[Mark Korda]

Hi Rodge and the you all, I  had to finish 2 different old house basements with paint on the cement. After the first job I darted home and ordered the Peerless 8 inch and a couple connectors from Parts Express. They make it beyond easy. The other project will have to wait. I went to the next job,got my paycheck which I thought I'd never get,and had 2- 5 gallon buckets of paint left. One was going to be my sub so I looked them both over. The one that won was a paint from Sherwin Williams called (Master Hide) . If that little sub has not been named yet, this might be the one! If this works as I have read,it might be the best thing since sliced bread for Hi-Fi. I built my own mini monitor sized speakers that stand on 2 milk crates,Oh, don't turn me in, filled with old Stereophiles or such. With that bucket ( unseen)  in a corner getting flat to 25 hz ,my room is small,10 by 15, this could really be a game changer. If it doesn't, no big deal because of the fun factor. Some could find mixing cement for the base a throw back to childhood and the sandbox. I'm going to use my BASH 300 for the class D amp, Dyna tubes on top. If Sherwin Williams had any opposition to using the name; Master Hyde, sinister and deep! Can't wait to build it. Best Audio Circle article ever for me....thanks.....Mark Korda

[Mark Korda]

 Hi, I'm replying to my own post. This was bugging me all night during my bicycle ride home from the pub. I have made the 5 gallon bucket sub ready as in the instructions. I apoligize for not knowing the name and trying to give it mine. I have to add to what was instructed. I have worked with cement,as a monument worker and a painter. After you mix up cement,say in a 5 gallon bucket,the way to clean it out for use again is to hit it with a hammer. The bucket comes out clean. The smoothness of the bucket does not let the cement adhere. It's the same with paint,if you don't sand first it will not adhere. You have to make small indentations in the surface for it to bond. When I put the cement in my 5 gallon bucket sub woofer project,2 to 3 inches high, I'm going to score or scuff up that area so that cement is really cemented. If you don't do this,with the vibration of the sub will eventually separate the 2 composites. Before I secure the driver I'm going to use the best caulking I can find around the cement and plastic of the bucket (the shock absorber). I think a good scorer would be an old beer opener with the V shaped end,making x crosses and indents as much as possible where plastic meets cement, the 2 to 3 inches.  I had to get this off my chest before I could watch Kojak tonight........Mark Korda

[ohenry]

Hey Mark, scoring probably won't hurt, but the concrete is held in place by the four 3" deck screws that are fastened close to the reinforcement ring near the lid.  Also, the feet are bolted through the lid and those bolts serve as a stabilizer for the concrete as well.  Take a look at the build procedure on Ed's forum, it details those nuances.  Once you use those fasteners in the prescribed manner, the concrete will be adequately stuck in place.

Keep in mind that deviating from the plan or using a different driver will produce a different speaker that may not perform as well.  It's a system, not a collection of random parts.

Have fun... 

[poseidonsvoice]

Henry!

Welcome back to AC after a 3 year hiatus!

Best,
Anand.

[Mark Korda]

Hi Ohenry, thanks. I just put the cement in. I will stick to the plans. I put in 8 screws instead of 4. It gives it more symmetry and would make Adrian Monk more at ease. I see what you mean about the screws acting like an anchor, or like re-bar in a sense. The bag of cement bought at Home Depot cost less than 5 bucks for a 50 pound bag, cheaper and twice as much more cement  than the bucket shown. It's the same brand too. the bucket was 12 bucks. The bag of Quickcrete had a red covering and was supposed to need no internal re-enforcements  anyway, opposed to the yellow bag. I did scribe the plastic where the cement goes anyway with a vinyl cutting knife, I think thats what it is, it's the knife that looks like an eagle talon on the end. It did just what I wanted with no effort at all. Also I used 12 by 2 inch sheet metal screws, (11/64), they have rounded heads. I used a small drill for the pilot holes. I  drilled them right on the middle of the crease of the lid at a 45 degree angle upward into the bucket. The smaller the pilot hole, the better the screw works making its own threads. I don't want to deviate from the plan, but I have some egg crate foam rubber that I'm tempted to use. Ohenry, would that compromise the buckets internal volume?.......thanks for writing...Mark Korda

[rodge827]

Mark,
There is no need to add any kind of internal absorption.
Here is the answer to the same question regarding absorption used in the ceramic cylinders shown in an above post:


"Hey Chris, the plastic buckets don't need damping, so don't worry about those.  These pottery cylinders ring like bells."

