sonosub project, all hints and suggestions appreciated

jakelm

But here's the problem. The diameter of the tube is so large that if you were to cut down the cuft of the cylinder, your port would not have enough length to tune it. If you cut the cylinder to 8-9cuft, then that means you would have to cut the cylinder down to ~38", in which the port would not be long enough to tune down to 15-17hz. 9cuft is still large for a 15" sub, but thats about as short as you can go and still be able to tune as low as you want.

I'm afraid you wont get that great of output since your volume is so large. But your volume is so large because the diameter is large. And since you cant cut down on diameter, I would add a good bit of stuffing inside the cylinder, to cut down the airspace.

I hope I made any sence....

station10fd

Jake, yes it made perfect sense. I've got 2 inch acoustic foam that will be here tommorrow, maybe that will take care of some of the problems?

jakelm

station10fd wrote: »

Jake, yes it made perfect sense. I've got 2 inch acoustic foam that will be here tommorrow, maybe that will take care of some of the problems?

Yes it should...

Still a great project, and it will still sound fantastic.

station10fd

jakelm wrote: »

Yes it should...

Still a great project, and it will still sound fantastic.

Thanks for the reassurance, I was starting to get the "oh crap" feeling

jakelm

station10fd wrote: »

Thanks for the reassurance, I was starting to get the "oh crap" feeling

But its like I said at the begining of this thread. It all depends on the room and your ears. Hell you might even find that tuning it higher to 20-25hz might be better for your room. But just take your time..

madmax

Hey, just a quick idea here, I haven't given it much thought. What if you got a smaller tube and mounted it inside. You could stuff between the two tubes with insulation to eliminate any sounds getting from the sub tube into your listening room and possibly get the bonus of less noise than other tube subs out there. What I'm suggesting is a basic tube as a sub with a larger tube on the outside to block any noise from the tube walls. Man, tough one to explain.
madmax

station10fd

madmax wrote: »

Hey, just a quick idea here, I haven't given it much thought. What if you got a smaller tube and mounted it inside. You could stuff between the two tubes with insulation to eliminate any sounds getting from the sub tube into your listening room and possibly get the bonus of less noise than other tube subs out there. What I'm suggesting is a basic tube as a sub with a larger tube on the outside to block any noise from the tube walls. Man, tough one to explain.
madmax

madmax, no problem understanding what your trying to get across. I've got the tube cut down to 9.74 cu.ft with max tuning at 15.9 hz. If that doesnt do it for me ( I dont think my current sub is even close), then what the heck, I'm enjoying all this stuff, and I'll start over! I've learned a crapload the last week thanks to couple of pretty intelligent folks.

Mike T.

ben62670

station10fd wrote: »

I've learned a crapload the last week thanks to couple of pretty intelligent folks.

Mike T.

I hope you ain't talking about me. I had to screw up a bunch to figure out what was best:D

station10fd

Ok, I'm liking this size more and more, not too overbearing

station10fd

ben62670 wrote: »

I hope you ain't talking about me. I had to screw up a bunch to figure out what was best:D

LOL, looks like I may take the lead from you then:D

jakelm

station10fd wrote: »

I've got the tube cut down to 9.74 cu.ft with max tuning at 15.9 hz.
Mike T.

Now we are getting somewhere. You should be please. Just dont have the end of that port too close to the driver. I wouldnt get any closer than 6-7" from the driver. What amp do you have?

station10fd

I dont have an amp yet Jake, the dayton 1000 watter is out of stock till the end of Jan, so I'm still looking. At the specs I mentioned, the port is 6 inches from the driver

ben62670

You sure will take the lead. Your's is much prettier than mine. I was just toying with mine. My original idea was sealed, or passives. Very nice work. Wait till you fire it up, and get the urge to put your face over the port. Be careful with your ears. It will pressurize your room quite well. Also don't crank it with out putting rubber pads, or feet on the bottom plate. It will have a jackhammering effect on that nice floor. You don't want to break any of those nice tiles.

ben62670

station10fd wrote: »

I dont have an amp yet Jake, the dayton 1000 watter is out of stock till the end of Jan, so I'm still looking. At the specs I mentioned, the port is 6 inches from the driver

Six is no problem.

station10fd

ben62670 wrote: »

Also don't crank it with out putting rubber pads, or feet on the bottom plate. It will have a jackhammering effect on that nice floor. You don't want to break any of those nice tiles.

