IXL-18.4 Sonosub

[Gir]

I posted the same thing on AVS Forum, so I thought I would share it with those of you who don't read over there.

Well here it is, almost finished! My final volume will be around 330l, and tunning will be about 16Hz. Right now everything dry fits, and all I'm waiting for is the flare, which I should have by wednesdays or thursday. I'll have it running by tomorrow in a mostly dry and sealed condition, and then get the port going when the flare comes in. But enough talk, here's the pics!

The beast!




Cutting off the end - it was bent up a little bit and worked well as a template. That's my dad on the right.


Here it is, 4' tall!


First hole being cut with our little jig. The jig saw was great, and produced hardly any saw dust (well, in comparison to a router). My dad had a little jig that we extended enough for 27" diameter.



This is the little attachment made for use as a compass. Came in handy quite a bit.


YAY!


This was a full sheet! Now all the endcaps are cut!


I think the hardest part of all of it were the dowels for the feet. These are leftover pieces from the stands I'm currently building and they were the perfect length.


Finally, here it is all dry fit! WOOHOO!!



So my driver came at about 1:15, so I left work at 1:30 Worked with my dad for most the day and we got it done by around 10:30! Great day!

[riceaterslc]

sweet dude! that thing is huge. :T

[augerpro]

That's gonna be a monster! How did you plan on finishing it?

[Gir]

That's gonna be a monster! How did you plan on finishing it?

The goal is to use truck bedliner on the MDF and find a black carpet to wrap around the tube. But, ya know, it's a lot harder to find black carpet than I expected! I'm gonna go pick up some bedliner in an hour when I get off work, so I'll have some more pics tonight, along with a listening impression of it in a sealed configuration (and dry fit).

[cobbpa]

Suhweet. Makes me reconsider my plans for the sub..

[Dennis H]

Lookin' good Tyler! :T

[Adam321]

Very impressive! You did all that in one day? How did you have time to glue the endcaps? I have been working on mine for about 4 weeks now.

[Gir]

Very impressive! You did all that in one day? How did you have time to glue the endcaps? I have been working on mine for about 4 weeks now.

Actually, for the moment the top end cap just has one screw holding it together in the center. Once the flare comes in I can separate the two and cut each hole separately and then I'll finish gluing. The bottom end cap was actually glued clamped in those pictures, but when we clamped it we realized the tube would fit right over it and you can't see the clamps :T


Last night was a very interesting night, and in short, a half hour trip turned into 3 hours. But I did manage to get the driver screwed on with some really strong nuts and bolts, and I got it fired up with some test tones, and music without other speakers :lol: In a nutshell, I'm missing the adapter I need to hook up my amp to my receiver, so that's on hold until around 4:15 today. I'll let ya guys know how it sounds. Just those test tones with only 100W was shaking the whole house!!

[Gir]

IT'S ALIVE!!!

I got that little adapter from Radio Shack and I'm cookin' now! Fired it up with the POTC: At World End soundtrack. I first listened to the scene at the beginning with the huge drums, and the whole house was shaking without the sub even breaking a sweat! Then I put it to track 13 and it just opened up a whole new dynamic in that music. The cellos came out beautifully, along with those occasional deep rumbles.

Just to remind you, this is still a "sealed" system (lots of leakes, I'm sure). My flare just came in today, but it looks like the diameter is 1/32 or 1/16 of an inch too small... bah. I'll try to widdle down my PVC and see if I can't get those two to fit snug.

Oh yeah, when I fired up the system my dog got scared because the house was rumbling so much. She was begging to go outside, so I just figured I nearly scared the crap right out of her, but then she just ran away! I'm not sure if I should be happy or what...

[Gir]

Okay, so I finally got the port installed! Sadly, however, I can't run it any louder than, say, 80dB (oh mother...). Tomorrow I'll run some sweeps and get fireworks playing, and I'm sure it will blow me away! I still have yet to get some time alone in the house to actually test the limits of the driver, but I think tomorrow I'll have that chance! I can't wait!

Next goal is to go pick up some truck bed liner for hopefully not too much. $20 for a spray can, right? After that I'll get the carpet wrapped and I'll pretty much be finished!


Here's the new port installed. I had to work for about 45 minutes to widdle down the PVC enough to fit (no power sanders ). The port is 4" x 7.5". It's roughly a 16.5Hz tune.



Also, another question for you guys out there. Is it me, or does almost everyones Sonotubes end up upside down when they build it? I just sort of noticed that in a lot builds, and mine ended up the same way!

[WillyD]

Yeah so, I'll say it for everyone else:

A 4" port for an 18" driver?

[Hdale85]

Yeah sounds a little.....low. I'd imagine a fair amount of port noise on this thing.

[cobbpa]

I'm jealous of how quickly you went from delivery to completion...I haven't made a speck of sawdust yet! I'm looking forward to your thoughts after the porting.

[Gir]

Well I had 10' of 4" PVC lying about, and when I was looking at the graphs in unibox everything looked good. Well, I wasn't really thinking and forgot to change the diameter from 8" to 4" :M Needless to say I should probably have a problem, but I didn't really waste much money except for the flare which I'll return. There isn't too much glue on the flare, so it should pop off without too much trouble.

My bad :lol:

[kingpin]

Well I had 10' of 4" PVC lying about, and when I was looking at the graphs in unibox everything looked good. Well, I wasn't really thinking and forgot to change the diameter from 8" to 4" :M Needless to say I should probably have a problem, but I didn't really waste much money except for the flare which I'll return. There isn't too much glue on the flare, so it should pop off without too much trouble.

My bad :lol:

One week in speaker detention camp for you. :B :B

[Gir]

One week in speaker detention camp for you.

Ohhhhh.... ops:


Okay, so after playing a lot of bass heavy movies/music, there is some port noise, but only once stuff gets insane. At that point everything in the house is shaking like crazy, so the port is the LAST thing I notice. I'm thinking I'll just let it go for now, since at normal listening volume it isn't a problem whatsoever, even with bass heavy music.

As for listening impressions, it's amazing! It's only very slightly boomy, but my end caps aren't actually glued onto the sonotube (just a snug dry fit), so I'm sure that accounts for any issues there. Again, it's only very slight. Otherwise I'm absolutely amazed with it! Right now I'm listening to Miles Davis: Kind of Blue on SACD and the sub just fills in those low strings beautifully. I also listened to Say it Right by Nelly Furtado, and that bass line has never sounded better! I even cranked up the gain real high on the sub just to see what happens, and I think I almost knocked a light out of it's socket. Like I said, port noise is my last worry . I also listened to Fireworks, and HOLY CRAP. Damn near knocked me over at the end! The end cap almost popped off as well!

Anyways, I need to get back to work, and I may or may not get a good listening session in today. A real good one may have to wait until Monday. Next Thursday some guys from work are gonna head on over, and I'll be sure to knock their socks off

[Hdale85]

Well your tuning is probably off as well because you used a different size port and what not.

[Gir]

Well your tuning is probably off as well because you used a different size port and what not.

Hehe, about that. It's tuned right, I just didn't check the port velocity when I was making final adjustments :T