[NoahH]

Hey All,
I have been working with Jay to get a pair of 6 driver baffles for some huge bass arrays. I am about to start ordering all the parts and wanted to get feedback in case folks saw flaws in my plan. Danny - I would of course love your feedback in particular, but figured this forum was better than email since others might use the info too.

I am planning to use two full #5 sub kits for each tower. I prefer high level inputs so I will wire up biwire runs using the GR cable so that each plate amp gets its own run from the amp. I am going to have those be relatively short and do the bulk of the wiring on the other side with the neutrik-terminated amp to drivers run being longer. I assume I will need more speaker cable for that run as I assume the kits just have the termination.

One open question is on the enclosure for the plate amps. Right now, I am just planning 4 separate plates on frames, but would love to figure out something smarter if folks have ideas given that I will have 4 of them.

On the main array, I am planning 3 drivers per plate amp as normal. I also visually prefer drivers facing forward but worry about weight distribution. If it seems preracious, I may start flipping drivers starting at the top where the lever effects would maximize the effect of the weight change. I would love other ideas to keep more forward facing. I am hoping we can still do  grills over the front and back but that is not fully confirmed yet.

I also will flag that I am a little concerned on placement where the room these will be in has two levels offset by a low ~3 foot wall. The subs may be closer than 3 feet to that low wall - tbd. If it is creating weird effects, I may either fall back to bypassing the lowest driver that would be feeling this the most, or changing the crossover settings heavily so the bottom 3 drivers are more.focused on the ulta-low-frequencies with lowered damping and extension and top roll off, with the upper 3 doing the opposite with high lower limits and high dampening.

The subs will be pretty much immediately next to the mains so I doing think I need DSP or such for delays.

I am would love any suggestions from the community on this. Thanks everyone!

[JLM]

Read Floyd Toole's "Sound Reproduction" (3rd edition).  He is one of most respected acousticians in the world.  He recommends 4 subwoofers, placed either in corners or mid-way along the walls (of a rectangular room) to deal with inherent in-room bass peaks/dips.  He also highly suggests avoiding small/squarish rooms.  To ensure a degree of domestic bliss also recommend a well insulated room.

[NoahH]

Thanks for the comment. In-room modes will not be a problem. The room itself is very irregular and huge (opens out into other parts of the house in a pretty open configuration). Actually, the domestic bliss comment is the biggest concern as everyone in the house will be all to aware of the speaker...

I am curious on the 4 subs though - I have always heard that in the context of sealed subs pressurizing the room; I would assume that the different air-movement approach of the open baffles would change that advice.

[Tyson]

Yes, you are right Noah - if you are using OB subs then you don't want to use a swarm approach.  The reason is this - with a swarm, you are attempting to pressurize and excite all room modes equally, in a distributed manner.  With OB bass you are not - they are designed to excite as few room modes as possible.  Both approaches work well, you just have to pick one and stick with it.