Need lots of help with Dayton HT Project

[DougyD19]

Room dimensions are 26 long by 24 wide. The top part of room is not square due to roof top sloping...so the sides of the room start at 4 feet tall and go up slanted.

I've got a 57 projection tv and a 1 year old that likes to tear speakers up. I plan to wire the 4 satelite speakers in the top corners out of reach and put the center channel on top the TV.

I have purchased the following stuff so far.
Onkyo TX-SR503 75 Watt
DAYTON RS150S-8 6" x 6 of them
DAYTON DC28FS-8 1-1/8" x 5 of them
CROSSOVER 2-WAY 3,000 Hz 100W 12 DB
DAYTON DVC385-88 15" DVC SERIES
DAYTON SA240 240W SUBWOOFER AMPLIFIER

I have so many questions, but I'll just start out with needing to build the sub enclosure first. I want to get hammered in the back by the bass when watching a movie sitting on the couch. I would like to build an enclosure that has the speaker facing the couch and since I have such a big room will probably need it ported to get every last bit of bass. I've looked through all the cool finished projects, but I haven't found an enclosure styled that will send the bass right into my couch and has the port facing that direction too.

I am hampered by my daughters fingers and she's already destroyed two 8 inch speakers :evil: so I need a setup that she can't mess up. I don't think a speaker grill can help as she'll find a way to poke something in. The plate amp will also have to be mounted in the enclosure. I've seen the cool sonotubes, but really would like to have the bass kick me right in the back and shake me right out of the couch.

All feedback is greatly appreciated.

[Hdale85]

Welcome to the forums! Another Doug I'm guessing!

[DougyD19]

Hey Thanks. Another Doug indeed.

[Hdale85]

Ok your question about the sub. For one your not supposed to build a sub like that. That makes it very easy to tell where the bass is comming from its called localization. Secondly the subs in the mission accomplished section all have been carefully designed to output the most bass without much localization. One of the most popular designs are the Sonotubes. The sub would be down firing so your daughter wouldnt be able to play with it. Just an idea If you want a lot of tactile bass that you feel in your couch I'd suggest getting a buttkicker. You can attatch it to the bottom of your couch to one of its main supports and it runs off a small amp and adds a lot of tactile bass (the stuff that shakes the couch and makes you feel the bass) these are called Tactile Subwoofers and the Buttkicker is one of the most popular.

[DougyD19]

I thought about getting some bass shakers like that, but didn't want to spend the extra dough on that if I could get my 15 to do it.

I have a lot of learning to do, but I always thought bass was omni directional...but you could fire the wave directly into an object and shake it. I built my car sub to fire directly into the back of the seat and it gives me a good back massage while I drive.

Maybe I don't understand what localization is?

[Dennis H]

CROSSOVER 2-WAY 3,000 Hz 100W 12 DB

That's unlikely to work well. I wish PE didn't even sell the damn things; they are worse than useless. You will notice none of the designs on the PE projects page and the Mission Accomplished page here use them. Crossovers need to be designed for the drivers used, especially drivers like the RS series with strong breakup peaks that need to be suppressed with the crossover.

[DougyD19]

I don't really know much about crossovers, but I was going to use my Onkyo to cut off the low frequencies and send those to the sub.

The 6 inch Ref frequency response shows it separating around 3K so that is where the 12db comes in right and the tweeter kicks in. Maybe i got that all wrong?

[dyazdani]

I don't really know much about crossovers, but I was going to use my Onkyo to cut off the low frequencies and send those to the sub.

This is OK...

The 6 inch Ref frequency response shows it separating around 3K so that is where the 12db comes in right and the tweeter kicks in. Maybe i got that all wrong?

This is directionally correct, but it's not that simple in application. Like Dennis said, the crossovers should be designed specifically for the drivers (and enclosures) involved.

[DougyD19]

I know these pre-made crossovers will not be the best, but I don't have the sound equipment to test or knowledge to create my own crossovers, so I'll just have to stick with what I got. I know they are not perfect, but at least they will help keep the damaging frequencies away from the tweeter and help roll off the midrange.

Ok, back to the subwoofer enclosure guys. I'm thinking of a ported setup with two 90 degree mandrel bent ports on one side firing into the couch and on the other end the 15 firing into the couch.

I've been reading, and they say the worst place for a subs placement is in the center of the room, and that is exactly where this will be located. I'm thinking that with a big enough sub, you'll still get bass output in the center though...I don't know.

[DougyD19]

I just did some testing in the room after i replaced one of my 8 inch speakers with another one I had. I positioned the 8 inch speaker firing directly into the back of the couch. I really like the feeling and can just imagine what a 15 is going to do.

I was off a little on the location of the speaker. It is more towards the back. The couch is almost in the middle of the room.

[bmowis]

Hi Doug,

I have 3 (maybe even four - need to check under my chair ) Aura bass shakers sitting in my closet looking for a new home. I recently built a 500 watt 15-inch sub so I don't need them anymore. If you can reimburse me the shipping costs, they're yours. Let me know if you're interested.

P.S. - If you lack amplification, let me know. I have a number of (fairly ridiculous looking) amplifiers made specifically for the Aura shaker. You can have those too, if you want them.

Brad

[DougyD19]

Brad, how big is your room that you have the 15 inch sub in? Where do you have it located and does it supply enough motion - hehe - for you.

