Question Drive unit advice please ?

jason shep

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Dear all bass aficionado‘s,
I’d very much appreciate advice/suggestions over driver choice for a project I am planning.

I wish to construct a left & right pair of bass modules/subs, consisting of four 12” drivers each, in an array from floor to ceiling, these will work in conjunction with a left & right pair of wideband driver main speakers for mid/high frequencies, Behringer NX6000D for power/DSP, Lyngdorf for xover/time alignment/power mains/room correction.
Requirements for bass drivers as follows.

1, budget approx £150 per driver
2, Pro type driver (cloth surround) preferably
3, sealed alignment
4, ability to xover as high as 400hz
5, low inductance

Please see picture below for reference, subs will be to the left & right of the panelling, you can just see the current sub on the left, right sub is obscured by sofa.

73659439-E020-4643-A789-157B3707405D.jpeg

Many thanks guys
Jason
 
how low and how loud do you want it to go?
how much volume will be available for the enclosure?
 
how low and how loud do you want it to go?
how much volume will be available for the enclosure?

Hi Matt,
I was hoping this would pique your interest!
I’d like decent output to 30hz, anything below would be a bonus & im not chasing it.
I like to listen to music pretty loud but I don’t watch movies at reference level, maybe -5db MV.

I can probably go to 80-90 litres per driver if necessary.

Many thanks
J
 
Will they be in a floor to ceiling array? If not what will the centre to centre spacing be?

It is likely to be a case of working through all the available models to see which one works best in that size enclosure. I would think that means the beyma, b&c, 18 sound and faitalpro models with lower power handling as the higher power ones are more expensive (and you don't need that anyway) while BMS are generally more expensive regardless.
 
Will they be in a floor to ceiling array? If not what will the centre to centre spacing be?

It is likely to be a case of working through all the available models to see which one works best in that size enclosure. I would think that means the beyma, b&c, 18 sound and faitalpro models with lower power handling as the higher power ones are more expensive (and you don't need that anyway) while BMS are generally more expensive regardless.

Hi Matt,
Yeah, I fancy trying the vertical array, I’ve read some about that being a desirable arrangement due to way the wavefront propagates into the room.
I’d probably make it 2250 high to match the wall panels, which would make centre to centre spacing roughly 58 cm.

J
 
Any reason for using 12" drivers? Why not go straight to 18"? :)

Hi neo,
I’d dearly love to go with a brace of those exotic BMS 18”s :love:

I was tempted to just go with a pair of them (due to budget) but I’d like to explore this phenomenon of stacking & how that is supposed to couple to the room.

Ashmanuk now has his four BMS 18”s up & running, I’m very much looking forward to going over for a listen soon.
 
What about the BMS 18S430V2 for 219£?

Hi neo,
Thank you for the heads up buddy, I would like to go with 18”s but they blow my budget (unless I go with 2per side instead of 4) & I’m tight for width on the right hand side, I could consider 15”s though.
 
I think it is easy to forget how much output 4 12s are capable of, i.e. far more than is likely good for your ears.

The reason to go bigger is to get a driver that can handle greater excursion but that is required for output you aren't chasing and will mean a markedly more expensive driver is required if you also want to reach 400Hz. This means using fewer drivers (so the total displacement will be back down towards the 4 12s) and a different room interaction (because it is now just a pair of colocated subs rather than a floor to ceiling line). Alternatively it means relaxing the 409Hz goal and asking more of your mains. A different system entirely basically so ultimately it just depends, as ever, on your design goals and constraints.
 
Having said that if you were looking at 15s then faitalpro have quite a few that look interesting for not too much more money. The 15FX560 for example or the 15FH520. Note that I haven't modelled these, the former does look nice though.
 
Thanks so much Matt,
I could go with a stacked pair of 15”s each side, it would be much less cabinet work & i could always add another pair each side in future if I wasn’t satisfied.

To be honest, I’m not too far off with just a pair of Arendal sub1’s, if I could have sourced another 2nd hand pair, I’d have probably kept my system as it is, I just couldn’t justify £1600 for another pair when I know what I could make myself for that money & still have my existing subs to sell on, then I spotted these new Mark Audio widebanders & i was sold !
 
Having said that if you were looking at 15s then faitalpro have quite a few that look interesting for not too much more money. The 15FX560 for example or the 15FH520. Note that I haven't modelled these, the former does look nice though.

Wow, these do look great (to my very limited knowledge) low le, low mms, high bl, demodulation rings etc, the FX looks to be slightly superior & only £215 but the FH doesn’t look far behind & £355 a pair is great price :)
 
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The 1030 is rough above 200 while the 1060 is a fair bit more expensive again over and above a driver that is a fair bit over the stated budget.
 
I managed to find an old (painfully slow) laptop last night & put the data for the 560 & 520 into Winisd, a target Q of .7 produced a 31L cabinet for the 560 & 70L for the 520, both roll off fairly quickly from 100ish hz, the 520 rolling off slightly lower than the 560, I’m guessing room/boundary gain would lower the roll off significantly & I could also use eq to shape the response ?
 
Yes it will need eq to shape to fit the room, simplest fix is a negative high shelf to pull down the excess midbass sensitivity.
 
Hi all,
I’ve spotted this Faital driver Faital Pro 15FH530 15Inch 500W 8 Ohms

It has slightly higher inductance than the 520 & 560 at 1.1mh, what is considered an acceptable/ low figure for this parameter ?
At £160 each, It is within budget to go with the stack of four per side.
 
It has slightly higher inductance than the 520 & 560 at 1.1mh, what is considered an acceptable/ low figure for this parameter
There is no such value in general and you really need to look at the linearity of the value as it changes with excursion to know what good looks like anyway. Put simply, lower is good all other things being equal but all things are never equal so ....
 

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