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So I had this old Yamaha sub... 8" driver, 3" x 6" port, about .75 cu ft, with a 50 watt (claimed) plate amp... it sucked. Distorted at the slightest provocation, and overall had all the sonic glory of a wet fart.
The good thing about it is that it was a nicely constructed enclosure... although only 1/2" thick mdf on 5 sides, the front baffle was 3/4" thick and it was solidly made... so I decided to revive it with a new driver and amp, and use it to compliment my Tritrix towers.
After much hemming and hawwing, mucking around in (and learning) WinISD, weighing different drivers, sealed vs vented, etc, and seeking advice from all the fine chaps on this here forum, I finally decided on a sealed enclosure with the Tang Band W8-1363SB...
...and the Dayton SA240 plate amp with the 30 hz boost...
Forgot to take any photos before I took the thing apart, but I think you get the gist of what it was... 8" driver, forward-firing 3" port... here you can see how I plugged the port with a disk of mdf... the green stuff is where I bondo'd in some holes that the grill used to attach to...
Here you can see what I did on the back... I had a piece of 1" plywood lying around, so I made an adapter out of it to fit the new amp... there was a recess where the old amp used to sit, so I just glued the new piece to it... also routered the corners of it...
Here you can see how I added a "cross" of braces to stiffen up the walls... seemed like a good idea, since the walls are only 1/2" thick... perhaps I should have done more bracing?... oh well, good enough... you can also see where I calked all the inside corners for good measure...
Then a bit of sanding, 4 coats of heavy build primer, another quick sanding, and then 4 coats of black paint... the 4th coat done with the spray gun held at a distance of about 3 feet to achieve some texture... this trick works wonders for less-than-perfect surfaces...
Here I stuffed in about 3/4 lb of PE stuffing... the braces worked nicely to hold the stuffing away from the driver...
Then I used some weather-stripping to seal the driver (why don't drivers come with gaskets?
), soldered the wires to the drivers (I don't believe in those cheap clippy things)...
And... done. There ya have it. The world's blandest looking subwoofer. Although I think it's kindof bad*ss looking for that very reason... all sealed up with no ports... kinda cool IMHO
... like a mini Darth Vader sub... yeah... come on, work with me here 
Definitely not my best work, although not much effort put in either... didn't really care all that much since I didn't build the enclosure... if you look closely you can still see where the port used to be, and the back looks pretty crappy. Nowhere near my usual standards of craftsmanship. But whatever. Don't really care all that much.
Will hook it up later and report back with listening impressions.
The good thing about it is that it was a nicely constructed enclosure... although only 1/2" thick mdf on 5 sides, the front baffle was 3/4" thick and it was solidly made... so I decided to revive it with a new driver and amp, and use it to compliment my Tritrix towers.
After much hemming and hawwing, mucking around in (and learning) WinISD, weighing different drivers, sealed vs vented, etc, and seeking advice from all the fine chaps on this here forum, I finally decided on a sealed enclosure with the Tang Band W8-1363SB...
...and the Dayton SA240 plate amp with the 30 hz boost...
Forgot to take any photos before I took the thing apart, but I think you get the gist of what it was... 8" driver, forward-firing 3" port... here you can see how I plugged the port with a disk of mdf... the green stuff is where I bondo'd in some holes that the grill used to attach to...
Here you can see what I did on the back... I had a piece of 1" plywood lying around, so I made an adapter out of it to fit the new amp... there was a recess where the old amp used to sit, so I just glued the new piece to it... also routered the corners of it...
Here you can see how I added a "cross" of braces to stiffen up the walls... seemed like a good idea, since the walls are only 1/2" thick... perhaps I should have done more bracing?... oh well, good enough... you can also see where I calked all the inside corners for good measure...
Then a bit of sanding, 4 coats of heavy build primer, another quick sanding, and then 4 coats of black paint... the 4th coat done with the spray gun held at a distance of about 3 feet to achieve some texture... this trick works wonders for less-than-perfect surfaces...
Here I stuffed in about 3/4 lb of PE stuffing... the braces worked nicely to hold the stuffing away from the driver...
Then I used some weather-stripping to seal the driver (why don't drivers come with gaskets?
), soldered the wires to the drivers (I don't believe in those cheap clippy things)...And... done. There ya have it. The world's blandest looking subwoofer. Although I think it's kindof bad*ss looking for that very reason... all sealed up with no ports... kinda cool IMHO
... like a mini Darth Vader sub... yeah... come on, work with me here Definitely not my best work, although not much effort put in either... didn't really care all that much since I didn't build the enclosure... if you look closely you can still see where the port used to be, and the back looks pretty crappy. Nowhere near my usual standards of craftsmanship. But whatever. Don't really care all that much.
Will hook it up later and report back with listening impressions.
unk:
Kids - you've gotta love em.
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