labs
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Category: Plans
Forum Name: Other plans
Forum Description: Discussion / Questions about all the other plans
URL: https://forum.speakerplans.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=12843
Printed Date: 27 March 2026 at 7:16am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.08 - https://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: labs
Posted By: abrupt
Subject: labs
Date Posted: 21 November 2007 at 11:05am
| are labs the best subs you can build |
Replies:
Posted By: tallmike
Date Posted: 21 November 2007 at 11:17am
|
errr...
There is no such thing as the 'best subs you can build', as audio applications have many different requirements.
Are Labs the best subs for putting in the back of your car? No.
Are Labs the best horn loaded double 12"? Maybe.
Are Labs the best touring sub? I very much doubt it.
But they're very good subwoofers, and they're a design worth looking at if you have good carpentry skills, a lot of plywood, decent amount of patience and want some lovely bass!
- Mike
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Posted By: biotec
Date Posted: 21 November 2007 at 12:23pm
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I've certainly never heard such defined pummelling sub from another cab. There are other hornload cabs out there that may be as loud.
Another cab to look at is the big bertha double 18inch EAW w-bin with barn door horn extension. Built in singles it would be easier to carry and will certainly give a lab horn a run for its money. The 18s will be under stress though and may impart more distortion
I would hazard a guess that the new bassmaxx cabs, the trip 3 I think it's called, would come out favourably against a lab horn, but then again they have an extra driver and are considerably bigger. By all reports the bassmaxx cabs put out trully astonishing amounts of sub. They are not a free design though and will be expensive to import.
If you want to keep excessive size down, the double 18 bandpass cabs will do loud sub but they don't sound as impressive as the horn loaded monsters mentioned above IMO. The D&B B2 and the FK1 infra are designs to look at. Both will be very driver sensitive though and the B2 needs a fair ammount of processing before it makes sense.
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Posted By: tallmike
Date Posted: 21 November 2007 at 10:33pm
| ... and the EM Acoustics MSE-118 Quake Subwoofer, which in my opinion outperforms a LAB Sub...... |
Posted By: levyte357
Date Posted: 21 November 2007 at 11:48pm
|
abrupt, PM me regarding your Supers.
------------- "Who am I? I'm the guy who does his job.. You must be the other guy". |
Posted By: biotec
Date Posted: 22 November 2007 at 9:20am
| the Quake is another good one that I missed, but not a DIY project. |
Posted By: minaximal
Date Posted: 22 November 2007 at 11:31am
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the em acoustics quake, and noise control wmd, are probably the best uk contenders, (but not diy) but both have either an excessively small mouth or too short path length for claimed smooth freq response.. and cost between £2000-£3000 each! ouch i know a good proper sized contender though  ------------- Subs + Barges = :) http://www.metaacoustics.com" rel="nofollow - www.metaacoustics.com |
Posted By: mikewheeler
Date Posted: 25 November 2007 at 9:34pm
|
Just to point out mate, the published frequency response on a Quake, as stated on the datasheet, is for four enclosures together....where the mouth area & path length are correct for the published response...you are right that the response of a single enclosure on it's own will not be as smooth as the response plot published. Cheers, Mike ------------- Mike Wheeler Operations Director EM Acoustics Loudspeakers |
Posted By: minaximal
Date Posted: 26 November 2007 at 3:30am
|
hi mike, i have not seen any frequency plots for the quake, only seen the web specs. and done some head calcs of the small mouth size and 9' pathlength, which with four cabs and a f3 of 27hz is impressive as they are still not a full quarter wave size, i would assume to help get closer to this the cabs see the front panel above mouth opening help to create a boundary affect, or quasi pathlength extension, to try and avoid too bad a ski jump freq response down to 27hz. i would imagine they are excursion limited at full power at 27hz or earlier. do they need a pinch of eq also? i dont doubt they are a great design, but there always seem to be limitations when not using full quarter wave pathlengths and mouth sizes. out of interest becuase your'e here, and it's always good to have discussion with active designers, perhaps you dont mind giving away a little on how you see horn design (or it's variants), without giving away too much, that you may want to keep closer to home. regards al ------------- Subs + Barges = :) http://www.metaacoustics.com" rel="nofollow - www.metaacoustics.com |
Posted By: mikewheeler
Date Posted: 26 November 2007 at 8:16am
|
Hello mate, I must be honest - I did not design the Quake, my colleague and our designer Ed Kinsella did, so I am not really the best person to ask! Normally in use, with four we would put a steep slope high pass at 25Hz to enable full power usage (which is significantly more than the stated 800W RMS), but no, we don't ever use any EQ on them except in extreme circumstances... I'll ask Ed if he's willing to release some info, and see what I can do! Many thanks, Mike ------------- Mike Wheeler Operations Director EM Acoustics Loudspeakers |
Posted By: tb_mike
Date Posted: 28 November 2007 at 1:52am
Id expect the horn to be unloaded at ~27hz,so youd want to use a subsonic filter near 33hz.
