Dayton is a decent driver the dual opposed have a few things working in their favor:

1. Cabinet vibration cancellation. By have two drivers arranged opposite and in phase they effectively cancel out any transfer function that a single driver would typically transfer to the cabinet. Think about it this way: in Science class the teacher would take a spoked bicycle wheel and spin it at a high rate and then attempt to control it's motion. You would see that person struggle against its momentum. That is transfer function. Now think about have two wheels spinning but in opposite directions (opposed) and then you could control those like they weren't spinning. No energy is transferred because they each cancel out.

2. You get more surface area with two 12" than the 15" Dayton. Roughly 20% more. The Dayton 15" is 829 CM2 the two Infinities combined are 1060 CM2. That's a pretty good improvement.

3. You get better power handling and thermal dissipation with two 12"

4. They model model for around 3 cubic feet enclosure so the 15" doesn't save you any space

5. The Dayton is 8 ohm. Who ever recommended that and the Crown amp either doesn't know what they are talking about or didn't bother to look at the spec. The Dayton would need the XTi 2002 at the least and that amp is $669. The 1002 would work but it's leaving a lot of performance on the table.

Now you could do the XTi 1002 (the DSP is nice) and the Infinity 1260W and wire each dual opposed box for 2Ohm which the Crown will do and handle. It will deliver 700 watts / channel which is line with the RMS on the Infinities. You should probably get more amp than even that (see item 6).

6. The Infinity is probably more conservative on their ratings and it can CERTAINLY handle, one on one vs the Dayton, a great deal more peak power (which leads me to point 7)

7. I would be willing to bet a tear down would reveal the Infinity is a better built driver.

 

[jinjuku]

Had a member at Polk Forums suggest two Dayton Audio DVC385-88 15" DVC Series Subwoofer and Crown XTi.
Music mainly.

I just checked out that thread. Get out of there before they eff you all up like they did another guy that drank the cool aid.

They had this one guy buying some beat to hell Carver amp for like $200 and refurbishing it for a another fist-full of dollars just so it could most likely be trounced by a $400 pro-audio amp.

I'm actually shocked he recommended a pro amp (it's about the first correct thing I've seen over there). Probably bashing all the Emotiva stuff that is coming out also

 

[Habanero Monk]

Thanks for laying it out for me.

Sound's like for the budget two 15"s wouldn't be the way to go.

 

[Habanero Monk]

BTW an AVSer pointed out the Dayton is a 4 Ohm speaker.

 

[jinjuku]

Yep. two 8 ohm voice coils so either 4 (which will work with the 15" Dayton) or 16 ohm. My bad on that when reading the spec.

Still say the dual opposed will do a better job.

 

[Habanero Monk]

Going with the dual opposed and Behringer epx2000 ($249!). Can not wait.

Less than $500.

Thx Jin, Thx everyone.