driver replacement

danger boy

I have an Adire Audio subwoofer I bought back in Jan of this year. I’ve found out recently that the driver bottoms out on deep loud passages in music and Home Theater. I’d like to replace the driver with an updated one. The one I have uses a foam surround. And while the foam is still in good condition. While listening to some music recently, I found the driver to bottom out on occasion.

My question is, can I replace it with a driver from another brand? Say one from Parts Express or even one from SVS? Do subwoofer's use crossovers? Subwoofers are a mono speaker right? So do they still use crossovers then?

· I have emailed Adire already. But it’s the weekend. And I won’t get a reply till next week some time probably. I was just looking for some info on what my options are.

** it won't let me attach a photo, since I already posted the pic once before.

Early B.

I am surprised to hear that an Audire Audio subwoofer would bottom out on music. Unless it's organ music, that shouldn't be happening. You might have another issue. Are you sure you have enough sub for your room? Where is the volume set at? How loudly do you play your music? What type of music do you play?

Yeah, you can replace drivers, but I would recommend it, even though I did once with good results. I replaced a SVS driver with an Ascendant Audio driver and it sounded better, IMO.

If you're not happy with your sub, can you sell it and buy another one?

Zen Dragon

danger boy wrote:

My question is, can I replace it with a driver from another brand? Say one from Parts Express or even one from SVS? Do subwoofer's use crossovers? Subwoofers are a mono speaker right? So do they still use crossovers then?

Subwoofers only have a crossover in so much as the one that passes the low frequencies into the sub. The crossover is part of the amplifier not the speaker.
You can replace with another driver, but you need to know the Q of the driver, and the design frequency, excursion etcetera. These factors affect the required enclosure for the driver.
I can only give you the basics. As far as sub design and all that I know just enough to get me into trouble. A lot of good info on matching the driver to the enclosure can be found at DIY subs.

http://www.diysubwoofers.org/

Good luck

danger boy

Early B. wrote:

I am surprised to hear that an Audire Audio subwoofer would bottom out on music. Unless it's organ music, that shouldn't be happening. You might have another issue. Are you sure you have enough sub for your room? Where is the volume set at? How loudly do you play your music? What type of music do you play?

Yeah, you can replace drivers, but I would recommend it, even though I did once with good results. I replaced a SVS driver with an Ascendant Audio driver and it sounded better, IMO.

If you're not happy with your sub, can you sell it and buy another one?

Early,

I am suprised too that it will bottom out. I just listen to rock and pop music.. once in a while more bass oriented music like dance/techno.

I can hold my hand over the driver itself. and it appear like Zen said.. the excursion is very limted.. as in todays drivers.. it does not have a large surround and it's not rubber.

My room is small.. 16 X 14 so it's plenty sub from the size of room.

I'm sure Adire has a replacment/upgrade to his driver by now.. so i'll see what they recommend for it. Hope that will solve the bottoming out problem.

thanks.. and I didn't know if subwoofer had crossovers in them or not. Makes sense that you can't just drop in any replacment subwoofer and expect it to be an upgrade.

I got the pic to work.. see below. and no the subwoofer is not that dirty anymore. it's clean now..

jcaut

Some subwoofers use some EQ contouring or "bass boost", built into the amp. I could see that being a source of trouble when you talk about replacing the woofer.

I don't know for sure, but I figure that the better music subs would be less likely to use EQ. I know for a fact that some low end subs use a cheapy woofer and a horribly mismatched box and then try to EQ some bass out of it. Kinda like Bose.