Does the plate amp have to be in the cabinet?
I bought 4 subwoofers and I'm absolutely not doing a DBA! Hah!
I just received shipments of 4 subwoofer drivers and they will not be going into a distributed bass array.
I'm replacing my left and right speaker stands with powering subwoofers with 2 subwoofer drivers each. I call them powering because they will be powering the 2-way monitors that will sit on top. Here's a beauty shot of the insides.
The amp has all the DSP power I could need to produce perfect speaker measurements. I wonder if JA at Stereophile would wax poetically if I priced them high enough?? 
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@erik_squires Here's something to think about. The reason a DBA works is by breaking up standing waves. But if you don't want to have multiple subs for that, one way you could handle that is by having one woofer aimed at a nearby wall at 45 degrees, so its output bounces around the room like a cue ball. I did a show recently where I did exactly that. So the audience was looking at the corner of the sub rather than having it face them directly. This really helped with getting full bass at the ideal listening positions. Might not make for the most attractive cabinet though... |
Plate amps are not on order. They are on my dining room table.
@onhwy61 - That was kind of the goal, but I guess hypothetically you could put it anywhere. The massive reduction of separate electronic components is high on my list of features.
Thank you.
Thank you for the suggestion. It’s not shown in the image but the cabinets will have threaded inserts sized for IsoAcoustic Gaia II footers. My modest space will require the cabinets be half on and half off of a rug. Spikes are a PITA on a wooden floor and I’ve had excellent results with IsoAcoustics. I'd rather have something I can push around without scratching the floor. :)
My Libra soul’s requirement for symmetry would never allow this to happen. In these dimensions, if I had the energy and money to experiment I’d probably have been well served by using a single floor firing woofer. In the early design phase I had a choice between 1 woofer, ported or 2 sealed based on their volume requirements. I could have done one downward firing woofer. I’d get to ~ 20 Hz with about 84 dB /1W. I really thought a lot about how Snell did it. However! Snell also had long term reliability issues with that setup AND I just don’t have the energy to play with finding the optimal height. While I really love how the Snell A series sounded, I strongly suspect there was more to that downward firing woofer than just mass loading. The size of the cabinet and distance to the floor probably played an enormous part in the success of that speaker. I didn’t want to half ass it without being confident I fully understood the design parameters. 2 forward firing 10" woofers starting from the ground up, crossed at ~150 Hz.... that I understand. At the end of the day I traded 1 ported for 2 sealed drivers, gaining 6 dB of sensitivity (90 dB/2 watts) with an expected anechoic of ~ 40 Hz. In this room I’ll 100% take it. I suspect the room gain and modes will have me using EQ to reduce the bass, not adding to it.
Well this is a problem for ANY multi-way speaker, so lets keep our concerns in proportion. With the traditional multi-way you would have baffles between the woofer and mid, and share the sides. That’s a lot of contact area to transmit vibration. One way or another I’ll use isolation under the 2-way speakers on top. The contact surface from the bottom section to the upper will be very small compared to a single monolithic 3-way. Currently the speakers are using speaker stands from Butcher Block Acoustics. I’ll make some final decisions about isolation when the cabinets are in. I’m sure I can address that, the issue is more about my ear height and where I want the tweeter and mid-woofer to be in relationship. The other real concern, which Duke brought up earlier is making sure your speakers don’t "rock" the wrong way. That the woofers aren’t pushing the speaker back and forth causing a kind of Doppler distortion. You may have seen me suggesting weight son small stand mount speakers to reduce this. Maybe also help to know that while these drivers are called "subwoofers" due to their ability to play low I’m using them more as a traditional woofer. They’ll cross high but go deep.
Exactly. But glad you found something that works for you in shows... those rooms are killer. |
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