Do I need a sub to go down to 20Hz for music?

MikeHunt79

MikeHunt79

MikeHunt79

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Right, I'm planning on building another sub enclosure as I like the sound from horn subs, and commercial ones cost thousands.

Now, I have the option of building an absolutely massive box that will go down to 20Hz, or a much smaller one which will work well down to 30Hz.

This is the simulated response for the 30Hz enclosure with 100watts going in to the sub:
4012hornkl9.gif


Now, as I'm not using this for HT, so is there any music with significant things going on below 30Hz?

I listen to all sorts of music, quite a lot of bass heavy stuff such as dubstep and some D&B, but a lot of this intended to club sound systems which often don't have much output below 40Hz unless you are at somewhere like Fabric.

So, I've pretty much decided on the 30Hz box, will I be missing much by having less SPL between 20-30Hz?
 
im no expert but my sub goes to stupidly low frequencies but tbh there are very few songs/tunes which go lower than what my kef Q55's put out ( that i've listened to), even then i'd say you need a fairly large room to hear them anyway as i have moved to a smaller house and i have lost all my really low end sounds.

not sure if any of that helps lol.
 
there's loads of material with sub 30hz content. Imo if its in the recording, then it should be reproduced.


nelly furtado - childhood dreams. listen to it :)

spookywillow said:
im no expert but my sub goes to stupidly low frequencies but tbh there are very few songs/tunes which go lower than what my kef Q55's put out ( that i've listened to), even then i'd say you need a fairly large room to hear them anyway as i have moved to a smaller house and i have lost all my really low end sounds.

not sure if any of that helps lol.
Click to expand...

its all about where you put the sub. i actually found the opposite with my sub - I got a real gain below 20hz.
 
A sub with the response you've shown there will sound very impressive for music and would still work well for HT. You'll get some room gain although the horn exhibits a sharp rolloff (sealed would be more ideal to match up to room gain). I've got a TL sub and the modelled response is quite a bit down at 30hz, a lot at 20hz, yet measuring in room it keeps flat to 20hz and definately sounds like it too. Has nothing like the output your showing there though (shallower rolloff though), so you could probably even play with EQ without running into problems.
 
thats exactly what i did. sealed sub, measures flat down to 10hz where i sit. like yours it just doesnt have the output but then i live in a flat so i dont need it. its still good for 100db across that range though :)
 
Cheers guys, yep the rolloff is pretty sharp, tapped horns seem to have a very similar response bandpass enclosures I've found. I totally forgot about room gain though, I've found that 25Hz and below tends to have lots of room gain but you really need to experiment with sub placement. I'll check out that nelly furtado track, my headphones probably offer the best low end right now... Really I don't really need mega SPL as I'm just planning to have this sub up to my computer, so I'm going to have a look at a sealed enclosure also... Even the 30Hz horn ends up being over 300 litres! :eek:

Right now I'm just playing around with the software, I can make the box larger, and it will have more output down at 20Hz, but less output over 30Hz, there's no such thing as a free lunch. :)
 
MikeHunt79 said:
Cheers guys, yep the rolloff is pretty sharp, tapped horns seem to have a very similar response bandpass enclosures I've found. I totally forgot about room gain though, I've found that 25Hz and below tends to have lots of room gain but you really need to experiment with sub placement. I'll check out that nelly furtado track, my headphones probably offer the best low end right now... Really I don't really need mega SPL as I'm just planning to have this sub up to my computer, so I'm going to have a look at a sealed enclosure also... Even the 30Hz horn ends up being over 300 litres! :eek:

Right now I'm just playing around with the software, I can make the box larger, and it will have more output down at 20Hz, but less output over 30Hz, there's no such thing as a free lunch. :)
Click to expand...


perhaps two subwoofers are in order :D
 
james.miller said:
perhaps two subwoofers are in order :D
Click to expand...
That's not such a bad idea, even tho I use my current one for HT mainly, I've been impressed with how well it does with music. The response is a bit smoother than the graph above, but at 6ft+ it's overkill for my PC. It is possible to fold the horn tho, which would give me a 3ft high box, which might just squeeze under my computer desk! :eek: :cool: Plus it's a tried and tested design so I know what it will sound like - a sim isn't perfect...

I actually have the wood, another driver and PA amp spare, so I may start making some more sawdust when the rain stops...
 
Nice response there! Actually a good feature of a sealed box is that it keeps the driver relatively under control even at very low frequencies, whereas a ported enclosure quickly looses control below the tuning frequency :) . I look forward to making my big sealed boxes with the Hi-Vi D10Gs and playing with Linkwitz transform circuits, but off to uni so it might not be any time soon :(
 
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