0hz Subwoofer

There is one part of the equation you are forgetting. The room the sub is in has to be large enough for a 15hz wave length to form..........

Everyone wants to grow up and sound like a kid in a car! More bass on the outside than in! doh.gif
 
My budget is around the price of £1000 but I can stretch slightly over. Size wise I have the space to go upto a 15" sub around the same size as the Klipsch R-115SW. I know I'm not coming across as the most helpful so I do apologise. Being straight to the point I'm after a sub which can provide big impact but not bottom out at lower frequencies. I've heard the PV1 and that throws you back in your seat during big blockbusters but it never threatens to bottom out. I'd like to really go for another US brand really. I live in the UK so availability is difficult. My vintage Altecs were made in Anaheim California. It took me ages to track 5 of them down and get them shipped out to the UK. Ive heard some great stuff about the Klipsch Reference R-115SW which seems to be in a similar league to the B&W PV1. Any ideas?

R-115SW is about 20"x 22" x 24" and is a ported design with a 15" driver with a 400-800 watt amp. Nothing really special but you can bet it was designed to maximize output for size and cost. Theoretically you might do better by cramming a high excursion 18" driver in a similar sized (can you go ~24"cube?) sealed box and supplying substantially more power via a pro audio amp. However, this is getting into DIY which you may have little interest in. Your key is going to be to find something available locally rather than paying big money to have a big heavy box shipped across the pond.
 
New to this site!!!

I've got a 5.1 home cinema. I'm using a Denon AVR powering 5 vintage Altec Lansing Bookshelf speakers rated at 100w rms and a self powered JBL sub rated at 100w rms. Really happy with the sound from the 5 Altecs but wanting more power and more low end than what I'm getting from the JBL sub. I'm getting some annoying port noise with the JBL aswell. The frequency response of the sub is 35 - 150htz. I'm wanting to go for something in the same relm as the B&W PV1 which is enclosed with no port. It offers 400w rms & 800w peek. Due to having no port it is immune from rattling noises which I get from the JBL and it will go down to 7.5htz perfect for explosive films. However I expect there is competition out there at a similar price which is just as good. Can anyone make any recommendations?

I guess this is the B&W PV1 sub?
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Not a vinyl fan, I hope! - otherwise sooner than later on your way down to 0 hz, you'll meet my friend Mr. Rumble. He lives around 10 Hz, and you'll know it 'cause there'll be a "Lot of shakin' going on"

Good luck to ya, and I hope you find what you wish.......
 
New to this site!!!

I've got a 5.1 home cinema. I'm using a Denon AVR powering 5 vintage Altec Lansing Bookshelf speakers rated at 100w rms and a self powered JBL sub rated at 100w rms. Really happy with the sound from the 5 Altecs but wanting more power and more low end than what I'm getting from the JBL sub. I'm getting some annoying port noise with the JBL aswell. The frequency response of the sub is 35 - 150htz. I'm wanting to go for something in the same relm as the B&W PV1 which is enclosed with no port. It offers 400w rms & 800w peek. Due to having no port it is immune from rattling noises which I get from the JBL and it will go down to 7.5htz perfect for explosive films. However I expect there is competition out there at a similar price which is just as good. Can anyone make any recommendations?
 
As another possible alternative, look for subs with passive radiators. They can be physically smaller and will have no port noise, because there is no port.
I don't know any that will go to zero hertz, but as others have stated, anything much below 15-20 cycles is inaudible anyway.
 
Learned a long time ago that at 100 db in an organ chamber I still could not hear around 20 HZ. Oh I could feel something but I couldn't hear it. Some where around 24 hz which is close to the note G. A couple of notes below the reach of Piano I could definitely perceive sound level.

So on my HT processor I cut off everything below 25 hz, which happened to be the limit of my front speakers in my room anyway. No use damaging speakers or waisting power on some thing I can't hear or can only slightly feel. From many years of installing discos I learned the 1/3 octave below 40 Hz was all you needed to excite dancers legs on the dance floor. Get that feel in the gut and chest takes a mighty big strong system. What you need to do is add up the total area of your woofers and estimate their displacement at 80 hz with the power you have. Then figurer you need 4 to 8 times that displacement to produce 20 HZ effectively.

Some folks like to raise the band below 70 HZ or so 6 db to get that extra kick. lets say you have 3 12's and 2 8 inch woofers that can move about 1/4 of an inch at 80 hz, that would be 108 pi+ 32 pi X.25= 35 pi cu inches. If you were conservative that would mean about 140 pi cu inches volume of displacment for the subs. If the sub could move 1 inch, then 2 15" sub woofers would give 100 pi cu inches. Two 18 inch subwoofers together would give you 160 pi. So are you ready to go buy a professional JBL sub system with two 18 " subs and a crown power amp with about 1000 watts? I don't mean JBL PA 18 inch type woofers. I mean their special long travel voice coil sub woofers that will reach down to 16 hZ or so. The amp you can find cheap, not the woofers. They make a dual 15 that does really well. If you can afford a Maserati, I guess you could choose Magicos dual 15's with built in 2000 watt amp. If you have a corner available you could pick up some significant level to reduce the power requirements and possibly change from two 18's down to one, or possibly one long thrown 15, but I would not count on it.

There are very few sources that reproduce below 16 hz, except maybe a turntable with a lot of rumble. I was entertaining back in in the 60's & 70's watching Mac ML-4 woofers and Concert Grand Grill cloth flap around caused by noisy Reko-kut, Thorens, Dual and other puck driven turntables. No wonder Empire belt driven tables and the mighty little AR Turntable became so popular with very low rumble. AR 3 owners would be in all sorts of distress when the woofer cones struck the grill cloth.
 
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There is one part of the equation you are forgetting. The room the sub is in has to be large enough for a 15hz wave length to form..........

Room size relative to frequency does affect the room modes. That, however, doesn't mean frequencies with waves longer than the room cannot be produced/cannot exist in that room.
 
But will you hear/experience them or just artifacts thereof?

Them and the modes.

If this thing about needing a room sized to full waves to achieve that frequency were true there'd be no such thing as deep bass in a car or from earphones or ear buds.

Heck, if it were true, many, maybe even most people wouldn't have bass below 50 - 70Hz as that spans wavelength of ~23 - 16ft, respectively.
 
0 Hz is straight DC and not good for speaker coils or amplifier outputs. The 16Hz pedal on a pipe organ is the lowest natural music tone and very few speakers can reproduce that without doubling. I would shoot for maybe 20Hz, plus or minus about 3dB. I've heard of reproducers that can get down to 2 Hz but they are for industrial uses and would likely not even fit inside your house.
 
0 Hz is straight DC and not good for speaker coils or amplifier outputs. The 16Hz pedal on a pipe organ is the lowest natural music tone and very few speakers can reproduce that without doubling. I would shoot for maybe 20Hz, plus or minus about 3dB. I've heard of reproducers that can get down to 2 Hz but they are for industrial uses and would likely not even fit inside your house.

Check out post 12. It goes down to 1Hz and is marketed for home use. It does need some custom work to install it.

www.eminent-tech.com/howitworks.htm
 
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