15" subwoofer build with pictures
Printed From: Speakerplans.com
Category: Plans
Forum Name: Ported Enclosures
Forum Description: Post all your reflex and bandpass and 'other' boxes with holes in stuff here...
URL: https://forum.speakerplans.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=102842
Printed Date: 09 August 2022 at 2:10am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.05 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: 15" subwoofer build with pictures
Posted By: 0krizia
Subject: 15" subwoofer build with pictures
Date Posted: 10 November 2018 at 9:55am
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Last winter I started a small sound rental company as a hobby business. PA systems have been one of my sweet obsessions for the last 15 years and I wanted to take this obsession and make something out of it. so I started out with a 2x210W amplifier and a pair of 15" top speaker for 300$. From there I slowly grew my cashflow and last summer my market analysis revealed that it was indeed a market I could rely on, so I invested a total of 6500$ to scale up my company as well as investing in a car that would have space as well as a nice "face" for the company.  Since I currently work alone, I had to make sure my sound system could be handled by one person alone regardless of my costumes location, so I decided to go for a pair of 15" subwoofers with NEO drivers. Since the size of the cabinets had to be limited I chose to look for drivers with a long xmax and xmec to compensate for the lack of surface area. After a lot of research, I ended up with 18sound drivers with an xmax of 9mm and xmec of 20mm (39mm peak to peak). As for tuning, I wanted to tune the cabinets at 35hz but after I realized that the port velocity got to high in my design, I had to increase the diameter of the port from 2x4" to 2x6", this made the tuning go up to 42hz instead, but it also increased the peak power handling to 3000W per cabinet instead of 2000W, so what I lost in low end I got in total SPL. These subwoofers still have a -3db at 40hz and -10 db at 34 hz so they can still deliver quite good low end. With 2x6" ports I can also boost the low 40`s without any port compression issues to give more "size" to the sound. Here are some pictures of the early build processes.        And here are the cabinets before coating    The internal bracing got a total makeover later on but I do not have any pictures of the final bracing. |
Replies:
Posted By: 0krizia
Date Posted: 10 November 2018 at 10:04am
Day 2 on my project I coated the cabinets with a 2k polyurethane coating with a spray gun.      |
Posted By: 0krizia
Date Posted: 10 November 2018 at 10:23am
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After the build finished I got the drivers, handles and all the extras for the subwoofers. To my great dissapointment, the supplier had written the "cut out" dimensions for the handles as the total size of the handles, making the holes I made too large, this catastrophy cost me 250$ + 6 hours of work and another 6 hours of driving to my workshop to repair. I ended up changing the location of the handles as I was to afraid my repair had made the cabinets to weak on the sidewalls so I placed the handles on the "top and bottom" instead, making the cabinets long rather than tall when placed on the ground. All in all the result turned out well and the custom front grills was at least a perfect fit. Here are some pictures of the final result.    |
Posted By: cravings
Date Posted: 10 November 2018 at 10:41am
| good work. they look good. |
Posted By: 0krizia
Date Posted: 10 November 2018 at 10:44am
| As for the actual sound quality of these subwoofers, I would say they play quite accurate with next to no DSP applied. As for Sound level, I have yet to test them under high pressure yet, but I rented out one of them with my smaller sound package a few weeks ago to a birthday party in a 300m2 room with 4-5m under the ceiling. with less than 1/3 of peak power the whole room was rattling (probably tells more about the room than the sound equipment) but I could tell that one of these subwoofers was more than enough for this event, the low end had great size to it and there was plenty of headroom. I tried to play around with some DSP but I found it to play the best when no DPS was applied to this job. |
Posted By: 0krizia
Date Posted: 10 November 2018 at 10:50am
Thanks Cravings = )
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cravings wrote:Posted By: JonB67
Date Posted: 10 November 2018 at 1:23pm
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looking very good. What's the volume of the cabinet?
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Posted By: 0krizia
Date Posted: 10 November 2018 at 2:02pm
The net volume for the drivers are 126-liter per cabinet, the total volume of the cabinets is about 200L. |
Posted By: JonB67
Date Posted: 10 November 2018 at 2:32pm
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I found it really hard to know which compromise to make on my 15s... Make it about 120 litres and more optimally flat or make it 80 / 90 and sacrifice low end for more punch and output 60 up. Having the same dilemma now redesigning into doubles! Love the look of yours though. Tidy job. Keep posting build pics! |
Posted By: 0krizia
Date Posted: 10 November 2018 at 6:36pm
When I design cabinets I usually list what I need it to do first, this way I build frames to work within. after I know what I need it to do, the second challenge is usaly how to fit as large port(s) as possible... Next year ill probably built something bigger that will go lower for larger jobs. I'm currently working on the design now. I can post that project as well, it looks like it might be a 21" bandpass design unless I find a reason why it is a bad idea.   2 more pictures, with and without one port blocked. I am currently using a pillow until I get something better. With one port blocked, the cabinets tuning drops to 29 hz and goes down below 24hz without problems, SPL wise this modification cannot be used on anything but small jobs with both cabinets used.
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Posted By: njw
Date Posted: 10 November 2018 at 11:33pm
Nice build, the large ports reminds me of the EV Shuttlesound stuff. I like your 'van' too.  |
Posted By: 0krizia
Date Posted: 11 November 2018 at 9:04am
Thank you Njw, when the time is right, ill put the company logo on the car as well, I just have to get the most essential equipment first.
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