There is plenty of information in the link provided in the first post.

Have fun,

Chris

[ohenry]

Henry!

Welcome back to AC after a 3 year hiatus!

Best,
Anand.

Thanks Anand, nice to see you're still there. 

Hey Mark, it is tempting to do a little stuffing, damping, etc., but don't.  There's synergy going on with that goofy plastic bucket.    

I'll put it this way; I wasn't tempted to change the recipe on the second one I made.  Once you get it together and let it play for a while, you'll be surprised.  They're especially good with lots of power.  I use a Crown XLS2500, although any amp providing at least 200 watts will do.

[Mark Korda]

Thanks Chris and Ohenry, I won't put any stuffing in. I won't be getting my woofer until Tuesday because of the holiday,so production is halted for now. I still have a sub I built with Parts Express materials. That sub uses a BASH Canadian sub amp which will put out 300 watts. The question is why they can be so cheap. I don't know much about class D amps, but  much of the BASH is on a printed circuit board. The volume control for the bass uses the cheapest looking pot you can imagine. I had some issues with scratchyness with that pot. While I wait for the woofer I'm going to take the BASH out and see if I can jury rig a better pot in there somehow if I can identify the correct resistance on it. The pot is about the size of a dime .Some one said Klipsch uses BASH amps on their later built subs....Mark.

[Russell Dawkins]

Anyway, no graphs or measurements, no actual technical information and a pretty unusual claim: "forcing it acoustically and electrically to perform as a super sub".

I'm guessing what's at play here (hinted at by this sentence by Bruce Rozenblit: "Since it is basically operating out of its intended range, it must be crossed over at low frequencies.") is the intentional interaction between the low pass filter characteristics and the roll off characteristics of the sealed box. If one mirrors the other the bandwidth can be extended downwards. Room gain would enter the picture, too.

The "infra" series of subs made by BagEnd have always operated on this principle:   http://www.bagend.com/ (look under "PRODUCTS"/"professional", "home" or "studio").
Their 12" model, the Infra-12 or ID 12 has a bandwidth of 8-95Hz (-3dB) and is in a modest 16" X 16" X 18" (40 x 40 x 45 cm) 1.5 cu ft (42L) 57lb (26 kg) enclosure. The entire operating frequency range of all their infra subs is below system resonance by design, and they all (10", 12", 18" and 21") operate with the same bandwidth, varying only in maximum output capability.

The reviews, testimonials and other information on this site make a thought-provoking read. I have yet to hear their subs, but I like the idea of a sub that operates in a range that has no resonance to complicate and muddy things.

(edited for spelling and the addition of the last two sentences)

[JohnR]

Hi Russell, that's a good point, if a second-order lowpass were set at 20-30 Hz and the mains rolled off at 53 Hz, then I guess you'd have a perfect ELF-style setup. Within excursion limitations anyway. The frequencies could be juggled to account for room gain etc.

Thanks for the note

[mix4fix]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKH23bamIKU&t=9m35s

[Brad]

Reviving a bit of an older topic here, but Parts Express had the Peerless 8 inchers for $56 ea when I checked this week, so I'm going to put together a couple of these while I'm waiting for my new OB project to come together.
I have a Crown XLS amp to drive them.   Keeping with Ed's 'redneck' theme, I am going to hard wire in the "Walmart Speaker cables" from a few years ago.

With 4 or so of them, could be a much less attractive way to solve room node issues than Duke's Swarm.

I'm even thinking about using these buckets, as the stereo is in the room where I watch my Longhorns.

Now I just need them to print the logo upside down.....

[Letitroll98]

Now I just need them to print the logo upside down.....

I think the Longhorns have been doing a pretty good job of turning things upside down so far this year.  They try to get their coach fired early in the year, then run off 6 straight wins.  I'd hold off on ordering those cans, anything out of Austin these days is suspect.