For those wanting serious bass

[Looneybomber]

http://edesignaudio.com/edv2/19ov2_vide ... ed...id=37

Probably not the best sub in the world, but for 250.00 shipped, it's not bad!I thought about getting a pair for my house, but they won't play deep enough for my needs. In your car with 1000-1100watts, you could probably hit 140db's with a 3.5-4ft^3 box tuned to 40-45hz.

Still thinking about them though...(2 subs, maximum SPL [1100watts ea])They drop off so early though, then I run out of extention at 18.8hz with 1100 watts each.

*in room response*

[joe603]

A ported box will never play as loud as a sealed enclosure with more power...

[jmaxima]

That's a bit vague. I can easily build a ported enclosure that is louder than a sealed enclosure - with more power. And if I use the same sub in both enclosures, with the max RMS power for both subs in eclosures designed such that the sub can handle full power burps. . . There is naturally a limit to how much pressure a port can sustain and continue acting as a helmholtz resonator. But I think it's above the point our bodies are able to maintain control of necassary functions.

[Looneybomber]

A ported box will never play as loud as a sealed enclosure with more power...

Never say never...

Without going into great lengths to explain (as Jmaxima was about to do), that is only true IF that said driver runs out of excursion in a ported box.

For example, the picture I posted shows the driver running out of excursion at 18.8hz at MAX power. Simplistically speaking, if you put that driver in a sealed enclosure you will lose 3db of sound. To make up for that 3db of sound, you have to double the power to 2200watts! To make it even 1.5db's louder in a sealed box over that ported box would require 3300watts of power! You would melt the leads to the voicecoil with that much power, thus producing 0db's, much quieter than a ported box.
Modified by Looneybomber at 4:53 AM 10/5/2006

[joe603]

What about sound quality and bass tightness? I was always under the impression that a sealed enclosure performed much better compared to ported or bandbass types. Also, to get the max SPL out of a woofer, without regard to power, a sealed box should win. Another benefit to a sealed enclosure is the box can be smaller...

Now, I'm no expert, this is just what years of interest in stereos and other install experts have told me.

[jmaxima]

Well, reclassify your 'experts' as wannabee's. Proper enclosure design is important. Ported and bandpass can sound as good or better than sealed. Most often they do require more space. But you get greater efficiency. There are many SPL competitors in the 140 - 150 dB range (maybe more) who use exclusively ported enclosures. Most 'off the shelf' ported enclosures are tuned between 35 and 45 Hz, which is excellent for giving a lot of bump for rap and dance / club music. Transient response doesn't suffer until you get below the tuning frequency. And for safety / maintenance of the woofer you shouldn't send it much power below this area. In that regard infrasonic (subsonic) filters have been in place on most sub amps for a while. Anyone who wants flat response to 20Hz or below would need a larger enclosure - tuned lower, or a sealed enclosure. But you're sealed sub will need a bigger box for this purpose too. But not as much larger as the ported version. Sealed is the simple way to go. But ported has and will continue to be used successfully. Bandpass is inherently clean because the narrow tuning band filters out harmonic noise that is outside the tuning range. But transient response suffers and building it right is much more difficult than a sealed enclosure. Not to mention uses a lot more wood for the same woofer in a sealed box.

- James

[Looneybomber]

What about sound quality and bass tightness?

Well in that regard, an 18" shouldn't be your first choice. There is a give and take, in this case you wont have as tight and clean of sound as you would with dual 12's of good quality in a sealed enclosure. What you get in return is gobs of bass for a relatively cheap price.

Now, I'm no expert, this is just what years of interest in stereos and other install experts have told me.

As technology improves, many of the things that used to be standard, are now being rewritten or even thrown out. Back in the day, a speaker with 10mm of xmax was good! Now subs are built with 30-40mm in one direction! Voice coils have improved, amps are getting more and more potent. For example, in the 80's all subs were either 12, 8, 6 or even 4ohm. Amps at the time were also rated to 4ohms and maybe even 2 ohms. Now I've seen subs with quad 1ohm voicecoils and amps that can handle 1/4ohm loads!

It's absolutely rediculous if you think about, but unless you're wanting to spend 20-30k on a car stereo, you wont have to worry about any of these crazy things that are out today.

Your ported vs sealed arguement is decades old. There are good and bad things about both. Experiment and see what your ears like best.

[joe603]

Thanks guys! I guess I need to rethink my stance Maybe custom installers use sealed boxes because they can use a smaller box and save customers trunk space...

