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Build Your Own Subwoofer
Gerard J. Pinzone writes "Here's a page that details the construction of a homebrew subwoofer." Another in a long line of "You can, but should you?" projects.
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The DIY section on avsforum also has some info.
DIY subwoofers is another place to start.
In fact a google search yields about 16,000 results with the words "DIY" and "subwoofer".
Which brings me to...
Is this really news?
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Sure, it's great that the guy documented his project so others could replicate it, but it might be more useful if he mentioned how he calculated the optimal port length. Specs on resonance frequency, Vas, power handling, and other things might be nice as well. Or why he chose a ported sub rather than an isobaric or sealed design or something else. Not that there's a correct choice, but knowing a little bit about how and why he made his decisions might help others down the line.
This sig intentionally left justified.
People have been doing this for a long time (Building ENCLOSURES, not subwoofers). All those little bassheads that you see going down the street with civics shaking the windows out of your house do it themselves. It's simple and easy, and most companies that sell subwoofers provide very detailed and specific guides (more than that page) about port length for ported boxes, volume calculations, building materials, construction methods, and countless other things. And boy, MDF is a bitch to work with.. you need a carbide blade for the saws, and screws strip SO easily. Not to mention MDF dust is very carcinogenic (search around google) and smells bad. Expect this thing to stink up wherever you put it for a while. Most of the guides are in PDF format (For car audio) from the major sub manufacturers' sites: www.kicker.com www.rockfordfosgate.com etc Forque (Chester Bochan)
Building a sub is a great project. As a single driver speaker, it requires no crossover, and therefore is relatively easy to design/build. Plus, with some careful planning, you can get amazing results.
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I've built a couple Subs based around the Shiva Mk II driver this guy used, along with a 250W plate amplifier from partsexpress, and it is amazing. Easily produces useable bass down to 20 hz in a sealed enclosure (F3 of something like 17.3 hz in a 1.7 cu ft. box, if I remember correctly...). An adire sub kit easily rivals subs in the $1000-$1200 range.
Listening to one of these explains why audiophiles don't like those Sat/sub computer multimedia sets, and tend to call them a "bunch of crap". None of them produce any useable bass below 50-60 hz, and a lot of HT systems are designed such that the sub only STARTS playing from those frequencies down.
Having said that, I don't see why this is front page news on
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
There's more to building quality speakers then just mounting drivers in a box: particularly with ported designs. Building a sub with controlled, tight bass is the challenge; anyone can build a deafening "rumble box".
-Chris
--an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--
Just take a gander at the king of all subwoofers they made out of an old hard drive motor at MIT!
Software piracy is victimless theft.
I own the 4th and 5th editions of this book, and it has everything you would ever want on enclosure design. You can pick it up from Crutchfield, or I'm sure Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc. should carry it.
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
This has to be the worst Slashdot how-to ever. There is absolutely nothing geeky about doing it blind like this, especially considering how much information is available about doing it the right way. So kids, don't do this at home; do better!
He didn't even build a good case, as far as can be told by that article. Maybe a good looking case, but if he didn't design the cabinet using simulation software, it's very unlikely that it's a good sounding case.
In case you're thinking of a similar project, a good page with all kinds of information and links for designing and building your own subwoofers that actually sound good is here.
Here is a page of freeware loudspeaker design software and links to more. And another such page of speaker design software is here.
I read at +3, so I might not have seen a link to this project. Have no idea if it is any good, but it's certainly cheaper than many other options.
(For those not wishing to slashdot OSDN, it's for gspeaker, a gpl software for determining speaker enclosure sizes)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I think one of them routes and the other one routs. But when you stick -er on the end the written difference disappears.
There's a similar question with -ing, which has led some British publications to distinguish between 'routeing' and 'routing', but most people just write routing for both.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com