Yes, rubber feet or pads is on the to do list. And actually, it's stained concrete, one of my projects that far exceded my expectations.

jakelm

What did you use for positive and neg post?

steveinaz

Looks great at that height--excellent job man!

station10fd

jakelm wrote: »

What did you use for positive and neg post?

these binding post from parts express
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=091-1245
Here's a noob question, I assume just solder to the tabs?

Mike T.

jakelm

station10fd wrote: »

these binding post from parts express
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=091-1245
Here's a noob question, I assume just solder to the tabs?

Mike T.

yes , pass the wire through the hole and solder..

station10fd

great, thanks Jake. Maybe tonight I'll get the acoustic foam put in the inside, and the carpet on the outside.

station10fd

Well, I found out I'm not a carpet layer, at least I can hide the seam to the corner.


The top cap is glued and the acoustic foam is applied. I think I"ll put a little bit of foam on the top cap too.


Next up, soldering the wires to the binding post, and glueing the bottom cap on.

Mike T.

station10fd

Got everything put together this morning. I'm just waiting on the amp, which rather sucks . Here's a few pics of the finished product. Here's the klipsch sub12 the sono is replacing. The klipsch has served me well, and has knocked down it's share of pictures hanging in the hall, hopefully the sono will damage much more than that .


Port view. When putting the flare on the tube, like a goober I got some glue on my fingers, and it's showing around the flare. Anyone know something that will take it off, and not mess up the shine on the tube itself?


Front view. My next project is building a componant rack that will hide my rats nest of wires. The sub amp will go in the empty slot in the bottom of the rack.


Total view. My lovely wife even said, "Hey, that's not too bad". So, looks like it's a keeper.


I'll report back when the amp comes in tommorrow and give some final impressions.

Mike T.

hypertone

Nice work, it's a beauty!

Systems

Great work,that is by far the most domestically acceptable Sono sub I have seen.

station10fd

Got it up and running yesterday. When I first got it hooked up, and running some scenes from transformers, I wasn't very impressed. I thought, well that's what I get for using such a large diameter tube with too much volume. The sound level seemed to be the same, but no less than my Klipsch sub 12.

This morning, I made a few tweaks to the system. First I cut the port shorter, so instead of a 15.7hz tune, I went to a 19.5hz. Then I changed the speaker size on the front to small, and changed the crossover point. Wow. what a difference. Now things are rattling on the wall like they should be. My clothing vibrates!!:D That's what I was looking for! I've never heard a speaker bottom out before, if that's what you even call it, but when it happened, I thought oh crap! I havent heard it do that since changing the port length, allthough I sure I could if I pushed it harder.

Some things I've learned. I thought after reading for two months on sonosub construction, I thought I had it figured out. I'm still not sure how I missed the recomended cubic feet measurments. In the future, I may change the driver out to an 18 incher.

My thanks to Ben and Jake, without your help, things would not have turned out as well as they did.

Mike T.

ben62670

Volumes can be a funny thing. It's kinda weird that you experienced bottoming with a longer port, and not with a shorter port. From what I gather the sound waves pressurize the backside of a woofer at different frequencies depending on the total length of the chamber, and diameter. Its not as cut and dry as it would seem. Don't make any more changes till you have broken it in for a while. The heavy rubber surround is like a bmx bicycle tube! Try War of the Worlds chapter 13 on that beast. Its a joy to share my experiences with projects with others here. Which amp did you end up with?
Have fun.
Ben

madmax

The size of the sub looks perfect as far as aesthetics go. Sounds like you got it dialed in nicely too!
madmax

station10fd

In my twisted way of justifying things, I went with the buttkicker amp. I figure I'm gonna have shakers of some sort by summer. When the dayton 1000 watter becomes available, I'll get that, then I'll have the buttkicker for the shakers.

F1nut

....

station10fd

dustradio wrote: »

nice looking subs how many are you building?

I believe this one will do me!