THE DIY SUBWOOFER NETWORK

    One of my patrons over on Patreon wanted some help with a box design.  He is trying to fit a 12" subwoofer in the middle of the floorboard of his crew cab pickup truck.  For the driver we are using Dayton Audio Reference High Output 12" subwoofer .  The enclosure is 2.5 cubic feet and tuned to 32 HZ.  For the port we went with a 2" by 19.5" slot port that is 36 1/4" long.  The f3 is 28 HZ.  Here are the frequency response and cone excursion plots from WINisd.     Frequency Response Ported (Green) vs Sealed (Blue) Cone Excursion Ported (Green) vs Sealed (Blue) For more information on how these were modeled in WINisd give this video a look:   If you would to build the box for yourself the you should be able to piece it together with the dimensions in these in these pictures. Front Back Left and Right Side   Top and Bottom Port Detail Window Brace Here is a cut list for  your convenience. Cut List

In this post I am going to share with you plans for a home theater subwoofer with some interesting design elements.             Parts Used* Dayton Audio Classic Series 4 Ohm 12" Subwoofer Young 300 W Plate Amplifier B52 3" x 5 " port flares Birch Veneered Plywood Wood Glue Birch Edge Banding Clear Poly Textured Coating Pocket hole screws Cap Head Hex Wood Screws Brad Nails 5 minute epoxy Polly-Fill Quilt Batting Sound Deadener   2 Design Goals    The hardest part of building a speaker is making it look good, especially if it is a budget build.  Wood veneer is a simple solution that that looks great, but it can really run up the cost of a project.  It is no more expensive to use cabinet grade as compared to veneering MDF.  The problem with plywood is the exposed layers on the edges. Some people like the look, I don't.  So, this design is going to make use of overhangs to cover as many edges as possible, and edge banding to cover the rest. As far as the sound goes,

What exactly is a Bandpass Subwoofer?  Let’s take a look and see!   Along the way we will dispel some popular myths about bandpass subwoofers.   Forth Order Bandpass Subwoofer Enclosure The image above shows a speaker enclosure with the subwoofer mounted on an internal baffle that divides the box into two separate airspaces.   One of those chambers is sealed, one is ported.   At first glance this seems like an odd configuration.   How does it make any sound if the speaker is inside of the box?   The answer is simple once you understand that a port is just a speaker made out of air.   As the air in the ported side of the enclosure is compressed and decompressed it causes the air in the port to move back and forth and the port produces the sound.   A common myth is that the subwoofer driver makes the sound and the port “let’s the sound out”.   That is not accurate, what you are actually hearing is the sound waves produced by the port itself. DIY 4th Order It turns out that there

  This website* is primarily dedicated to teaching you how to build your own subwoofer.  If you want to get into box building check out this blog post , and this podcast where some top DIYers talk about how to get started:    But, not everybody can do that.  You need tools, time, and skill.  There is no shame in ordering a pre-fabricated (a.k.a pre-fab) subwoofer enclosure from Amazon and installing your own speakers .  Here is some examples of good and bad enclosures along with a breakdown of what makes a good enclosure.  We will cover unloaded (no subwoofer included) enclosures in this post and save pre-loaded (subwoofer included) enclosures for another day. Unloaded:  BYOS (Buy Your Own Subwoofer) Before we get into reviewing boxes keep in mind that if you go with an unloaded enclosure you will need to order a subwoofer to go with it.  Your goal is to match the subwoofer to the enclosure.  Typically this is just a matter of looking up the manufacturer specifications and looking for

There seems to be a lot of confusion about how to design and build a subwoofer enclosure with multiple subwoofers in the same airspace.  This blog post is going to clear it up. A Single Subwoofer in one enclosure Let's start off with something simple, a single subwoofer in a 2 cubic foot enclosure tuned to 28 hertz.  In this example the port has been drawn outside of the enclosure for easier comparison.  The port is 1"X12" and is 17 3/4" in length.  Before you go out an build this enclosure keep in mind that a 1"X12" port is probably not large enough to prevent port noise.  This size was chosen just as an illustration.           If you wish to add a second subwoofer then you will need to increase the size of the enclosure.  If you increase the size of the enclosure you will need to make a shorter port.  This is because you tune the port to the airspace in the box, not the number of subwoofers in the enclosure.  So here is a 4 cubic foot enclosure with a c