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minaximal wrote:Posted By: ceharden
Date Posted: 28 November 2007 at 2:14am
| With a LR filter at 27Hz it'll be 6dB down at that frequency which might be enough to limit the excursion to a safe level. |
Posted By: minaximal
Date Posted: 28 November 2007 at 10:09am
thats what i was getting at, but mike wheeler suggests a 25hz hp is fine, maybe the other member on here (tall mike?) can let us know how he treats his.. possibly the oem pd driver helps with being unloaded below fc, or the design is not a simple horn... for my horn in a single i use a 24hz l-r hp for low power, but a 28hz hp is necessary with a 1000w sine wave at 26hz (not that music realistically has this) ------------- Subs + Barges = :) http://www.metaacoustics.com" rel="nofollow - www.metaacoustics.com |
Posted By: adambomb
Date Posted: 28 November 2007 at 10:30am
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With regard to Labs... People on PSW reckon it should be run 35hz and up...
Quote :
Eminence: You must use a high pass filter set to 35 Hz and that has a slope of at least 24dB per octave to realize the real potential of the design. Many people are using huge power on these cabinets day in and day out, but they are the ones who run steep high pass filters on them. ------------- http://www.freespeakerplans.com" rel="nofollow - www.freespeakerplans.com |
Posted By: minaximal
Date Posted: 28 November 2007 at 10:56am
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i thought general concensus on the labs was at 30hz hp.. but it's been a while so i could be wrong kind of defeats the point in having such a large horn/low fl, if its 6db down at 35hz ------------- Subs + Barges = :) http://www.metaacoustics.com" rel="nofollow - www.metaacoustics.com |
Posted By: mykey
Date Posted: 28 November 2007 at 11:33am
 2295? squids FOR 1------------- ......just all them hanging there like giant bananas. |
Posted By: Mark James
Date Posted: 28 November 2007 at 12:43pm
|
iirc the lab in stacks will do 30hz fine , i think i remember davey t doing some measurements and they were almost flat to 31hz, but the lab12 is supposed to hit xmax at 1300watts a cab at 31hz or so, with a 35hz hpf they can take over double the power alleggedly, at least thats how i understood it..... either >30hz max 1300w a cab, which id imagine is still bluddy loooooud! or howether much some nutcases are putting into their labs with a 35hz hpf, i think ninebar use a 35hz hpf and about 2kw a box... [by the way this is just what i thnk i remember reading and may be slightly inacurate, was a long time ago i read it] ------------- insert silly sentence here |
Posted By: adambomb
Date Posted: 28 November 2007 at 1:24pm
|
IMO...
If you want ultimate freq response run 30hz+.. but half the power..
If you want ultimate SPL then run 35hz and up with proper power.
