Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater sub....liminal

Length of stroke...

Hello,

The listening area you describe is only about 1232 cubic feet. (assuming a 8 foot ceiling). Not that large.
A good 10 inch sub would most likely suffice, although a good 12 inch would provide a more foundation shacking experience. Shake it up if your budget allows.
(you can never have too much sub, as you can always turn it down).
Maybe a sub can be to big, some can be massive phyically
Enjoy

I know that this doesn't really apply but I have this great PA System for a band. (Did anybody check out my band?) Anyway I have fairly high end JBL speakers. The subs are 18" and get 1100 watts each at 4ohm. I crank recorded music through these at times and the bass sounds great. No sluggishness and very musical. It the PA arena there is something called a folded horn cabinet. The speaker is in the enclosure and faces a bunch of baffles before the sound comes out. You cannot actually see the speaker. This design is know for really low bottom end and goes much lower than mine in fequency. It's that chest thumping thing goin' on. Mine are front loaded where you see the speaker. These are less boomy and much more musical. Believe me with 2200 watts feeding 2 18" subs you can feel it but not like a folded horn.

I've equated a folded horn design somewhat to a down firing sub for home audio. It seems many of the smaller subs are down firing to take advantage of the floor to help with the spread of the bass and are probably less musical than a front loaded sub.

Am I all wet on this?

You are going to have a hard time reaching below 25Hz with a good 10" driver. It just dosn't have enough displacement to produce notes below that frequency.

What consititutes a good driver really depends on what you are trying to achieve. The bass guitar's bottom note is around 40Hz. The lowest note on the big pipe organs is around 16Hz. Movies put out LFE as low as 10Hz with stuff down to 15Hz being common.

A smaller driver like a 10" will do just fine for most music, but not for some and not for movies.

Bob. Folded horn designs exist in the DIY world as well and are considered to be the lowest distortion designs (assuming a good driver). However, it is going to take a LOT of space to make a horn that will produce sound at 15Hz.