• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

Do i need a sub with large speakers?

Nixxuz said:
I hate to be the fly in the ointment, but i recently had dual SUB1500s, and found myself underwhelmed coming from a BIC RTR EV1200. Some thing about the amps on the Daytons made me sit and scratch my head a lttle. They just dont get very loud. I tried a number of configs, and no matter what i did, they still sounded thin. For the money, I'd say that either a BIC F12, or the aforementioned RTR, would be a better value for their level of performance.
Click to expand...

Could have something to do with the Bic having nearly 3x as many watts going to the driver. ;)

I think the SUB1500 is a great choice if you want to experiment with scattering a few (2 or 3 or more!) around a room to eliminate room modes. Otherwise something beefier is a better choice. They're a good "cheap" go to, but they're nothing amazing.

I personally run a CSS SDX10 in a sealed box with ~400 class A watts going to it... in my little apartment, it's more than enough. When I move into a bigger house, my plan is to build a new set of mains and incorporate the SDX 10 + a second identical sub into the base of the towers. Fun times will ensue. :D
 
Nixxuz said:
I hate to be the fly in the ointment, but i recently had dual SUB1500s, and found myself underwhelmed coming from a BIC RTR EV1200. Some thing about the amps on the Daytons made me sit and scratch my head a lttle. They just dont get very loud. I tried a number of configs, and no matter what i did, they still sounded thin. For the money, I'd say that either a BIC F12, or the aforementioned RTR, would be a better value for their level of performance.
Click to expand...
I have to agree here. I've got both a BIC F12 and a Dayton Sub 1200 and the BIC does play louder. This was at both line level and speaker level inputs. Methinks the amp in the Dayton doesn't have as much gain.
 
From a theoretical viewpoint, YES.....no matter how low your speakers go, the room will mess it up with some frequencies reinforced and some cancelled giving an uneven response. Multiple subs; 2, 3 or 4 along with room treatments and equalization are some of the methods used to reduce this problem.

Practically speaking, you may still be satisfied because the cancellations/reinforcements occur at different frequencies and amounts in the room and you may like the resulting sound. Also most music doesn't require really deep bass, i.e below 40 hz or so, the exceptions being organ music and some electronic music.
 
I certainly didn't think so. Then I was practically given a broken Polk Pro 660. Fixed the issue, And that subtle boost at around 60-80hz really changed my mind. My main speakers have a 12" bass driver.
 
Ross moran said:
I wish there was an app for my phone to test hz levels
Click to expand...
There almost assuredly is. http://www.audiocheck.net will let you play test tones directly from your phone to any input on your system you can hook it to.

I used Spectdroid as a spectrum analysis program to give me a vague show of where my speakers are digging to. Im sure there is something similar for an iPhone.
 
EngineerNate said:
150W plate amp vs 475W plate amp. :idea:
Click to expand...
Well supposedly both plate amps are pushing 150 RMS. But PE claim they dont actually know the peak watts for the Daytons, which seems a little suspect to me. The BICs just have obviously more headroom for transients, which is about 90% of what a sub does.

I suggested either BIC because they are both only about 15-20 bucks more than the Daytons.
 
I was just going by the advertised number. :D

@the skipper - considering 10 dB is "twice as loud" to the human ear, even ~+5dB is a substantial increase. There could also be differences in port timing/driver efficiency coming into play here as well.
 
EngineerNate said:
I was just going by the advertised number. :D

@the skipper - considering 10 dB is "twice as loud" to the human ear, even ~+5dB is a substantial increase. There could also be differences in port timing/driver efficiency coming into play here as well.
Click to expand...
Consider this: Doubling the power provides a barely audible three db gain in loudness. I took a guess and added 1 - 1.5 db to that "double" number of 300 watts

Your reference to a "twice as loud" 10db increase in loudness would require ten times the power, or 1500 watts.

Here's a little light reading for you. https://www.gcaudio.com/tips-tricks/the-relationship-of-voltage-loudness-power-and-decibels/
 
Last edited:
Sure, but half of "twice as loud" is still "significantly louder"

I wouldn't call 3dB "barely audible" either. Most references I've found indicate 3dB as a threshold for "easily perceptible increase in volume" with 1dB being the limit of perceptibly. Being a log scale, the difference between 1dB and 3dB is quite significant.