[jmaxima]

Unfortunately the comment about an 18 not having tight, or as tight of a bass as a pair of twelves is misleading. Bass, is not tight. The tight notes are midbass, mids and treble. An 18 properly crossed with appropriate midwoofer or midbass and tweeter will be every bit as tight as a twelve similarly set up. Except the 18 will more than likely have significantly more sub bass - which is why we buy and install subwoofers, for the sub bass, not the midbass and treble.

That is a very common misconception about sound and it's relation to speakers.

[jmaxima]

Joe,

Large power amps are cheap. So it is easy to use a small sealed box and a powerful amp. But installation trends change and vary by geographic location. And well designed and built ported enclosures take more time to build. Time in money in custom installation. Most good shops charge $75 to $150 per hour for custom installation. That is significantly less than your MD or Lawyer charge for the same amount of time.

[Looneybomber]

Unfortunately the comment about an 18 not having tight, or as tight of a bass as a pair of twelves is misleading.

By "tight" I mean fast transitions from a kick drum, or even a double bass. It's directly related to cone mass and motor strength. Typically an 18's cone will weigh much more requiring a much better/stronger motor. Usually the ratio of weight to strength isn't kept the same with the larger heavier speakers. Because of that, your typical 18 will always be a step behind. Granted a properly designed enclosure can help compensate for that, but for musicality, 15's are usually your max.

[jmaxima]

I know what you meant. And as I already indicated that is a misconceptin about sound, speakers, etc. If a sub can play 30 or 20 Hz accurately, etc. then the response time isn't the issue. Your 18 will only need to move a fraction as far to reproduce the same notes as the 12, therefore the thought methodology you used is flawed. If you have two 12" drivers with equal Sd to a single 18 they will each have their own voice coil(s), etc. Whereas a single driver will have half of those additional items. Therefore, the 18 should have lower mass than the pair of 12's.

Notes that we percieve as 'fast' in general are not sub bass. Simply get a good EQ or crossover and filter out everything above 100 Hz. Then compare your pair of 12 inch subs to your single 18. Listen to your favorite tracks and attempt to pick out which sub is 'faster'. Then raise the gain on your mids and highs and you will realize where your transients are. Sure there are transients in sub bass. But that isn't what you are talking about in your descriptions or your perception of 'fast bass'.

[Looneybomber]

From my experience with 18's (JL Audio), they could not properly reproduce the "kick" from the kick drums and sounded like a muddy mess when playing hard rock with a double bass.

The amp was an MTX 2300x, but I don't remember the xover frequency. I do know my 2 Cerwin Vega LS12's did a MUCH better job, but those woofers are xover at 500hz. What I could do is hook my LS12's up to my HT sub amp, set its 24db/oct xover at 100hz and see what I hear.

If you have two 12" drivers with equal Sd to a single 18 they will each have their own voice coil(s), etc. Whereas a single driver will have half of those additional items. Therefore, the 18 should have lower mass than the pair of 12's.

collectively the 12's should have a bit higher mass than a comparable 18, but they also have two motor structures. I would bet the Mms of the 2, 12's would not be twice that of the single 18, however the strength of the 2 combined motors would be more powerful than the single comparable 18. The 12's would then have a higher Fs and F3 in an enclosure, but should have a lower group delay.

Now this is all theoretical since we do not have any real drivers to test at hand and I am assuming a lot of things to be real based off previous testing, reading and playing. If I had to, I could find 2, 12's that could outperform a single 18 in nearly every way. On the flipside, I could find an 18 that would beat out the 12's in nearly ever way, but trying to weigh apples to apples in terms of build consistancy by using same brand drivers, I am theorizing my results above.

[jmaxima]

I assure you that your one experience with a poorly set up system is not characteristic of one proper designed and set up.

And you answered your own question with your example. You had your smaller subs crossed over in the midband. Therefore allowing them to play higher frequency portions of the music.

[phuphyter]

You're on ICIX too? Gotta love their customer service

Sorry, off topic. That's all

[Looneybomber]

You're on ICIX too? Gotta love their customer service

Sorry, off topic. That's all

I'm everywhere.

Yeah, their customer service isn't too bad. We've emailed each other a few times and I think I am going to try one of their 18's to see how it works out at home. If it sucks, I will sell the sub on ICIX, but keep the enclosure and swap in another driver. Probably a TCSounds.

[phuphyter]

I think I remember reading a thread about someone questioning whether or not a sub was right for thim or not. And I think, but don't quote me on this, that Ben Milne offered to take it back if he wasn't happy with it. Maybe it was one of their amps or their 6500's, but I'm not sure. Do you think he'd offer you the same deal if you weren't satisfied with the 19ov2?

