UBER 24" possible Project

[Funk Audio]

Currently this is "vaporware", but I thought I would put the concept we have put together out there to see what interest there might be in something this crazy, because it is totally possible, and the designing part of my brain simply cannot be stopped so I just keep coming up with these things.

 

It would require major custom tooling to make most of the parts, so cost would be very high, as they would not be done in very high numbers, if at all, so this is not a "value" proposition in any way, that being the case its likely most practical to make it a finished "system" vs just the raw driver, although we are open either way if anyone is interested in just the driver. Finished sub would be in the 15-20k each range, driver probably around 10-12k each

 

Here is a general rundown of the features;

 

Driver would be underhung with;

~50mm Xmax

~70mm Xmech

~1200g mms

Bl2/re ~800-1000

Underpole Neo magnets, conical segmented ring system with venting through, and 4" diameter pole vent, think halfway between neo radial and the common under pole slug, so the pole vent size is kept large for low turbulence, magnet volume is high, and is kept far enough from the coil to stay cool.

Under 100lbs total driver weight

10" diameter voice coil, quad 4ohm flat wire.

Full aluminum sleeve over pole, maybe even aluminum sleeve outside the coil too, I think we can keep the normalized inductance to 1mH/ohm or less.

Solid carbon fiber cone/former/dustcap, as one piece structure.

Custom machined modular aluminum basket

 

For the finished subwoofer the cabinet would be good around 150-200L, so about 28" wide 28" high 24" deep with curved sided cabinet nice finish etc. The amplifier would be a 4 x 2400 watt unit, one channel per coil, so 9600 RMS total, we have the rack version from the 18.2 or we can do a plate version built in like we used on some custom 21.2's we did last year.

[chrapladm]

WOW, I feel like I am watching a "Life styles of the Rich and Famous."

 

I was just thinking the other day if you ever would make the horned 15 available for DIY. That being said I am always fascinated in technology so I would be interested in the progress. PLUS, curious what might trickle down the from this driver to future rivers.

[lukeamdman]

Looks epic!

 

What kind of surround will be on this thing to allow 140mm of p-p travel?   Will the spiders have enough throw with a VC that huge?  

[Ricci]

I assume this would be the spider system we discussed based on the coil diameter mentioned?

 

Since this would be more of an all out approach have you thought about a graphene cone?

[Infrasonic]

 

Here is a general rundown

 

 

Yes.

[radulescu_paul_mircea]

That would be epic and probably that driver could find some other OEM applications like large cinemas, Specialty subwoofers with huge extension like M.A.U.L...

Creating a subwoofer with that driver made with a larger enclosure for increased efficiency, probably a good Tapped Horn, to reduce the need of a monster amp...or using the Ipal module, DPC and all. Damn! So many other options.

It has to be done because sometimes, no matter of the cost, some people will want the best of the best!

[Funk Audio]

Looks epic!

 

What kind of surround will be on this thing to allow 140mm of p-p travel? Will the spiders have enough throw with a VC that huge?

Funny the surround is probably the only part that would not be custom tooled and made just for this driver. The one available for 24" is good for about 65mm each way although I need to test it and see for sure what it will do, if it will do anything past 65 will probably just go with it, although custom tooling a surround is possible.

 

Ricci, I was hoping you wouldn't say anything too quick, but yes it will use spiders like we were discussing.

[Ricci]

Sorry about that Nate. Edited out details. But hey...Graphene? There's a company starting to make cones. Probably Hella expensive and doubtful they have anything that large planned yet but that is a really cool material. All sorts of apps it could excel at.

[Funk Audio]

Sorry about that Nate. Edited out details. But hey...Graphene? There's a company starting to make cones. Probably Hella expensive and doubtful they have anything that large planned yet but that is a really cool material. All sorts of apps it could excel at.

Not sure but I will look into that. I know the regular carbon fiber process we are doing to make the 21" cones in house works very well. I had thought about exploring something like carbotanium though so nothing is set in stone yet, maybe graphetanium?

[Kyle]

Nathan, assuming you make this driver, What advantage does this have over a good pair of 18's?

 

I have often debated the validity of larger and larger drivers with this argument, but at the same time, I do see a real lack of good 12's and 15's, especially high sensitivity + high xmax. Seems like all the attention goes into 18's and 21's these days.

[Funk Audio]

Nathan, assuming you make this driver, What advantage does this have over a good pair of 18's?

 

I have often debated the validity of larger and larger drivers with this argument, but at the same time, I do see a real lack of good 12's and 15's, especially high sensitivity + high xmax. Seems like all the attention goes into 18's and 21's these days.

