Can two shivas be used as open baffle subs?

[DeanP]

I decided to get an extra shiva from my buddy, so now I'll have two.
My wife wants the 95l vented "box" out,so as plan "a", I would build two 54l sealed "speaker stand" boxes.
I read some stuff at the Linkwitz Lab site but they are dipoles.
Is it possible to make an open baffle sub?

[Paul H]

It is possible but an open baffle sub requires large xmax and driver surface areas to achieve theater levels. In simplest terms, the back wave of the open baffle is partially cancelling the front waves at low frequencies, and a lot of muscle is required to overcome that.

Linkwitz's site has a spreadsheet that you can use to calculate available SPL at low frequencies from your drivers.

For comparison, the open baffles I'm working on now are 'full range' and have 2 each 15" drivers per side with ~15mm xmax. They should be able to get down to below 40Hz.


The shorter answer to your question might be - no, go sealed

Paul

[DeanP]

Thanks Paul, I guess I'll go with the two sealed as I thought and you suggested.