[Looneybomber]

Not sure if he'd take it back or not. Not wanting to risk it, I bought a 19Ov.2 NIB from a guy for 150 + 30 shipping. Once I paypal him the money I should have it in roughly a week. I figured 180shipped for a speaker that can move around 6L of air isn't a bad deal!

I guess I will find out later. Now I need to pick up a Behringer EP2500 even though I could get by with a 1500...I may get the smaller one, who knows.

[phuphyter]

Damn, good deal!

Are you going to put the Ov2 in a prefabbed box or are you going to build one to the recommended eD specs?

Can't wait for a review from an objective listener's point of view. Some people (like me) don't have much audio experience/knowledge and depend mostly on other people's opinions, recommendations, personal experience, and reviews. It will be good to hear an unbiased opinion coming from someone outside the icix/ eD forums.

[PoorManQ45]

Well in that regard, an 18" shouldn't be your first choice. There is a give and take, in this case you wont have as tight and clean of sound as you would with dual 12's of good quality in a sealed enclosure. What you get in return is gobs of bass for a relatively cheap price.

Believe it or not this is exactly backwards.

Theoretically an 18" driver should be TIGHTER then a smaller driver producing the same SPL.

This is due to the fact that the smaller driver much travel father then the larger driver.

This induces what is called intermodulated Distortion. Sometimes referred to as Doppler distortion.

As we should all know the subs are more efficient around 50~80hz then they are at 20~30hz, correct?(not including port added amplitude).

Lets for a momentent assume that we wish to play two frequencies; 20hz and 80hz and the same SPL. As you should know halving the frequency(octave) requires a quadrupling of excursion to reach the same SPL. This means that the driver must move 16 times as far to play the 20hz note then to play the 80hz note(4x4 = 16). Lets say the driver moves 0.25" P2P to play the 80hz tone at the desired SPL. This means that it must move 4" to produce the same SPL at 20hz.

Now it gets tricky when you try to play the notes at the same time. It is Physically impossible to get the same SPL at each frequency at the same time. What ends up happening is that the 80hz note is exagerated by 6~9dB.

Lets assume that the last example was a 12" driver.

Lets say to produce the same SPL with an 18" driver you only require about 1/2 the excursion at each frequency. This means at 20hz it's moving 2", and 80hz 0.125". This in itself induces much less IMD/THD due ot the fact that the cone is moving so much less.

So, thoretically an 18" driver should be "tighter, faster, punchier, etc.."

Note: With the excursions I mentioned you'd be pushing 140~150dB.

The problem is that companies sometimes cheat and try to apply the same exact motor structure from a smaller driver to a large one. This leads to the driver being "sloppy" due to the lack of magnetic force to push and pull the cone.

[Looneybomber]

Thankyou for explaining the physics behind it all, but here is what really needed to be said since I was arguing against the Elemental Designs 18" and not 18's in general...though I did start talking generalities later which I should not have.

The problem is that companies sometimes cheat and try to apply the same exact motor structure from a smaller driver to a large one. This leads to the driver being "sloppy" due to the lack of magnetic force to push and pull the cone.

And that is the exact reason why I said 2, 12's will have "punchier" bass. It is easier to start and stop the cone. I know 18's have the advantage because they don't have to move as far to reproduce the same SPL as a 12, but that 12 uses the same motor as does the 18. If you have the same SD but with less Mms and two motors instead of one, you're looking at some good musical bass!...not that the 18 will be bad, I am just cutting hairs here basically.

Now IF that 18 had a strong motor built specifically for it, I would agree that the 18 will have very clean sound while producing large amounts of bass! Possibly even more so than 2 comparable 12's. However I was originally talking about the 19Ov.2 which Elemental Designs uses the same motor in their 18, 15, and 12inch subs (and maybe even the 10"), thus the reason why I said it would not be your first choice for accurate clean sound reproduction. There are better 18" choices!Like this one!

Damn, good deal!

Are you going to put the Ov2 in a prefabbed box or are you going to build one to the recommended eD specs?.

Yeah, 180.00 for a NIB sub shipped to my door and 289.00 for a NIB EP2500 w/warranty shipped from a dealer is not bad at all!That's 469.00 shipped for a new amp and sub.Add in around 170.00 for the enclosure, plus 40.00 for all the wiring and you're looking at roughly 680.00 and a weekend of work building everything.

