Bucket Sub Revisited

Poultrygeist

Lunatic Member
I came across the Bucket Sub on the Transcendent Sound website.

A few weeks later I heard a pair at the home of their inventor, Ed Schilling of Hornshoppe Horn fame.

He was driving them with a Crown XLS 1000 which has a built in crossover and I was stunned at how good they sounded.

I originally started a bucket sub thread under DIY before building a pair but it never really took off. It probably looked too easy to have much merit with the DIY crowd.

At the request of others I thought I'd try it here in hopes to attract those who normally wouldn't consider building their own sub woofers.

Here's the original link which is an easy to follow recipe for the bucket subs. I'll follow this up with some pictures of how mine went together.

http://www.transcendentsound.com/Transcendent/Subwoofer.html
 
I special ordered a three pack of 5 gallon buckets from Home Depot in black.

If you want to be fancy you can call them piano black.

Removed the stickers and handles.

Then cut out the bottom with a jigsaw to the dimensions of the Peerless woofers.

Note that the buckets are reversed so the bottom becomes the top and the lid is on the bottom.

Added some binding posts.

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The only thing I did that differed from the original plan was to make two mounting rings. The inside of the ring uses the woofer's cut out dimension and the outside of the ring is the measurement of the bucket's inside.

I did this as I reasoned that once I siliconed the woofer to the plastic it would be permanent and I could never remove it.

I siliconed the mounting ring to the inside of the bucket and behind the plastic baffle. I used the clamps to hold the plastic baffle to the mounting ring but that was not necessary and I skipped this step on the second bucket sub.

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Next step was snapping on the lid ( bottom ) with the rubber feet attached and screwing four long deck screws into the base just above the lid. This is key as the concrete is re-enforced by the screws and holds everything in place.

Then I mixed the quick setting concrete and taped off all the little areas on the outside that I might accidentally drop some concrete into. Used my wife's hand spade to fill the bucket with concrete ( about 2 1/2" deep )

I allowed the concrete to set for 2 days, wired the binding posts and attached them and screwed the woofers through the plastic baffle into the mounting rings using #8 x 3/4 construction screws from HD.

For a little bling i added some automotive plastic door edge molding.
 
So the wiring was done after they were full of hardened concrete?

Sent from my Nexus Device using my thumbs.
 
Nice. Are they 10"s?
Perhaps you could paint the bolts in black too.

The Danish Peerless SLS 830667 is an 8" paper cone. It's priced at $66 from Parts Express one of our favorite sponsors. One of the pair I received was full of distortion but PE sent out a replacement right away. I returned the defective woofer on their dime.

I tried black screws at first but I think silver screws add a nice bit of contrast and match the chrome trim.

My goal was not just good performance but to make a bucket sub that wouldn't scream ugly 5 gallon bucket.

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Smaller than I thought!

Would make for a nice DB if you have a couple more.

Sent from my X10a using Tapatalk 2
 
So the wiring was done after they were full of hardened concrete?

Sent from my Nexus Device using my thumbs.

Yes. I used these crimp ring connectors on the binding posts and 16 gauge wire and blue female crimp connectors on the speaker tabs.

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I really want to build a pair of these. I even found grey buckets that would match my room.
Pretty sure the SO would sh*t if she saw these. Lol
To me, they look cool.
 
Fantastic idea!! :thmbsp:

So how do they sound for you? I have a Parasound 120 w.p.c. amp sitting in my closet. They should power a pair nicely. The forecast here in San Anotnio is plenty of rain for the next week or 2. Should give me some ample time to build a pair.

Thanks!

Jimmy
 
Has anyome ever measured these, output wise? I've been considering subs & am just wondering how low these go & how I would intergrate them into my 2 speaker stereo set up.
 
Has anyome ever measured these, output wise? I've been considering subs & am just wondering how low these go & how I would intergrate them into my 2 speaker stereo set up.

Essentially flat from 25Hz to 100Hz.

The way these are integrated is through the Yung SD300 plate amp.

I connect the source ( CDP, DAC etc. ) directly to the plate amp's line-in RCA's and then the line-outs RCA's on the plate amp are connected to my main amp RCA inputs.

If you wanted to connect multiple sources to the plate amp a switch box is all you need.

Since the plate amp is used outboard the controls are easy to adjust.
 
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