[grahamricho]

Is there any sites with plans to build a high end diy sub ? I have a driver from my old kef TDM sub and would like to build a new box/enclosre.
i saw a sonostube sub on eBay and it looked different, its a tall cylinder design about 5 foot tall any veiws ?
Also need a amp to go with it ?

Really you need to either find or measure the parameters for the driver, how big is it physically for starters?

The shape of the enclosure doesnt matter for subwoofers, the sonotube designs are popular because you cut it to length then all you have to do to finish them is make the ends.

[grahamricho]

Hi the driver is a 15 inch kef driver

[paulst10]

plenty of info on here mate .. http://www.diysubwoofers.org/

[Sawdust]

You need to download a copy of WinISD - it's free and excellent and will help you work out what size the cabinet needs to be as well as port sizes.

It's available here: http://www.linearteam.dk/default.aspx?pageid=winisd

The main thing you need are the Theile Small parameters which describe the characteristics of the drive unit. With these parameters and WinISD you can see the effect of the box size.

The cyclindrical subs are a good idea because as well as being easy to build, they look better than a big square box (IMHO anyway) and apart from the end caps, have no parallel internal surfaces which helps to control resonances in the cabinet.

I have recently built a prototype of a sub using the BK Monolith driver in a cabinet of the same volume as the Monolith but a different shape and the results are very encouraging.

Amplifier-wise I'm using my old Yamaha AV amp which works fine but is a bit underpowered. When I have some cash I will probably buy a Behringer two channel amp because I quite fancy the option of a second sub as my room is a bit big at about 29 x 17 feet.

Good luck
Mike

[Nimby]

All good advice, Mike.

Worrying a bit about an old KEF unit having rather limited maximum linear cone movement compared with modern drivers. (could be wrong here though)

You can buy cheap Chinese electric routers for around £20-30 these days. Good enough to make end caps for a sub cylinder if you fix a strong center pin to the adjustable fence to make your circles.

I used a dirt cheap router from Aldis for my first IB driver cutouts before getting a decent router for my birthday. Not much to choose between them except for soft start and more power with the one that cost 6 times as much. It is also much bulkier. They both get the job done. If you are only doing a few simple projects you don't need to spend any more money than the cheap one. A jigsaw is about the same price these days but not quite so easy to use to make perfect circles IMO. If you already have a jigsaw just use that.

[jimbowley]

Graham,
That was probably my sonosub you saw on eBay.

I have a surplus of sonotubes that I need to get rid of. I will be putting them in the classified section soon.

I could also supply it in varying degrees of completeness, eg I could fit the end plugs and an 8" port to your spec, and make the end caps etc ready for your driver. You'd just have to wire it up and 'decorate' the outside.

Let me know if you are interested. (Collection from Bristol).

[AVdavid]

You can get amp modules from BK electronics, you can either get a sub bass panel from about £150 or just the amp modules the one I used was a 200 watter for about £70 you just need to solder it up to your speaker and a phono socket, I find most AV receivers these days have enough flexibilty with crossover points, adjustable gain or room eq to not bother with a sub bass panel, works well in my set up you can also get an LED meter to match the amp module, I mounted mine on the front of my sub so I can see how much power an explosion etc uses, these days I find movies are sending it into the red especially Blu Ray stuff, my Volt 3143 driver could probably do with an upgrade to a 300watt module!

Dave