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.

Comments

Amazing!

[dotgod]

I used a router to cut all of the circles

I just want to see how he hacked a router to do that.

Kidding...I'm not that much of a geek.

home made.

[DarkHelmet]

Ooooh, for a moment when they said "Build your own subwoofer," I thought they meant out of spare parts at home.

I would have loved to see him try to build one out of parts of a microwave, stove, dishwasher, and drying machine while using a fridge to house it.

See what happens when you have old episodes of MacGyver on tape?

Not a Subwoofer

[iamjim]

This is some guys expierence making an ENCLOSURE. I got excited, wrapping a cone w/ wire, finding a good permenant magnet. NOPE - This is something that MANY MANY people have done. It is making a subwoofer that would be the challenge. Then again, making a proper enclosure isn't easy...

Next time get the title of the article right!

Check out Hometheaterforum.com

[sdo1]

The DIY section on HTF is filled with people doing DIY subs.

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

Not too detailed...

[cei]

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.

Score -1, clueless

[Anonymous Coward]

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)

What is missing

[divide overflow]

This isn't even a good explanation for how to create a subwoofer enclosure. It is completely missing any information on the critical variables that describe the attributes of the low frequency driver as well as the procedure for designing the enclosure and crossover network to work with the driver to produce an optimized system. You can't just throw any old speaker into a given enclosure and expect a decent result. If you don't design the enclosure around the Thiele-Small parameters for the driver you put in it you are basically throwing the driver into a pretty box and ignoring the most important factors...how the completed system will perform.

And I wouldn't be a good slashdotter if I didn't mention are several computer programs that help with the design of speaker systems. They are really helpful for designing a subwoofer. I used such a program to design the subwoofer in my car.

moljnir!

[StandardDeviant]

One 26 inch home-brew subwoofer, coming right up!. They built it with the driver from an ancient hard drive. For those not up on Norse mythology, moljnir (several spellings seen) was the unstoppable hammer of the gods, carried by Thor himself. I'd say a building-shaking sub comes pretty close to that description. ;-)

There is one trick to doing this right

[Dr. Spork]

This guy is obviously a pretty weak hardware hacker. I say "obviously" because if he knew what he were doing, his construction page would be covered with formulas about material desity, air volume, port circumferance, port length, and many other tuning-related issues. It look to me like this guy thought of a design that seemed right a priori, bought a driver, and started cutting. Pathetic!

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!

Re:Case only.

[Syre]

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.

Re: MacGyver

[Metallic Matty]

Ooooh, for a moment when they said "Build your own subwoofer," I thought they meant out of spare parts at home.

Actually, he meant, out of parts taken from another subwoofer...

See what happens when you have old episodes of MacGyver on tape?

MacGyver could break out of a turkish prison with a straw and a toothpick...

Too bad more highschoolers dont read /.

[NeoSkandranon]

about 300 people out of my 1400 member highschool could have gotten alot out of this article..or rather the comments. they all seem to be of the mind that you can throw a pair of 15" subs in a plywood box and throw it in the back of your car, and then they wonder why it sounds like an amplified fart when the bass hits.