jay michael

will do for sure

I've decided to order one of the cvr d-3002's to see whats up with them. I don't have the equipment to bench test but I can do some a/b listening tests vs my K10. Ill report back

Thank you for clarifying that for me, I will keep on doing what I am doing. SME, thanks again for your input. Phase alignment has been one of the biggest rabbit holes I've fought with over the last few years but I feel I've finally got a reasonably repeatable process that is giving me good results. peniku8, yeah I know know its not ideal but with this covid thing im trying not rack up too much dept for new sound gear. If/when things get back to normal Ill figure out something proper. I dont let anyone touch my gear so not worried about the random factor playing in. I did order one of those cvr amps, ill let you guys know what I think. Doing some bush camping in a couple weeks and taking some gear with me so will be able to ring it out a bit.

Thank you. Yeah the possibility of one amp having more latency than the other has crossed my mind. They are both non dsp units. Ill need to get a mic on them and do some testing to confirm. On that note, I'm having trouble coming up with an answer reading through others posts. When using REW in the info I have gained from the tutorials it sounds like an external sound card is NOT required to use the acoustical timing reference functions for measuring for phase alignment. I have however came across a user who says an external sound card is absolutely required. I was messing around with my livingroom system today, made measurements both with my umik 1 wired usb right to my laptop, and then a second time using my external sound device. Both methods gave me near identical measurements. A user on a fb group has been discussing how to use the new time alignment features of rew so I've been playing around trying to get a feel for the methodology. I feel like im getting it, but if I cant trust the measurements due to sound card configurations then I'm not helping anything

I'm actually heading to our local makerspace woodshop this weekend to cut up panels for another 4 of these. I gave a couple of my music nerdy friends a demo and they immediately asked me to build pairs for them. For less than 1k Canadian you can build a pair with a berry nu3k included in the price. Unreal value for the dollar.

I used the 31hz slot design configuration. If I stuff one side of the vent closed it tunes to 22hz. In my experimenting I much preferred leaving both ports open. There is still usable output down to about 27ish hz.

And thanks for sharing your experience with your amplifier. Its not that I doubt that these amplifiers cant be good, there are many examples of first rate quality goods coming out of china.

Yeah thats the thing I guess. I've got a berry nu3k in my living room and that doesn't really stress me out as if it piles up it only effects me, different story when your in the woods with 500 people haha.

Hmm, I had assumed that using different brand amplifiers on the same subs wouldn't be the best idea, but perhaps its not as bad as I had figured. That had crossed my mind but considering my location in Canada shipping to and from the US is stupid expensive and probably wouldnt make it worth it. But I think I will throw it out there just in case. Secondly, yes I had seen a few people mention they run their powersoft amps like this but to me it seems risky to me. Considering I need to rely on my amps sometimes for 3 days straight I would rather run them in more conservative ways. Thanks for the input. Well, it was something I hadn't considered much before but I have been taking some time to research the CVR amps that seemingly have flooded the sound system cultures of the US, Bahamas, Jamaica, France etc. I've really dug deep into every mention of them I can find online and haven't really found any negative comments about them. There is lots of very positive comments about performance and reliability. I've been talking personally with a few users of them and they swear by them. That being said, I still have a mental block about investing in something like that, but on the other hand I can get 3-4 of them for the price of 1 used k-10. One user I spoke with in New York says he's deployed over 30 of them over the last 3 or 4 years and they get worked hard every weekend. He's had to repair three of them, CVR ships him new complete boards for the failed channel for free if within the 2 year warranty, or for 200 US if outside of the warranty, parts arrive in 3-5 days. So yeah, I don't know. I think I would still prefer to stay with something more known, but I guess those can fail just as anything else. My prolite that went down had only been used about 10 deployments. Link to an internal view of the cvr d-3002 amplifiers

Happy summer everyone. Ive got myself stuck in an awkward dilemma looking for a solution. I originally built 4 Skrams using 21sw152 4 ohm drivers and was lucky to come across a right place at the right time deal on a powersoft k10 which has been kicking ass on these subs over the last couple seasons. This last fall I knocked off another pair of Skrams to add some more headroom and give me more flexible deployment options. The K-10 was already maxed out on a 2 ohms load for the original 4- 21's so in the interim I've driven the additional pair with a prolite 7.5, not ideal I know. I'm looking to square things up and get all the subs running off of the same amplification. I've been watching for deals on another used k-10, I had hoped due to the covid thing some sweet heart deals would show up but that hasn't been the case. Also being from Canada any powersoft purchase will require stupid shipping costs duties etc and at current prices I'm pretty much looking at 4k Canadian, which I'm not able to justify. I have no plans to add anymore subs down the road, the 6 are well balanced with my tops. Current options as I see it. Live with the mis-matched amp thing, or sell the K-10 and buy 3 lesser amps that can still drive a pair of 21's each properly. At most I'm feeding the drivers 500 watts, more often 350-400 depending on circumstances. I like to not give up any quality of sound to what the K-10 can provide and bonus points would be something that could still in an emergency drive all 6 drivers decently if one amp went down. I would prefer class D to keep the rack on the lighter side. What do you think? Am a missing a more obvious solution? Budget in the 4-5k range, pretty sure I could get 3k Canadian for the K-10. Any recommendations for amps with good reputation that will happily drive a pair of 21sw152's and sound good doing it? Cheers