There's also the issue of human perception of sound intensity at different frequencies to consider, on top of the already mentioned potential tuning/driver sensitivity differences.
 
You might not consider 3 db "barely audible" but most of the rest of the world does,

"Sound studies tell us time and again that a 3dBA increase in sound level is barely noticeable to the human ear. In fact, you have to raise a sound level by 5dBA before most listeners report a noticeable or significant change. Further, it takes a 10dBA increase before the average listener hears “double the sound.” That’s a far cry from 3dB."

Source: https://www.abdengineering.com/blog/perception-vs-reality/

Read those links I posted, then get back to me, padawan.
 
EngineerNate said:
I think horizontally arranged mids are generally a terrible idea, but I still want to hear these.
Click to expand...

The SDA's work a little different in this regard as the horizontally arranged mids aren't playing the same tones. The inner mids are the stereo drivers and the outer mids are the dimensional drivers...this is what makes the SDA "magic"
 
I consider "twice as loud" to be "a whole heck of a lot louder." That's a scientific term. ;)

Link supporting my 1dB number. From a university physics department. http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/py105/Sound.html

We can do without the "Padawan" stuff. We're all adults here.

All of that aside. I've offered several other hypotheses to explain the apparent superiority of the BIC, which have been conveniently left out of the conversation for some reason. Shall we get back to the topic at hand?

Subwoofers by nature require a heck of a lot of power. It's not uncommon for big setups for HT to run kilowatt range power to multiple subs. This is both because of the power calcs @the skipper has hit on (needing 1500w to double 150w in perceived loudness), because of simple physics (the lower the frequency, the more power it takes to generate equal dB) and because human ears are less sensitive to super low frequencies than they are to stuff in the midrange. All of this makes having a dedicated driver/amp combo a good idea if you want to reproduce the lowest of the low frequencies.

I'm curious how the new monoprice ATMOS certified subs stack up. Their original subs were value leaders in the same vein as the Dayton.

Cheers
Nathan
 
Last edited:
Gerres26 said:
The SDA's work a little different in this regard as the horizontally arranged mids aren't playing the same tones. The inner mids are the stereo drivers and the outer mids are the dimensional drivers...this is what makes the SDA "magic"
Click to expand...

Very cool!
 
EngineerNate said:
I consider "twice as loud" to be "a whole heck of a lot louder." That's a scientific term. ;)

Link supporting my 1dB number. From a university physics department. http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/py105/Sound.html

We can do without the "Padawan" stuff. We're all adults here.
Click to expand...
That link you posted is sure impressive what with all those numbers, equations and exponents. It mostly means nothing to me. As it stands, it seems you googled to find something impressive since you can't dazzle me with your brilliance you're trying to baffle me with, well, you know. Now, if you could explain it in plain English, then you might have something.

About the only thing I could take from this is the following statement: "On the decibel scale, doubling the intensity corresponds to an increase of 3 dB. This does not correspond to a perceived doubling of loudness, however. We perceive loudness to be doubled when the intensity increases by a factor of 10! This corresponds to a 10 dB increase. A change by 1 dB is about the smallest change a human being can detect."

This isn't too far from what I said. Granted, under highly controlled, basically clinical conditions under dead silence, one might be able to "detect" a 1 db change but "hearing" it under real world listening conditions? NFW. Can you point out where it says something about the relative audibility of a three decibel change?

Sorry about that "padawan" stuff. I was engaging in a bit of jocularity. I was trying to disabuse you of some common misconceptions that many new to this hobby harbor, and I thought you realized that, but don't worry. I won't waste any more of my time.
 
Last edited:
Sorry 'bout that but sadly, there is not a black/white yes/no answer to his question. OP got plenty of great opinions and ideas. Now, he just has to decide which one he likes. hopefully, he picked up on what some of these commonly used terms and numbers mean and how they play into this hobby. Remember, this last exchange started when someone made an erroneous comparison between two commonly misused numbers.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom