I'm worried about the bass guitar reproduction, I want quality
bass at high spl to mate with the above midrange/tweeters.
Initial thoughts are to use a 15" or 18" prosound woofer in a sealed
box for good bass, but doing so I lose the low end response (20hz-30hz).

So.. I don't mind building an additional subwoofer to
complement the system for those home theater times when you want
to shake the intestines.. Is this the right choice or should
I combine the woofer and subwoofer together ? Doing so, I probably
have to sacrifice quality ?

The last issue is the midbass. The midrange will probably be crossed
over at 300-400hz so I need another driver to run between the
woofer and midrange. Again, my initial thoughts are a prosound
12" in a sealed box (f3 80-100hz).

I plan to use a fully active crossover system for whole cabinet.

Any thoughts on driver selection and box configuration ?

My brain has odd ideas;

Plan A = one tweeter, four midrange, one prosound 12 inch, one
prosound 18 inch in a sealed box (per channel). F3 probably 60hz.

Plan B = Plan A plus a seperate subwoofer enclosure using a long
throw 18" subwoofer to complement the system. F3 probably 20hz.

Plan C = Compromise, combine plan A and B and use the 18 inch in a
vented box to extend the low end from f3 60hz to maybe 35hz (heh)
and lose transient response of a sealed box and lose 20hz capability?

Plan D = Plan A minus the prosound 18 inch woofer.. Instead use
a long throw 18 inch woofer in a vented box to reach 20hz. Make the
12 inch midbass work a little harder perhaps cross them over between
80-300hz and hope the bass quitar will sound good ?

I'm limited to 10 cubic feet for the bass cabby.

this will get you from 25hz to 1600hz with no problems.

vented or sealed, you weigh the pros and cons and decide yourself.
if you want clean fast bass, those two drivers are among the best.

If you run active amplification you'll have a great system with the other drivers you have now.

Bill

220 liter sealed box
q = .8
f3 = 42hz @ 94db

30hz @ -8db

Thoughts? I wonder if the bass would be tight and clean?

Then I can get a long throw woofer to make a seperate subwoofer
for 20hz - 40hz?

in a closed box of 220 liter, I come up with an F3 of 43hz at 104db. 30hz -8 @ 93db.
Same as you.

Now, If you can push the box to 250 liters. not much will change in your closed box. This will how ever give you a very good option.
250 liter vented box, tuned to 27hz will give you
30hz @ -3db
20hz @ -10db

you can vent the cabinet on the back side and if you dont like the vented box version just seal the port and you have a your sealed box back.
with an F3 of 30hz you might be pretty happy with out a sub!

Adam

Top cabinet
One - (Raven 2 *or* Sa8535 isodynamic - 103db)
Four - 6.5" - (Audax PR170M0 *or* PHL 1120 *or* PHL 1230)

Bass cabinet (this is where I have problems deciding)
one - prosound 12 inch (PHL ?, eminence ?, etc.. ??????)
one - prosound 18 inch (kilomax 18? PHL? JBL? or Lamdba 15" ? etc.)

Seperate subwoofer (use vented?) - 18 inch (blueprint 1803?, leviathan ?, Brahma ?, Maelstron? etc)

That is the reason I was thinking sealed for Kilomax 18. Many folks
on the forums think that sealed would sound slightly better for
bass quitar reproduction over the vented. Since I plan to add
a subwoofer anyways, I was seeking a prosound woofer that would
at least f3 around 40-45hz so I can have some tight bass. But
most of the other prosound woofers except kilomax do f3 around 60-80hz.
I'm not sure what the pro's and con's are if my woofer
cabinet *and* subwoofer cabinet are vented as opposed to one
being sealed and the subwoofer is vented.

Normally if I had an R&D budget, I would just buy all these good
woofers and test them out, but I can't afford to do so.. I've
been reasearching all the audio forums compiling data to get
headed in the right direction. So many good ideas out here,
time to digest all the data and settle on a design so I can
terrorize the neighbors with some loud and clean tunes (hehehe)

• Response curves of closed vs. vented systems

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Your car system plan looks really nice, although it's a bit complicated. Your top end design sounds pretty good, but the seperate woofer and subwoofer are unnecessary.

Any of the subwoofers you mentioned will perform excellent in a vehicle. I have heard of the Leviathan being used in car with amazing SQ results, the brahma is a beautiful sound quality woofer whichw ill run in tight cabinets, and can play loud as well. There are also some other good woofers out there for sound quality, like Crystal CMP's (I own a 15" model), Ground Zero subs, and Eclipse (although pricey). You don't need to use the bass cabinet at all. Any of these woofers will authoritatively handle 20-80 Hz in a car, where you can xover to the Audax woofers. I wouldn't run your fronts any higher than an 80 Hz xover, because the higher you go, you will actually notice a shift of midbass and bass frequncies to the rear of the car, which doesnt' sound good.

You can try porting all of these woofers (except the CMP, doens't sound as good) and you may or may not like it. Ported boxes in cars tend to have a rising response in the lower octave, which some people don't like. If you really hate that and don't have a good EQ to compensate, a sealed box would be a better bet.

My planned system uses a pair of Image Dynamics horns up front running down to 1.2 kHz, crossing over to four Seas Excel 7" midbass drivers in tiny ported enclosures, and finally crossing over at 60 Hz with an Eclipse Plutonium 18" woofer in a compact passive radiator box. The sub is currently in the prototype building stage and won't be available on the market for a few more months I believe.

The whole system will be running off an array of USAmps, with the horns and midrange drivers running off a hybrid tube amplifier. Fully digital equaliser and seperate active crossover, with a Nakamichi Cd-45z cd player as the "brain" of the entire operation.

Adam

I dunno why I thought that... I was in the car audio state of mind from another board, musta warped my head :P

Honestly, it doesn't change much tho. I wouldn't recommend the Eclipse or Crystal subs anymore, but you can still run the Maelstrom, Blueprint, etc...

Your full range system is still a solid setup. Out of the subs you listed, I'd be inclined to run a Brahma or a Leviathan first... But really, any of those drivers would perform exceptionally well. I think the Brahma and Leviathan would lead in the SQ department, though. The Brahma might need a little more power than the others.

Whether you run stereo or mono, and run them in a sub/satelite or "tower" configuration is really up to your tastes and your listening room. If you decide to run them in tower format, with a sub on each channel and the midrange/tweeters stacked directly on top of the subs, I would personally take the subwoofer allt he way to 150-200 Hz and use a smaller diameter midrange driver, like a 4" or 5" Eton unit.

Just some thoughts... All four of the subwoofers you listed will do really well. I'd eliminate the "bass" cabinet, as it's bandwidth can still be handled well by the subwoofer.

If I can help ya with anything else, feel free to ask.

siradam48@hotmail.com

Adam