Thought I should update this thread as I went ahead and built a pair of VBSS subs to live with my Danleys. The hype is real, these are fantastic sounding subs considering their inexpensive cost to build. They wont crack the stucco on my ceiling like the Skrams did, but for listening to music at moderately loud listening levels I couldn't have wished for a better outcome. Thanks for the help everyone, the project was a success! And I didn't blow a bunch of money I didn't need to spend in these strange times. Aesthetically I think they make for a great match with the Danley's as well. https://imgur.com/gallery/R1JSs05

I got an email back from DIYSG. The custom driver coming with their soon to be released 18" kits is based on this driver, but modified in some ways custom for their application. To early to tell as we don't know what changes were made, but what do you think about this driver as a starting point? https://qcomponents.ca/Eminence-KAPPA-PRO-18LF-8.html Based on the evolution of their offerings, the mbm-12 and 15, I imagine the 18 should be pretty similar to the vbss just with a better driver. From what I can tell the same guy has developed all of them.

Yeah I noticed that as well, usable may be around 11mm. Seems to be pretty decent and capable driver for what it is. The price is just insane. A guy could likely build 10 cabs for about 2000 my dollars.

Yeah the more I dig into the vbss it looks better and better. It will be more cabs and more space but they are just silly cheap to build, 4 cabs would run me about 850 bucks Canadian. I'm sure my wife would be fine with a row of 18's in the living room haha! Still going to see what diysg has cooking with their new 18 cab when they add it to the website sometime this week. Its going to be more money but will have better drivers for sure. He said the kit its going to cost just slightly more than the 15 as the driver has a ceramic magnet vs the neo in the 15. A pair landed in Canada should be around 800 my dollars, plus some ply to finish them off.

I like the idea of the wedge cabinet but I dont have the tools at home to pull this off, ill likely stick to a traditional square cabinet. I've dug through a bunch of the MBM threads and by all accounts they sound like the real deal, especially for music applications. I do have a US mailbox service in Montana so getting the parts up here should be somewhat painless, all though with this covid thing that may not fully be the case. I am definitely going to wait for them to publish the specs on the MBM-18 kit before I make any decisions, that might really be a winner as they also worked with eminence on a custom driver for that cabinet. And yeah I hear you on the cabinet size, I think I would be 98% satisfied with 30ish performance of that cab. Another option I came across this afternoon is this VBSS design that again uses the stupid cheap pa460 driver in a vented cabinet that can be tuned to 15, 20, or 31hz by playing with the ports. There was a shoot out on AVS between the VBSS and the DIYSG MBM-12 and the results showed they sounded very similar but the VBSS had a bit of an output advantage over the MBM-12. 1 sheet of 4x8 and a 150 dollar driver makes for a super cheap option, plus they will be cheap to drive well. I could build 4 of them for probably around the same prices as a pair of the MBM 15 after shipping and duty etc. The reviews for this cabinet sound really promising for music applications.... Decisions decisions.

Thanks for all of your thoughts everyone. I really wish a distributor would pick up Lavoce up here in Canada. That SAN214.50 is still going to run me likely in the 1600-1700 dollar canadian range for a pair which is out of my intended 1k budget for this project. I can get the 460's delivered to my house for 150 a piece... not that I am fully settled on this driver, just a consideration. I am also looking at the output of my sm60f's, 125db continuous so I am using that as a bit of a yard stick for the output I am looking for, and honestly I wouldn't ever run them up to full power in the house. I am only powering them with a XLS 2502 and even with that meagre power I never crank them as loud as that amp can push them. Truth be told I have options like the skrams that I can put back in here but even under the loudest situations I was hitting those with such a small fraction of their output to be pleased. My goals are really to just have a nice bumping little living room system without the need to tear my house apart, but I am looking for punch and felt impact as a priority over deep bass extension. Klipsh, thank you for plotting out those graph's they are super helpful. Im going through some winisd tutorials right now to get myself up to speed. If I am understanding correctly, you are showing an input of 1200 watts, but from what I am reading the pa460's like about 300 watts... so i must assume the graphs you posted are showing a higher amount of output than 300 watts? I do have some space to work with in the room, I have 36" inches wide on either side of my tv stand as well as space on each side of the room approx 3-4 feet away from the front wall that could be used for more boxes. A pair of 460's on each side up front would be easy to deal with, with the possibility of another pair not being out of the range of possibilities. I'm posted a graph that bassthathz posted over AVS to also help with reference at this link https://imgur.com/gallery/vvHJAKl To possibly look at another option, what would be the pro's and con's of considering a vented box vs a sealed box? In that graph that Bassthathz posted moving into a vented box would probably achieve my goals with just a pair of boxes rather than 4 or even 6? I've seen some really positive reviews of a vented cabinet called the flex 12, or what is sold as the MBM-12Lx over at DIYSG. They are now offering a 15" module called the 15lx, and from a convo with Erich this morning over at DIYSG, he is just about to put a 18" version of the same vented box on the site within the week. These designs can be found here. https://www.diysoundgroup.com/home-theater-speaker-kits/home-theater-extras/midbass-modules.html A pair of these would be well within my budget, with the ability to add another pair down the road would be easy.