How much would shipping be to 37129. I can paypal you the money. I've been thinking about adding some of those to my computer chair for games : . I'd need an amp to drive it with too. :T

My wife and i were talking about watching movies, her thoughts are you need to see the picture and hear the sound. I told her you also need to feel it to add realism.

[bmowis]

Room is about 13 x 23 and I put my sub in the front left corner about 6 inches from the front wall and 3 inches from the side. It makes my clothes vibrate at 1/3 volume.

As for shipping for the shakers/amps, I suspect around $20 or therabouts. I need to weigh stuff and ask Canada Post about it. Give me a couple of days to sort that out, and I'll get back to you.

Brad

[Inu_Yasha]

bmowis, if Dougy doesn't get the shakers, I would be more than happy to take them off your hands. I've been wanting to add some shakers to my HT but college has been eating up my funds.

[DougyD19]

Brad - I'll send ya the shipping + some extra, just let me know -- Thanks. Email at douglas.j.delong@usace.army.mil. I'd also like to know more about your sub design.

I've been doing a lot of reading today on sonotubes. I'm thinking of getting away from the idea of firing into the couch because I think the 15 is going to have so much energy transmitted that if I put it close to the couch, the waves are going to hit it and shake it anyway.

The only problem is I have the plate amp and mounting on a cylinder would pose a challenge. I tested the plate amp and the 15 out in free air and the plate amp's heat sinks get super hot. I suppose I could make an expansion to accomodate the plate amp on the side of the sonotube.

I also downloaded the sonotube software but hadn't started playing with it yet.

[DougyD19]

Just thought I'd give an update on my project. I'm about 80% finished. Lot of hard work yet to do. Gotta cover the sub and port with grills, figure out some kinda sub covering (paint or laminate), wire up the surrounds through the roof.

I decided to just buy the surround and center channel boxes from PE while they were on sale a while back. They look beautiful.



So how do they sound. If they sucked, I would say they sucked, but these really rock in my setup. I use the Onkyo for power, and use the surround sound experience for everything from CDs, radio, Comcast music, DVD's.

Onkyo settings, 0 Bass, 0 Treble, -2 Subwoofer crossed at 100 Hz, +1 Center, + 2 rear channels. I can crank the volume up to about 58 before I start to notice distortion and that is really, really loud.

The surround 2 way speakers have a good full range the way Onkyo sends the surround signal and the tweeters don't hurt the ears.

For the center channel, I decided to stay with the Dayton DC28FS-8 tweeter against recommendations and also got a PE 4 ohm crossover (still at 3K). It plays the vocals great and Onkyo uses the front surround to assist the highs.

The sub - oh man, it kicks like a mule. Low frequencies hit so hard, it shakes the floor downstairs (system is upstairs). Explosions, gun shoots, it shakes the couch like crazy. I was thinking I'd have to use the bass shakers Brad gave me.....don't need them in this HT setup. Did I say it pounds like crazy : .

[DougyD19]

The sub part 1. Testing the amp to see if it worked --- First thing I had a problem with was the 60hz hum from having two amps (Onkyo and Dayton amp). The Dayton amp uses a three prong plug....that caused a ground loop through my Comcast cable box that used a two prong plug. To fix the problem I had to run a ground wire from my electrical outlet and hook it to the frame of the Comcast box.

The sub part 2. I've read in another post where people just dogged the Dayton DVC 15 inch sub based on specs, and if I hadn't of bought it....I'd had been swayed away. Good thing I did buy it. I also didn't think the amp would have enough power to push it, wrong again.

The sub part 3 - The enclosure. I decided to scrap the idea of using a sonotube in favor of designing a sitting area next to the window. I used the Unibox software and came up with 12 cubic feet of air space - everything else. I used a 6 inch tube that was 18 inches long. I think it was tuned to 16 Hz, can't remember....Might have been 17.

I didn't brace like most people do, I had to use a single layer MDF instead of a double layer due to the needed enslosure size. I used 4 top/bottom braces and 4 front/back braces. During testing, the close proximity of the box in the house caused vibrations, so I anchored the box to the house which gave addtional stability and took care of the additional noise.



The port has to stick out for now until I get a brace made inside.

[DougyD19]

I moved to different positions (I suppose it was 30 degreees off, maybe 39). It wasn't like sitting right in front. I still haven't setup the Onkyo yet for speaker positioning so that might help some.

Overall I'm extremely pleased with the combination. LOL, better than the movie theater. With this setup, I don't have to modify any of the Onkyo settings when playing movies or music. I played Tina Turner, Enya, sound track to Independance Day, and some Seal. I watched clips from Star Wars - Attack of the clones, Matrix Revolutions, Chronicles of Riddic, LOR Two Towers. All I can say is WOW.

[cjd]

First, glad you like 'em as they are. Those boxes are awesome.

Should you ever desire to upgrade crossover (and tweeter) my MTM and TM crossovers should work OK with the boxes as you have 'em set up. Not being flush-mounted and not having the tweeter offset will introduce some additional roughness (the center as-is probably has a 5 degree off-axis window). You could, however, go back and flush-mount in the future.

Might be able to tweak my crossovers for that tweeter.

C

[DougyD19]

Thanks. Once I run out of projects, I might come back and make a custom crossover for the center and flush mount it to see how it compares - but for now, it is time to enjoy them as is.