15" cinema subs cost how much?!?!

Soldato
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Right, fat tummy removed haha. That's the bum bag with a big TV, you can't get away from it.

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Arrived around noon. Fitted the amp, decals to the back and legs.

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Deadening.

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Wadding.

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Woofer, badges, decal and hardware.

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Sound test. That noise is the flat. Headphones on should give you a rough idea of how it sounds at 50% volume. I daren't go any more.

 
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Soldato
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Well, that's given my footrest sub a bit of a workout. Nowhere near the power but pleased I could hear all the notes and they were all clean :D
You could always take the same approach that's commonly used in GT86 rattle removal. Self-adhesive velcro: you stick the fluffy side onto the problem area and it makes the rattle go away. In your case, the back of the picture frames where the touch the wall - also stops them scratching the wall if they get nudged.

Can't tell from the pics but have you got the threaded inserts in far enough that the leg screws in far enough to completely touch the cabinet? If not, the threaded insert in MDF is taking all the (considerable) weight rather than sharing it with the surround. Probably be fine most of the time but any sideways force could start chewing away at the MDF.
 
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Yeah they are all the way in. They sit about 1mm proud just due to the thickness of the metal. I suppose if you were really anal you could do a 1mm hole with the total OD and do it that way.

The problem dude is how much is rattling. Picture frames, cups, the whole kitchen, the ceiling. There's just so much bass coming out of it that it is unavoidable. I also don't have any other frequency playing to cover it either. Usually that would be all covered mostly by sound from the full range speakers. Plus it is a bass track, and a barbarically over blown one at that. I only use that stuff for testing if I sat with it playing all day I would be homeless :D

Once it is in place tomorrow (I'm bloody spent, been up since 7am due to this arriving, meaning I have had exactly 3 hours of sleep)

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It will never be moved again unless I move out. In which scenario the first thing I would do is remove all of the hardware as with another 10kg of mute mat in it it is now barely liftable. I need to pull out the sofa to situate it properly and I am exhausted. That can wait til tomorrow now :)
 
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OK I have figured it out. 90% of it is coming from here.

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Nothing I can do lol.

Bass, I love you.


Which is surprisingly slightly less brutal than DJ Russticals lmao
 
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Cheers Lewis. Good to see you dude.

I missed a pic. I kinda wish now I had used matt clear. Along the edges it makes it look like it's white when the sun is on it.

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That said it is almost time for the blackout blinds, so I am sure that its slight sprakly will bother me less then.
 
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So even though I was practically dead after 3 hours sleep I pushed on. Set it up last night.

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After about 5 minutes you feel the sudden urge to release your bowels. Placement was everything, it's barely even moving and you can feel every note lol.
 
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After about 5 minutes you feel the sudden urge to release your bowels. Placement was everything, it's barely even moving and you can feel every note lol.
I can see how that could be useful on rare occasions.....but really inconvenient the rest of the time! :cry:
For the heater rattling, heavy bean bags on the top? - when it's switched off obviously! Something with enough heft should stop the grill on the top rattling...which I'm guessing is the major source. Pre-made shot bags seem really pricey. Sand as the filler is probably cheapest but you've got to be sure the bag won't leak. You can get a thousand 6mm steel balls for £16 as catapult ammo.
 
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I can see how that could be useful on rare occasions.....but really inconvenient the rest of the time! :cry:
For the heater rattling, heavy bean bags on the top? - when it's switched off obviously! Something with enough heft should stop the grill on the top rattling...which I'm guessing is the major source. Pre-made shot bags seem really pricey. Sand as the filler is probably cheapest but you've got to be sure the bag won't leak. You can get a thousand 6mm steel balls for £16 as catapult ammo.

No need thankfully. Most of the issue with the rattling and vibrating was simply that there were no other frequencies to cover it. I don't think positioning was helping during testing either. It was aimed at the "scoop wall" so was turning the room into a giant horn. The big issue with trying to record a full range demo is content match ffs. So I found a very bass heavy song (a real one, not a bass track) and shot an 11 second video.


I've listened to it through headphones a ton of times now and I can't hear any vibrations. Obviously in the real world? the bass is so heavy due to positioning that you wouldn't hear rattling any way. As much as I would love to sit with it cranked all day I do need to remember I live in a flat with multiple others below/to the side of me. I don't like listening to second hand bass myself, so the last thing I would do is jack it and sit bassing out all day.