You might be able to spend less on the enclosure and less on the wiring, but I wanted to over estimate things, just incase.

Something else I didn't add in to the cost is my Behringer DEQ-2496 that I am using as my preamp/crossover/eq. You can get them for around 300.00 easy, but I think I paid 230.00 shipped NIB. The reason why I didn't add that in, is because you don't need something that elaborate and can get by with something much more simple and cheaper. For example, you could get a Behringer FDP for 100.00 shipped or even less if you do some shopping. You can also go with cheaper options too!

All said and done, you could have flat frequency response of 115db's (or more since I am assuming minimal room gain. You'd likely be around 120db's) down to 13-14hz for 780.00 and a weekend of work. I don't know of any commercial options out there that can do that for even twice the price.

Here is the bad news!I will be using a huge box (14.5ft net) in order to play very low! Depending on your love of bass, this will either look like a gift from the heavens or a tacky pillar of evil!Mine will be 15-20" shorter than this one.

[PoorManQ45]

Hehe, I love that Sonotube.

Have you seen the picture with the woman standing next to the tube that is taller then her. She got a look like, "you're crazy if you thinking about using that on me".

LOL

[Looneybomber]

Hehe, I love that Sonotube.

Have you seen the picture with the woman standing next to the tube that is taller then her. She got a look like, "you're crazy if you thinking about using that on me".

LOL

Havn't seen that one. I did see one someone built with pine endcaps. It looked nice with the contrasting black carpet. When I build mine, I would like to go that route, but we'll see.

It shouldn't be too far off before I start building on mine. I already have the Behringer Ultra curve pro, the sub is in the mail and the EP2500. After that all I need are XLR cables and to build the enclosure.

Before I can do that though I need to get my sisters sub done and help my GF finish the remodeling of her house

[xekushnr]

any updates Dustin?

[Looneybomber]

any updates Dustin?

I have the preamp, amp, sub and cables (hand built from CAT5). I started breaking it in over the weekend (played hours of 12-24hz sweeps at 50watts in open air), but now I am done. I have to finish my sisters sub before I can start on mine. My idea is also on pause as I am thinking of buying a condo. If I do that, I may still stick with the sonosub idea or I may be able to go IB (infinite baffle). I have an appointment with the realators on Monday.

My only problem is my computer sends a -7.1db signal at clip. My preamp clips at +6db's along with my amp I believe. What that means is I am down 13db's in ouput, in other words, my 2400watt amp is putting out a few hundred. Right now it's not hurting me since it's used to drive my bookshelf speakers, but later when I get my enclosure built I am going to want around 1000watts.

I can say this sub is huge and so far appears to be a good value, but the real story will be told when I drop it into its enclosure. I'm hoping I can do an IB in my condo (if I buy one) because 4, 18's in the ceiling would be rediculous! Movie night at my house!

For pictures, click on the thumbnails in this thread.zerothread?id=210255

[PoorManQ45]

Looney: Watch out with trying to do an IB in a condo. Unless it's an isolated unit you will NOT be tolerated. The back wave will easily propigate through other people's walls and annoy the hell out of them.

About the amp. You should be able to adjust the gain on it to account for the lack of output of your preamp

[jmaxima]

I don't know about building code in your area, but in mine it essentially isolates the units. 2X4 blocks and thick firewall rated drywall. Makes running cables a pain in the arse.

[PoorManQ45]

That's alright, you'll still annoy the f*** out of the neighbors.

[Looneybomber]

Looney: Watch out with trying to do an IB in a condo. Unless it's an isolated unit you will NOT be tolerated. The back wave will easily propigate through other people's walls and annoy the hell out of them.

About the amp. You should be able to adjust the gain on it to account for the lack of output of your preamp

As for the condo, they're not what normal people think of when referring to condo's. People around here are using that term rather loosely. Ideally I should say duplex or town house, but everyone else around here uses "condo" so...when in Rome.

Now, about the amp, I was using it with the gains all the way up. For one sub I will be fine, but what I'm scared about is with the gain all the way up, if something happens, I stand a higher chance of damaging the sub with an unintentional DC pop from the inputs. An instantanious 2400w DC signal will send that voicecoil flying.

[PoorManQ45]

Yeah, you never want to have the gain all the way up. The Noise floor will be even higher then what it normally is with that Pro sound amp.

What sound card do you have? It may be that the onboard sound card just isn't strong enough, or the addon card you're using isn't strong enough.

MA-Audio sells some external sound cards that also offer a 48V phantom power. These will also allow you to plug a Mic into it to use TrueRTA