Paul Spencer

The sub operates from 20 - 60 Hz then hands over to sealed 18" bass boxes (60 - 350 Hz). The system is calibrated to the "Red Spade target curve" which is similar to the Harman curve but more generous with the bass. Yes, still using the bass horn. Treating bass is difficult, that's for sure and bass traps can be a hard sell. With broadband traps that are practical, yes they may not be effective as low as people would like, but there is usually a worthwhile benefit that you can both measure and notice subjectively. The same can't always be said for

As Dave pointed out, this is not a good place to generalise. When I test rooms for sub positions, about half of them only need one sub to get one seat to perform well. In these rooms, adding more subs won't provide a worthwhile benefit in smoothing the response. Keeping in mind that optimising more seats is quite different. My room is in this group. I have just one sub and a response of +/- 0.5 dB across the sub passband with very little variation across the 3 main seats. I'd have built 8 subs if necessary. Knowing that I only needed one, I built a horn sub and made sure it had lo

It's a very easy to work with midwoofer. I use it in our second system in the living room, for more casual Netflix use. Just a pair of in walls with bass extension to 60 Hz with an 8L enclosure. Eventually I'll probably put an IB in there just for fun but they do enough to let you know there is "some bass." 10L tuned at 58 Hz extends down to 55 Hz. 12L tuned to 53 Hz extends to 50 Hz but reduces sensitivity by 1 dB and max SPL by about 3 dB. SB Acoustics has a lot of nice tweeter options and the Peerless HDS/SS also works well.

What's missing here is some specific information. There is a lot of generally true advice that turns out not to be useful in many specific cases. Sometimes in a small room, just a pair of speakers is enough to get good bass. Even though one or two subs usually give a big improvement in the right positions. But as a general rule, there are two things that are best done before you start calibrating. Room treatment and figuring out the bare bones bass solution - where the bass makers will go, if you will use subs, how many etc. If you load the room correctly, you won't be trying to do

I find that fullrange drivers vary enormously. In general they tend to come in two varieties. Those that are neutral but limited and those with quirks and a personality. Alpairs are a good example of "neutral but limited." In a back loaded horn you can get a tiny speaker that can do a decent job at bass in a small room without the quirks you often get with fullrangers. In many ways they can sound like a much bigger speaker but then you hit their Achilles heel - they fall apart quite quickly at "moderately loud" levels. This is where the limited part comes in. If you move across to

This is a DIY in progress thread. What are you building right now? Or about to build this summer. Not so much a detailed thread, but one to bring out of the woodwork all those projects hiding away in secret. Right now I'm building some oblate spheroid waveguides. Just a pair of small 6" guides to mate with a 6" mid. My first go at integrating my new compression drivers. So far (as always) it's taking much longer than expected! Also planning: large rectangular waveguides - 15" 40 x 90 degree and perhaps an 18" like the Unity some big bass traps (ones that can live permanently in the r