I run my X1s with 35hz HPF witha 48db slope... more headroom... can get more spl out of them within my choosen band (35 - 70).. makes perfect sense to me... I'm yet to find a track that has anything meanigful under 30hz (where my rig is only 2 -3 db down even with a very steep slope). ------------- http://www.freespeakerplans.com" rel="nofollow - www.freespeakerplans.com |
Posted By: fuzzylogic
Date Posted: 28 November 2007 at 7:28pm
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Adam are your X1's still loaded with P-audio? ------------- NEIGHBOURHOOD SOUNDSYSTEM Infinitely baffled. |
Posted By: adambomb
Date Posted: 29 November 2007 at 11:44am
|
Yup.
P.Audio C18-650EL... I'm not saying they are the best.. but as long as you keep the power within limits they are fine... and only 1db maybe 2db down on the SD18.
Ideally I would like V1000, if only for the increased power handling (rather than the extra 1 or 2db).
In a group of 4 they really do wobble the air outdoors. ------------- http://www.freespeakerplans.com" rel="nofollow - www.freespeakerplans.com |
Posted By: da_audio_don
Date Posted: 30 November 2007 at 11:33am
| is the labhorn a short throw or a long throwhorn?? i heard 8 of them in a a club. Up close, they were Devasting, but further away, Everything got weak pretty fast. They're loud, but IMHO I dont think they have EAW SB 1000s or JBL VT 4880 subs beat by very much. |
Posted By: da_audio_don
Date Posted: 30 November 2007 at 11:34am
| Is the labhorn a short throw or a long throwhorn?? i heard 8 of them in a a club. Up close, they were Devasting, but further away, Everything got weak pretty fast. They're loud, but IMHO I dont think they have EAW SB 1000s or JBL VT 4880 subs beat by very much. |
Posted By: _djk_
Date Posted: 30 November 2007 at 1:56pm
|
Sounds like the club had a poor system for mid-bass.
Big horns (like the Lab) sound like they have no real bass when you're up close, they pound in the back of the room.
Most mid-bass set ups have inadequate throw and sound OK up front, but turn to 'mush' in the back of the room. ------------- djk |
Posted By: Mark James
Date Posted: 30 November 2007 at 2:10pm
|
iirc isnt that because for the human ear to properly percieve sound it has to be nearly a whole wavelength away? ie stick an spl meter in front of a horn sub and you may read 140db @40hz [just a random figure plucked from my head] but not realy be able to hear the 40hz stand a whole wavelengthaway and you will hear the 40hz even though the spl meter will now read slightly lower at that frequency. or did i understand this wrong??? ------------- insert silly sentence here |
Posted By: da_audio_don
Date Posted: 30 November 2007 at 3:17pm
| I guess you're right they probably could have done better with something like the HD 15s for midbass and have those play down to 80 Hz, then have the Lab horns take over.. I admit, the labs are quite capable of being punchy though.... I do like that... |
Posted By: _djk_
Date Posted: 01 December 2007 at 12:10am
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"or did i understand this wrong???"
You got it exactly right. You need to be one wavelength away to make the transition from sound pressure (which you can measure) to velocity (which you can hear). For mids and highs this is a very short distance, for bass it is not. ------------- djk |
Posted By: Mark James
Date Posted: 01 December 2007 at 12:13am
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nice for once i read something and actualy vaguely understood it, i take it thats a rule of sound, ie doesnt only aply to horns and not even just speakers. if you stand too close to any sound source, say a falling brick that just happens to have a very low frequency sound when it hits the floor [not likely but stay with me a second] you technicaly wouldnt hear the fundamental if it was too low a frequency and you were too close. ------------- insert silly sentence here |
Posted By: _djk_
Date Posted: 01 December 2007 at 10:29am
|
Actually, it applies to horns only.
A horn is a transformer.
It transforms pressure in the throat to velocity at the mouth.
Direct radiators just beat the air with velocity, that's why they have bass up close.
Unless you have a straight truck and a ramp, real bass horns are not practical. These days I use direct radiators below 150hz. ------------- djk |
Posted By: Mark James
Date Posted: 01 December 2007 at 12:39pm
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aha, see i didnt fuly understand it then. thanks i do now lol. ------------- insert silly sentence here |