Bassboss Kraken

[andy497]

I just discovered a friend of mine has this in his insane DJ rig.

https://www.bassboss.com/buy/kraken-powered-subwoofer/

specs say “4 x 21 inch diameter (540 mm) neodymium motor woofer with 58 mm (2.28″) peak to peak excursion. ”  I feel like that must be ipals?

I haven’t had a chance to hear it but reports from others are that it’s a proper pants-slapper. Curious about the design too. Is it  a standard folded horn or is there more going on?  I wonder how it would stack up against say two Skhorns. 

[peniku8]

I've seen their Kraken sub a while ago (maybe a year?) and it's very similar to what I'm working on. Or will be working on once I get a new CNC which can fit large enough panels... (which is happening right this moment!)

This pic can be found on the driver section of the product page:

That's a 21ds115. Same choice I'd go with, it's a solid driver. 58mm peak to peak is a bit ambitious, maybe grossly distorted, way into non linear behaviour... unless the pic is not the correct one and it's in fact either the Eminence or the IPAL.

The cab is basically 4 short horn paths which are open to the front and 4 vents in the corners, it's a 'cab in a cab' design like my idea, which probably makes it very sturdy. Nothing folded here. Data sheet says good to 90Hz, but the response is probably pretty decent up to like 150.

I'm not a fan of the amp modules used. A gain knob and (presumably) a crossover knob with only analog XLRs in a 17k$ sub? What year is it, early 2000's? I'd at least expect an AES input and a network integration (remote control). The last thing I want is to go check my subs if the gain knobs are all the way up on every gig... But afaik these are Powersoft modules, so the amplification itself is top notch. If it's really 4 IPALs with 2 IPALmods, 17k sounds reasonable. If it's 4 21ds115 with regular digimods, not so much. But I guess it would still compare well to L.acoustics pricing, considering their KS28 double 18" (passive!) is 8 grand. Either way, the hardware and the implementation are great imo, it should sound great and make about as much noise as two Skhorns indeed. A bit less upper/mid bass due to the shorter horn maybe, but other than that it should be up there.

I like the design philosophy, I don't like the form factor. Quadratic cabs look so wierd

[SME]

I wonder where the vent resonance is.  That may be what limits the max usable frequency.

21DS115!  I have a couple of those I bought to make some compact vanilla vented subs for a kind of semi-pro demo system for my audio processing, but I got distracted by other projects and then the pandemic happened.  Now I wonder if I should put them into a pair of SKRAMs instead, for what purpose?  I don't know.  The apocalypse?  I'm already very satisfied with the capabilities in my living room, and I don't even know where I'd store them.

This Kraken looks real snazzy but is obviously humongous and awkward shaped.  I don't see the point of going beyond a dual-opposed configuration like a SKHORN, and as evidenced by its relative popularity, the advantages of the SKRAM seems preferred by most builders over the advantage of dual-opposed configuration in the SKHORN.  I like that the SKRAM has more port area per driver, which also makes it more usable with a single port plugged for a bit more extension.

So the Kraken gets points for going just a little lower than 30 Hz, but the SKHORN and SKRAM are configurable and can be tuned much lower when the application calls for it.  A way better deal if you ask me. 

[peniku8]

3 hours ago, SME said:

I wonder where the vent resonance is.  That may be what limits the max usable frequency.

21DS115!  I have a couple of those I bought to make some compact vanilla vented subs for a kind of semi-pro demo system for my audio processing, but I got distracted by other projects and then the pandemic happened.  Now I wonder if I should put them into a pair of SKRAMs instead, for what purpose?  I don't know.  The apocalypse?  I'm already very satisfied with the capabilities in my living room, and I don't even know where I'd store them.

This Kraken looks real snazzy but is obviously humongous and awkward shaped.  I don't see the point of going beyond a dual-opposed configuration like a SKHORN, and as evidenced by its relative popularity, the advantages of the SKRAM seems preferred by most builders over the advantage of dual-opposed configuration in the SKHORN.  I like that the SKRAM has more port area per driver, which also makes it more usable with a single port plugged for a bit more extension.

So the Kraken gets points for going just a little lower than 30 Hz, but the SKHORN and SKRAM are configurable and can be tuned much lower when the application calls for it.  A way better deal if you ask me. 