Hornet - the amp has a crossover. Which seems to do the job very well. I can change the characteristics through the AV32, but there's no point. TBH? the upgrade wasn't really for music, but movies. I wanted to **** myself every time a bomb goes off, or someone gets shot unexpectedly :D

As for tuning? remember, the box is tuned "as is" to 24hz. The wadding will lower the tune. People have done tons of videos on YT about it, and measured it scientifically and said "yes, it does work". No one seems to know the reason why, though. In 1993 I was sent a 500 page binder by the head engineer at Cerwin Vega. It basically had 50 years of his research in it. On padding/wadding he said that the way it works is that the waves hit the wadding, which restricts it enough to slow the waves down, so they slow down, hit the back of the cabinet and then come back. Which "fools" the speaker into thinking the cabinet is larger, because of the way the waves are being charged.
 
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Nice work. I might have missed it, but was there a reason you didn't double baffle the front? (I do it to add to the strength and personally like the look of it).

I can build car ones at ~35hz and carpet finish with good results, but I attempted one for the lounge and the other half hated it! Trying to get the tuning low enough resulted in a very large box and couldn't get the finish good enough.

After planning on another build I decided to just buy one instead - it's amazing what the digital EQs can do these days! I went for a XTZ https://www.xtzsound.eu/sub1217edge#skeletabsPanel1
 
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Nice work. I might have missed it, but was there a reason you didn't double baffle the front? (I do it to add to the strength and personally like the look of it).

I can build car ones at ~35hz and carpet finish with good results, but I attempted one for the lounge and the other half hated it! Trying to get the tuning low enough resulted in a very large box and couldn't get the finish good enough.

After planning on another build I decided to just buy one instead - it's amazing what the digital EQs can do these days! I went for a XTZ https://www.xtzsound.eu/sub1217edge#skeletabsPanel1

I've just added it up and it cost me £630. Which sounds like a lot, but a half decent 15" home cinema sub is £1500. The time required to build it wasn't all that long, but there was a lot of waiting between doing things, especially the veneer faces.

I would more compare it to something like the Earthquake Supernova 15 which is £3600. Now yeah that will output a lot more volume given it has a huge amp, but I could get a 1000w plate amp for about £350. The £1500 one doesn't have a HEX driver (high excursion) so I reckon mine would slaughter it. That said even the 420w amp I bought is more than enough to shake the place to pieces. At full volume (I did try for a laugh) it is insane.

The biggest problem is that I wanted a veneer. None have anything like that. They are all black, and I would surmise there are none suitable in dimensions to double as a coffee table tbh.

Why didn't I double the front baffle. Good question ! mostly because there isn't enough of it to make it worth it.

If you go back to this pic.

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You can see how little of it there is. Basically it's the smallest piece on the box, and once the driver hole is cut out there's hardly anything left. There are other reasons too though. Firstly 18mm MDF with the mute mat on is the far cheaper way to basically end up with the same result as 1". I am not sure they make Hidrafugal MDF in 1", and from experience with doing 1" cabinets you lose a lot of bass through the cabinet resonance. Which IMO does play a part of the acoustics. This is why Cerwin Vega never used to use 1" anything, and stuck to Finnish birch ply (similar to Brazilian birch). This is also the same reason I did not brace it more than it has from the port duct. In short? I am not going for SPL and I hate woofers that basically kick you in the back. This is all good for recording SPL, but when it comes to listenable acoustics IMO it ruins the sound. You lose a lot of warmth and depth to the bass by making it produce as much sound pressure as possible. Plus, ported cabinets allow this a lot more by not having to withstand every last sound wave being put through them like a sealed cabinet would.

Then of course the most crucial part? I live in a flat. And whilst it is fully sound proofed? I would not even consider blasting that thing at full capacity. For that you need a fully detached house miles from any one and that isn't in my future lol.

And of course, positioning is absolutely everything. Getting it as close to you as you can is critical. If it were on the other side of the room? I would need it at twice the volume to get the same effect, which of course would also end me up on the streets. It's exactly the same in a car. I knew guys who would have like four 5" mids along their doors. Firing right into their legs.Doh. It was a much better idea to create a pod that was tilted to point the driver to your ears. Because like I say, positioning is very important in audio. Like for example, getting the tweeters at ear level, toed in, firing right at your ear holes. Now I couldn't totally manage that due to the room I have, hence why I chose the Revel M105, as their wave guide makes it far less important. You can literally stand at the side of them and the measured treble response is the same. They put millions into that piece of plastic tbh.
 
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