Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Serious subwoofer advice?

Thanks. I suppose I should have added that my priority would be for HT, as I barely use the sub for music. I saw the HSU Rosewood deal. Not sure if Rosewood is a plus for me.
I really can't believe that the HSU would be able to compete with the PSB2+.
The size of the SVS would only be an issue if it needs more than 7" of clearance at the rear. My media niche is 35" deep and I don't want the front sticking out too far (the SVS is 28" deep). Turning it laterally might work, but it would then begin to crowd the rest of my stuff.

Would 7-10" of clearance at those rear ports be adequate?

Is the area enclosed? You might run the risk of getting too much bass reinforcement with that big a sub in that area.

You only need to be a little more than the diameter of the port away from the wall. Your 7-10 inches should be fine. Note that the cylinder downfire subs have a bottom plate in front of the ports that is much closer than 7" and it uses 3" ports.

I am making my own subwoofers using two 12" AV12s. I think this is the best way to go if you don't mind getting dirty.

Also, You can't have too much bass as someone mentioned. You just need to level set using an spl meter like any other speaker.

Just measured the room. 34' and change X 18' with 9' ceilings = 5508 cubic feet. Three openings to other rooms each about 4'x 8'. I suppose my chief complaint w/ existing sub is the extranneous noise it produces during movies.

Mark, that's a pretty big room. In the past you were experimenting with the sub placement; did you wind up with a position where you got maximum bass reinforcement from the 3 nearest room surfaces? If not, the "free" output boost you get there might allow a lower level setting on your sub and reduce your problem with what I term( with Alan's approval)"portnoise complaint". There's relatively little difference between all the subs you've mentioned and room placement can easily make more of a change than 1 or 2 hz more extension or 2-3 db more output capability.

Thamks, John. I was just thinking of moving it back to the corner today! It means my M60s will be a little closer to each other than I'd like, and one will be closer to the TV than the other, but...

You may want to check out this site for real world performance specs for many subs discussed here:

http://www.lut.fi/~maeronen/subspl.txt

How come the Hsu VTF-3 isn't included in the list that 2x6 just linked? It's more popular than most others listed there...

With regard to the port clearance, I wouldn't underestimate the importance of a good clearance: When my VTF-3 (max extension mode, with one port open) is working hard to reproduce bass sound close to the port-resonance frequency at ~16Hz, the air velocity at the outer end of the port is just ENORMOUS. I can feel lots of "wind" blowing onto my palm even at 3-4 feet away from the port. While I don't think 3' clearance is a must, I tend to feel that "the more the better."

Why don't those specs list distortion levels? That's more important than spl levels in my book.

Craig, note that the Finnish site does specify a 10% distortion limit. While in general distortion over 1% begins to be audible on music, at very low bass frequencies the threshold of audibility is higher and several percent isn't detectible. Hence the use of 10% in that analysis.