I have 4 of these drivers and am really happy with them. Two have been on a bridged clone amp and were able to take just about everything I hit them with (2x8R parallel on the bridged FP13k for the real deal). Just not sustained loads, because the amp sustains 4KW, which is pretty much 5x as much as the drivers will do for long term average. I got the 'burned' smell out of them once

The advantage of high driver count cabs is mostly just power density and power to weight ratio. Look at the Kraken and now imagine the cab uses no bracing, just acoustically needed elements. You'll notice the sides and top+bottom will already have good strengthening, just thanks to the horn paths and ports, which reduces weight because you only really need a minimal amount of bracing. And ofc, showing near 150db figures from a single cab is cool too, right?

I think the drivers share a rear chamber, so you could stuff a port if you really wanted to and lower the tuning. You will have to fight the low-cut in the internal dsp then though, which probably renders such an effort futile. Maybe open the amps up, there should be a way to connect them to your PC. The standard powersoft dsp board comes with a network port for this, maybe it's hidden away. Maybe they use LOTO?

@Ricciyou've worked with Armonia, do you know if you can password restrict dsp access? I'm planning to release a studio monitor series based on Hypex amps, where I can restrict dsp access to certain features only. I'll leave basic stuff like gain controls, input selection and input EQ available, but (obviously) restrict access to driver EQ, crossovers and limiters. If that's possible with Powersoft I don't get why Bassboss didn't make this available. Network controlled gain, crossovers and input EQ are nice things. Presets even more so

[andy497]

12 hours ago, SME said:

This Kraken looks real snazzy but is obviously humongous and awkward shaped.  I don't see the point of going beyond a dual-opposed configuration like a SKHORN, and as evidenced by its relative popularity, the advantages of the SKRAM seems preferred by most builders over the advantage of dual-opposed configuration in the SKHORN.  I like that the SKRAM has more port area per driver, which also makes it more usable with a single port plugged for a bit more extension.

 

I definitely would prefer SKRAMs and am itching to do a pair but lack the CNC and am almost afraid to see how much a local cabinet maker would charge.  The Kraken struck me as interesting but the price is definitely way up there.

In the photo here he's is at some kind of DJ competition thing recently in Detroit.  If I knew it was going to be that insane I would have tried to find a babysitter and made the trip.  The wall of cabs here is really something to behold.  I can't even imagine how much power they were drawing from the mains.

 

 

[Ricci]

This is a beastly looking sub. Shew it's huge and expensive though. It's the size of 2 Skhorns or 3 Skrams. That'd be a fun comparison. 

Fun fact it's 25% bigger than the MAUL cabs and weighs about the same. The tunings are much different though. 

Definitely 21DS115's...The p2p excursion listed is probably mechanical maximum. Not linear xmax. Looks like they doubled up on the wall thickness near the hatches. This is one spot I was wondering about potentially being a vibration concern. 

Regardless it looks like a beast. 

 

Peniku8,

DSP presets can be protected in Armonia. 

[peniku8]

5 hours ago, Ricci said:

This is a beastly looking sub. Shew it's huge and expensive though. It's the size of 2 Skhorns or 3 Skrams. That'd be a fun comparison. 

Fun fact it's 25% bigger than the MAUL cabs and weighs about the same. The tunings are much different though. 

Definitely 21DS115's...The p2p excursion listed is probably mechanical maximum. Not linear xmax. Looks like they doubled up on the wall thickness near the hatches. This is one spot I was wondering about potentially being a vibration concern. 

Regardless it looks like a beast. 

 

Peniku8,

DSP presets can be protected in Armonia. 

Right, I haven't even really looked at the size, but it's like 30-35% bigger than my quad 21" design. And I thought my cab would be cumbersomely huge, but this is nuts! The only other cabs that makes this look kinda reasonable that I know of are the F132 (a tad bigger) or the Danley monster (BC218), which is 50% bigger than the Bassboss.

And yea, then I don't understand why they haven't made the network connection available if they can lock the dsp.

[DaMar42]

RCF LF21N451 has 58mm max excursion...

@peniku8 are you going to share your 4x21" design?

[peniku8]

5 hours ago, DaMar42 said:

RCF LF21N451 has 58mm max excursion...

@peniku8 are you going to share your 4x21" design?

The RCF has an Xmax of 13mm, which doubles to 26mm peak to peak. If there was a 21" driver with 29mm Xmax everbody on this forum would be all over it already (unless it's north of IPAL price)

I'm not gonna share that design, because I'm in the process of starting a loudspeaker business and it's a design I'm really excited for/happy with (on paper so far). But I can say that it's the same basic idea compared to the Kraken, just in a nicer (and smaller) package imo. And it's gonna be available as a passive cab, so people can use it with their fav system amps they already own. That makes it much more scalable than the Kraken, at least easier so. It's gonna save a lot of weight and space compared to regular double 18" designs and probably sound nicer too.