What's a good sub for a 2-channel setup?

Tyson · « **Reply #40 on:** 9 Sep 2003, 06:27 pm »

PR's basically just substitute for a port, except PR's are a lot more practical due to how much more air they can move (ports have problems with compression at loud volumes - the way around this is to have a port with a wide diameter, but then you have to make the port longer to compensate, which becomes very impractical very quickly).

The reason most PR'd subs sound bad is 2 fold - 1, they are not tuned low enough, with leads to group delay that is pushing up in to the audible range. 2. People can see them as an excuse to use a smaller box than they would otherwise use, which is a bad idea if you want best transient response.

Sealed subs do have the possiblity of giving the best transient response, because the Q can be set to .5 which is considered critically damped, but the drawback of sealed subs is that they start rolling off pretty high, and then depend on room gain to provide low frequency boost, which does not always happen (and never happens smoothly, with any sub - I recommend using an EQ on any subwoofer for best results in the sweet spot).

Having said that, I still have not heard a better, more musical sub than the VMPS subs. On paper, the PR based subs should not sound as good as a quality sealed sub, but in my direct personal experience, the VMPS subs are quite a bit better than the sealed subs I've heard (commercial and DIY sealed subs, that is).

Andrikos · « **Reply #41 on:** 12 Sep 2003, 04:30 pm »

Tyson,
The reason VMPS sounds better may be in the fact that the PR has a Fs of 12Hz which brings it way out of the audible range.

warnerwh · « **Reply #42 on:** 12 Sep 2003, 08:36 pm »

Another important point is the VMPS sub is tunable. You can adjust the mass loading of the passive radiator and tune it to your room and equipment. You'll be surprised how important of a feature this is once you have it. Something that isn't easy to do at first but you'll wonder why nobody else does this once you learn about it. You've definitely been steered in the right direction. VMPS bass is excellent, you won't feel like it could be better. Feel is a key word here too.

JackStraw · « **Reply #43 on:** 13 Sep 2003, 03:22 pm »

Quote from: Tyson

Many relatively small woofers can be tuned to play low (depending on their FS), but they will NOT play loud, and they will NOT go below 30hz with any authority. I've heard a lot of small woofered systems, and they do fine down to about 35hz or so, and then drop precipitously in performance below that. Realistic bass requires moving a lot of air, and large woofers do that with much greater ease than smaller woofers.

Hi Tyson -

Have you ever heard the ACI Force? It has a 10" driver, and MikeD asserts that it does a solid 20Hz, at output 3dB lower than the Titan II LE. Based on that, it sure sounds like an exception to the rule that you're stating.

Tyson · « **Reply #44 on:** 16 Sep 2003, 05:32 am »

You "can" get low bass from a small driver, all you need is a low enough FS (resonant frequency), and sufficiently sized/tuned box. But how loud will it go? If you never expect much above 90 db, I'm sure there are many small drivers that can be tuned low. But you won't get loud, and it will will certainly be operating at it's limit's (and distorting) as the volume gets a bit louder.

Of course, some of the super long excursion drivers out there (ie, 2 inch peak to peak excursion) will be able to go quite a bit louder than 10 inch drivers from the past. But again, personally a large woofer moving a bunch of air in a single sweep just sounds more convincing to me than a small woofer flapping back and forth like crazy trying to move all that air.

I've not heard the Force, but the laws of physics can't be broken, and with subs, it's all about displacing large ammounts of air. What's better at moving large ammounts of air, a big woofer with a lot of excursion, or a small woofer with equal ammount of excursion? Now, if it had two 10" woofers per subwoofer enclosure, now we might be talking

_scotty_ · « **Reply #45 on:** 20 Sep 2003, 02:17 am »

Quote from: vpolineni

My integrated amp has sub preouts and I'm not happy with my cheap jbl sub. Can anyone recommend a good sub for my 2-channel rig? I'm concerned primarily with how it would perform with music more than with movies.... here's my system

coda-continuum integrated amp
Thiel CS3.6 speakers

thanks.

You could try REIMER SPEAKERS .They are not inexpensive and they don't
go boom. Some models will reach 12HZ for a 3db down point and hit 115db with low distortion. Email me for phone and website url.
Scotty

warnerwh · « **Reply #46 on:** 20 Sep 2003, 03:59 am »

For the money the best bang for the buck I think is VMPS subs. You can even order a kit as I imagine there's not much to putting together a sub. They are accurate, tunable and hit the 20's or lower and that's honest real bass power at those frequencies.