As you know the larger the driver the easier it is to get more travel, more room for suspension etc. As far as total displacement capacity this would be more like 3-4 of the highest travel 18's out there, then considering it has enough motor to would work in a box only about twice the size of a "smallish" 18" box, its starts to not be too terribly bad as far as "value" goes. When you add the "coolness" factor of the overall design it starts to get more exciting, and that's worth something too.

 

As for Graphene cones I talked to the company, and they are interested in the idea but they said they are a long way still from making anything bigger than a 3" cone, but it would be "possible" to do, so many sometime down the road. Mind you it may be a very long time before even this starts to move forward anyway, it will require a big investment in tooling etc, so unless we get some people to buy into some it will be a while.

[Kyle]

Ya, if you can indeed get 50xmax then that should beat 4 stout 18's for sure. Okay, how about the other direction. One could invest in a high performance 12" platform with 20mm (xmax @ high sensitivty witih a 4" vc.  -- none exist as far as I know.

 

It would have about 1/10th the displacement of this driver which sounds like a total loss, and there is probably no way the array would be able to fit into the same (small) size box as the monster 24,  but even if you can get close to 1/10th the price I suspect the advantage would be with the multiples due to a power handling point of view. Even if you had to scale down to a 3" vc, you would be pushing 3x the power handling compared to a 10" coil.

 

thoughts...

 

 

Here is where I'm coming from, In my day to day in computer actives, it seems more and more things in cloud architecture are designed for horizontal scaling rather than vertical scaling. This 24" is an epic idea of vertical scaling whereas building out an elite 12" and then using a lot more of them is horizontal scaling. Advantages and disadvantages to both of course.

[lowerFE]

I agree with Kyle. I think it is more worthwhile to create an uber 12" or 15" woofer, which would have a lot more applications over an uber 24. No doubt a 24" is absolutely drool worthy, but the reality is that there's a lot more demand for a very high quality smaller diameter woofer than one that can barely fit through most people's doors. I feel there's a lot of people who would pay for a big premium for very high quality smaller drivers. 

 

I like the idea of an uber 12" like an improved, higher sensitivity TC LMS-R 12. It can be in very small 1 cu ft sealed boxes or 2 cu ft PR loaded box and 2 of them hidden somewhere should well exceed most non AVSForum people's bass needs. I feel it would even suffice most AVSForum people's needs too if they can forget the fact that its a 12" woofer and not a 18". Josh showed us it is possible to get 115dB at 20Hz from a pair of 2 cu ft PR loaded LMS-R 12 boxes, and that should satisfy all but the most demanding bassheads.

[Funk Audio]

Working on this project doesnt affect the other things we have in the works, "and all that that implies"

[Funk Audio]

Ya, if you can indeed get 50xmax then that should beat 4 stout 18's for sure. Okay, how about the other direction. One could invest in a high performance 12" platform with 20mm (xmax @ high sensitivty witih a 4" vc.  -- none exist as far as I know.

 

It would have about 1/10th the displacement of this driver which sounds like a total loss, and there is probably no way the array would be able to fit into the same (small) size box as the monster 24,  but even if you can get close to 1/10th the price I suspect the advantage would be with the multiples due to a power handling point of view. Even if you had to scale down to a 3" vc, you would be pushing 3x the power handling compared to a 10" coil.

 

thoughts...

 

 

Here is where I'm coming from, In my day to day in computer actives, it seems more and more things in cloud architecture are designed for horizontal scaling rather than vertical scaling. This 24" is an epic idea of vertical scaling whereas building out an elite 12" and then using a lot more of them is horizontal scaling. Advantages and disadvantages to both of course.

So you could be excited about a 12" with specs like so;

Underhung

Neo of course

Carbon fiber cone/cap

4.5” Edgewound single layer coil on kapton former

Full alu shorting ring

20mm Xmax

30mm Xmech

Fs    31.00    Hz

Re    3.80    Ohm

Qms    4.30   

Qes    0.30   

Sd    500.0    cm2

Vas    70.0    l

Le    0.30    mH

SPL at 1 W 1 m    90.3    dB

SPL at 2.83 Vrms 1m    93.6    dB

Qts    0.280   

Effective Qts    0.280   

Bl    18.06    Tm

[chrapladm]

All this for $150. LOL

[MemX]

 

So you could be excited about a 12" with specs like so;

Underhung

Neo of course

Carbon fiber cone/cap

4.5” Edgewound single layer coil on kapton former

Full alu shorting ring

20mm Xmax

30mm Xmech

Fs    31.00    Hz

Re    3.80    Ohm

Qms    4.30   

Qes    0.30   

Sd    500.0    cm2

Vas    70.0    l

Le    0.30    mH

SPL at 1 W 1 m    90.3    dB

SPL at 2.83 Vrms 1m    93.6    dB

Qts    0.280   

Effective Qts    0.280   

Bl    18.06    Tm

 

 

70 litres?

