First DIY sub: The Low End (table)

[sensibull]

Just finished my first DIY sub and figured I'd share a little about the experience/results with my Ascend brethren.

After the Soundbridge disaster (I ended up returning mine for a refund) I decided to go ahead and build my own sub, figuring I could get the most bang for my buck that way and maybe have a little fun in the process. I set my spending limit at $250-$300. Any more and I might as well get a HSU or a PB10. Anyway, a little research quickly led me to the popular 15" Dayton Quatro driver and 240W Plate Amp combo, a sweet deal made even sweeter by the fact that both went on sale recently and PE's free holiday shipping. Total cost for driver and amp was $185.

My main design goal was to achieve a balance between musicality and extension, tightness and output, while not getting too crazy with the size. Young batchelors like Steve Callas and certified home theater nuts can maybe get away with big hulking subs, but I have limited space in my living room and a wife who thinks the Dayton 10" I had been using was plenty big enough. So in the end, though the Quatro models out at much deeper extension and more output in a ported design, I decided to go sealed, and make a 20 x 20 x 20 box with a double baffle, an amp enclosure, and plenty of bracing, which worked out to approx. 3 cubic feet.

I'll spare everyone the blow-by-blow. There are a lot of write-ups out there by people way more knowledgeable than me. Suffice it to say that it took a little longer than I thought (maybe 15-20 hours), and that I hope I've seen my last cloud of MDF dust for a while (I actually have bronchitis at the moment and can't be sure it wasn't caused by that nasty stuff). I had a brief scare when I first test-ran it and it sounded like utter rubbish, only to discover (with the help of a kindly PE tech) that my driver had a detached spider. PE replaced the driver for me, paying shipping both ways. The new driver arrived today and I installed it tonight. Long story short, I am quite happy. I still have a lot of calibration, testing, and equalizing to do but right off the bat the bass is WAY tighter and more musical than my Dayton 10" and blends with my 340s so well I am finally have difficulty localizing my bass.

Here are some pics for anyone who might be curious (the last one shows it next to the Dayton 10"). For the sake of WAF, I added a tabletop of stained birch plywood, hence the sub's name: The Low End. The rest is wrapped in beech vinyl laminate, to match our living room furniture. In the end, total cost was about $275.