Over at avs forums there seems to be a movement of people breaking up “sub” duty to ultra low Freq boxes and midbass cabinets... similar to how some pa companies approach the problem. I don’t need a ton of output, my Danleys will only do 128db and truthfully I would never run them that hard in my smallish room. I should probably dig into learning a modeling program to spec out sealed cabinets. I like the idea of doing multiple sealed cabinets like suggested above, seems like the most economic choice and easy to build and scale as needed, I just don’t know how to approach it. Any recommendations on a software platform for doing such a thing?

Thank you Klipsch!

Hey Klipsch. Is there a build thread for Bassthathz has for his pa460 build? The guy posts millions of times Haha, having trouble finding anything other than him mentioning he has 16 of them lol

Ok, so I need some help on this dual opposed thing. So are we talking about 2 drivers in the same sealed box with flipped polarity?

Yeah I would agree extension to 30hz would be sufficient. I'm hoping to have them also act as stands for my Danleys in a typical left right stereo placement. I have a dbx pa2 and a dbx venu360 available for dsp

Thanks for the comment Klipsch. I do like the idea of this as each cab would be relatively cheap and it would be easy to just scale up until I'm happy. Sorry, what does DO stand for?

Hey guys. Hope everyone is staying safe right now in these crazy times. I was previously using a pair of Skram subs in my living room matched up with a pair of small Danley Sm60f's. My patience was wearing thin moving them in and out of the house anytime I had mobile gigs for my pa so I've decided they are going to stay at our studio full time. They were also insane overkill for the space so now I am looking to build something that's a more reasonable match for my little Danleys. Considerations: As with many I am watching my spending right now so I want to limit the cost of building a pair of subs to around 1k max. I am open to any sort of design, horn, ported, sealed etc. This will be specifically for a 2 point stereo system only for music. I like rock, and a lot of techno and electronic music and want to build something that has impact and punch as the highest priority. My space is not very big, 12 feet wide by about 18 feet long. The listening position is about 12 feet from the speakers. I don't need these subs to be pro audio loud, just looking for clean and punchy sound up to reasonably fun levels. I'm about a week into research at the moment, at first I was looking at tapped horns with smaller 12" drivers. I thought something similar to the Danley Th-mini might be a good fit but they really don't have good response much lower that 45 hz or so. I would be happy with something that could go as low as around 35hz or so as that would easily cover most of the music I'm into. I've felt like I've hit a wall with horns so perhaps I need to consider something else. From my reading it sounds like larger sealed subs get a lot of love for tight punchy bass but they are in a world I know nothing about. Could anybody shed some light on this? What should I focus on, keep digging into horns? maybe sealed or vented options? I've got a couple sheets of 15mm and 18mm baltic on hand.... I just need a plan, help! For power I have a crest prolite 7.5.

There are better options for home use then the sh-46. I have used them in my house for testing and tuning during the winter but side by side with the sm60f I prefer the 60's sound for reasonable in house listening volumes. The funny thing about the 46 is despite the published response it never feels lacking in high freq sparkle. In a lot of ways I prefer how the high frequencies sound out of them compared to most other pa speakers, and many other people who have used them echo that opinion. I've spoken with a few people who have done the sm60f to sh50 upgrade path and they all seemed to think the sound quality is near identical between both boxes minus the low freq capability. I actually had the choice to buy the sm60f or the sh50's as the guy I was dealing with that both for sale at the time. In the end my decision was a practical one, I was looking for something more portable that could be used as a "b" system or fills to my 46's when I needed the extra cover. The 60's also came with tilting pole mounted hardware that makes them really flexible to deploy so in the end they fit my requirements better. The 50's he has were also install models so they had no handles which would be fine for the living room but tough for pa work. Both the 46 and the 60f have a similar low frequency roll off in the 65 hz or so area. Neither box has much "bass" to speak of but they were designed to be used with a sub. The 46 trades low freq response for increased spl, and the 60f trades low freq response for a smaller size. Match with a good clean sounding sub and I think you will be very happy. If my decision criteria was different in the sense I was buying specifically for home use I would have gone with the 50's for sure. Tough choice to make, good luck!

Thanks for the feedback guys. Seems I am on the right track then!