 

Isn't that like the size of a shoe box??  lol

[chrapladm]

Vas is usually pretty small on drivers that work in horns(TH) such as 30-40liters with 24Bl. So this might not be a great TH driver but a great T/S looking 12" driver and look at that Le. Bravo

[Funk Audio]

To get that little inductance on a coil that size that can take a serious amount of power with that much travel and keep a BL good all while being underhung requires a really crazy motor, basically this is just as "crazy" as the Uber 24" just scaled down, and the price would be similarly proportional. 10 of these with the same power and same enclosure volume would outperform the Uber 24" for a sealed system. They would work great ported too, and should run up clean really high. This is all still theoretical though remember.

[mwmkravchenko]

As you know the larger the driver the easier it is to get more travel, more room for suspension etc. As far as total displacement capacity this would be more like 3-4 of the highest travel 18's out there, then considering it has enough motor to would work in a box only about twice the size of a "smallish" 18" box, its starts to not be too terribly bad as far as "value" goes.

 

 

I'm from Missouri.  Can you explain this statement?

 

Also in this relatively small enclosure at what power level can you actually get this remarkable excursion you mention above?

[Electrodynamic]

To get that little inductance on a coil that size that can take a serious amount of power with that much travel and keep a BL good all while being underhung requires a really crazy motor, basically this is just as "crazy" as the Uber 24" just scaled down, and the price would be similarly proportional. 10 of these with the same power and same enclosure volume would outperform the Uber 24" for a sealed system. They would work great ported too, and should run up clean really high. This is all still theoretical though remember.

 

So are we still talking about a 24" driver or multiple smaller drivers at this point?

[Ricci]

 

So you could be excited about a 12" with specs like so;

Underhung

Neo of course

Carbon fiber cone/cap

4.5” Edgewound single layer coil on kapton former

Full alu shorting ring

20mm Xmax

30mm Xmech

Fs    31.00    Hz

Re    3.80    Ohm

Qms    4.30   

Qes    0.30   

Sd    500.0    cm2

Vas    70.0    l

Le    0.30    mH

SPL at 1 W 1 m    90.3    dB

SPL at 2.83 Vrms 1m    93.6    dB

Qts    0.280   

Effective Qts    0.280   

Bl    18.06    Tm

 

 

 

Completely off topic but I looked for 10 and 12" subwoofers in the $200-500 range to use for a project for a long time and the ones I needed just aren't made. Much like Kyle said.

[Harbottle]

In response to Kyle and Ricci:  I actually asked Nathan to R&D this 12 inch driver for my company a while back.

I had this dream (about 5 years ago when Nathan was explaining the advantages of underhung to overhung) of a crazy bass driver with these parameters for a full range system.

The purpose was to have a driver that really filled out the bottom end well in smaller rooms, and if used in a large room it could be complimented with an insane 18 or 21.

A customer expressed an interest in this concept when I offered it to him and voila, here we are, I guess Nate got the drop on me. Haha  .  I think the 2-500 range might be a bit tough to hit. We will have to see when we tool up and build one.

[chrapladm]

Seeing as prices keep increasing I think being around the competition for price would be a good goal. If an 18 " from "X," company cost 400 I wouldnt mind paying a premium of say 150 for one of Nathan's drivers. BUT thats just me and it depends on which driver. I cant say I could afford his Uber 24 by any means.  

 

But I only wanted an uber 18" like the 5100 from TC. Anyways I will go back in my cheap seats and continue to just watch ....

[Funk Audio]

Seeing as prices keep increasing I think being around the competition for price would be a good goal. If an 18 " from "X," company cost 400 I wouldnt mind paying a premium of say 150 for one of Nathan's drivers. BUT thats just me and it depends on which driver. I cant say I could afford his Uber 24 by any means.

 

But I only wanted an uber 18" like the 5100 from TC. Anyways I will go back in my cheap seats and continue to just watch ....

If there was demand for it we do have a design for a motor between the GUJvX and UHv1. It would give a BL2/Re right around 200, with all else the same as the GUJ18vX. Price would be almost exactly halfway between the UH21v1 and GUJ18vX.

The other option could be a slightly souped up TSADv1, we could get the BL2/Re on it up to around 200 for not much higher cost, would end up nearly the same cost as the GUJ18vX.