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Death Star Subwoofer

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the because-you-can dept.

bmfs writes "A subwoofer so powerful it could loosen fillings, shake out the cholesterol from arteries and generally make a lot of noise. It seems that the Death Star, ignoring the weakness that ultimately lead to its complete destruction, was a pretty good design... so someone made his own (with a lot of help from a housemate). The Death Star Subwoofer is currently up for sale on Ebay."

9 of 357 comments (clear)

  1. Wow! by kjkeefe · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Who do you pay to get your ebay auctions posted on slashdot!?!? He'll be having a very nice christmas I'll bet...

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    1, 2, 3, 4, 5... That's the combination on my luggage!
    1. Re:Wow! by Perekrestok · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I was thinking the same thing until I saw that the sub is actually pretty cool. Should /. refrain from posting any auctions even if they are awesome?

  2. Wow... by themishkin · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I happened to check out the listing when there were only 3 comments posted on Slashdot about this. The ebay counter was around 4000 at the time and now it's up to 11000+ about 5 minutes later! Behold, the power of Slashdot!

    1. Re:Wow... by kebes · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Cool. Let's do some stats. The first post was at 11:36 (4000 count on ebay). Your post was at 11:48 (11000 count). To this, I'll add my own observations, and we come up with some data on slashdotting:

      Here's some data in the format: "time -- time since article was posted -- counter on eBay":
      11:35 -- 0 mins --
      11:36 -- 1 mins -- 4000
      11:48 -- 13 mins -- 11000
      12:22 -- 47 mins -- 37000
      13:42 -- 127 mins -- 84775
      13:49 -- 134 mins -- 87721
      13:51 -- 136 mins -- 88734
      13:57 -- 142 mins -- 91214
      14:03 -- 148 mins -- 94027

      From this, we can see a couple of things. First off, ebay can be counted as one of the (few) servers that survives slashdotting (slashdot also seems able to survive). Secondly, if you fit the above data, the trend is quite linear (R-squared of 0.997). The slope of the fit indicates that after a story goes live, about 600 people per minute check the link supplied in the summary. Probably lots more people read the slashdot article without actually reading the linked article.

      This is one of the rare times that slashdot links to a site that can handle the load, and supplies a counter. The counter in this case isn't unique to slashdot visits, but it looks like most of the hits on the counter have come from slashdot (it was at 4,000 before slashdot posted, and now is at >90,000. This makes for some fairly interesting statistics. I'm interested to see how long it takes before the curve starts levelling off. How many people read slashdot stories right away, versus how many read it the day after? Obviously this is not perfectly scientific, but it's kinda interesting all the same.

  3. That's not a subwoofer.... by Tyler+Eaves · · Score: 5, Interesting

    THIS is a subwoofer.

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    TODO: Something witty here...
  4. That ol' WAF again by splatterboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    From TFA: "That won't fit in our apartment"... My Girlfriend

    Obviously, the power of this deathstar pales in comparison to the power of the Wife Acceptance Factor (OK girlfriend, same thing basically in this case) How about Wife Acceptance Force?

    WAF -Bane of audiophiles, pretenders and geeks in general

    --
    "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." ~The Honorable Daniel Patrick Moynihan
  5. Re:Nice Idea... by Reverberant · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Speaker manufacturers go through great lengths (no pun intended) to assure that the internal dimensions of the enclosure do not allow standing waves to build up. In "box" enclosures, the length, width and height are all differing dimensions, with no dimension being a multiple of the other.

    The Death Star subwoofer is, well, a subwoofer. Most subwoofer crossovers filter frequencies above 80 to 100 Hz, per Dolby & THX recommendations, so the maximum frequency that will (hopefully) be generated by this sub is 100 Hz. The wavelength of 100 Hz is roughly 10 ft. The half wavelength at 100 Hz is 5 ft. The diameter of the Death Star subwoofer is 3 ft.

    Basically, the smallest half-wavelength that will be generated by the subwoofer is greater than the diameter of the cabinet, so standing waves just aren't an issue here. It is something that needs to be considered for higher-frequency speakers, but a lot of the "rules-of-thumb" that are applicable to mid/high-frequency speakers don't apply to subwoofers because the wavelengths of bass frequencies are so large. (some gotcha's, like baffle-step, may apply, depending on the geometry of the cabinet)

  6. Re:That's no moon... by spyder913 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    and here's how to build it!

    http://www.objectreality.co.uk/DeathStarPlans/

  7. oh, CRAP, get an EV 30W and do it RIGHT. by swschrad · · Score: 3, Interesting

    12 inch driver, big whoop. get'cha an EV 30W organ/reinforcement woofer someplace, 30 inch diameter and something like only 25 watts drive power, and build something that will crush that little clock-radio sub on eBay.

    some notes. excellent article in a 1960s popular electronics on building it. you need a reflex or exponential horn cabinet, depending on how many mcf of room you want to rattle. cutoff frequency is 80 HZ, don't drive it any higher. you will need to use at least 1-1/4 plywood with stout internal bracing, screws, and glue to put the cabinet together, and 1-1/2 inch is better. "stout internal bracing" means clear hardwood 2x4 or larger.

    this speaker was also used in the EV Patrician speaker system back in the day, as well as electric organs for churches and halls. they are very easily damaged in transit, and should be shipped in either the factory box or the original cabinet it was found it.

    last ones I saw on eBay were $3500 each. they used to be $125 drivers back in the day. shipping of the speaker alone is over 100 pounds.

    make a tennis-ball woofer with one of THOSE puppies, and write if your confuser survived turning it up. long been a dream of mine to whip one up, but never had the money or room....

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    if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?