Welcome to the world of DIY! Now for some expectation managment. DIY is great if you enjoy building stuff and does give you more performance for your dollar (or euro or whatever) but the cost benefit gets bigger the more you spend (more benefit with a $600 budget vs. $300). At your price point I believe you can make a great sub but the difference between it and a comparably priced commercial sub won't be as extreme as other price points.
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hjmiller wrote:
 Detailed questions:
Driver - Recommendations? I kind of think the driver would be $100-$150 of the budget, but not sure how to split the cost between the driver and amp so that one is balanced with the other (1000W amp hooked up to puny driver not good, and monster driver hooked up to underpowered amp is a waste as well). I originally was looking at the Dayton Reference driver , or Dayton Titanic, but there are probably many others to consider. 12" a good compromise for the performance and size restrictions I have? |
12" is a good size but I wouldn't get too hung up on the driver size and instead would concentrate on what the driver can do. I suggest getting a modelling program like WinISD or Unibox (both free) and make some test models using different drivers. Advice is great but it is always good to be able to fact check stuff yourself.
That being said since your room is so open you probably won't get a lot of room gain so I'd suggest a traditional ported sub. The Dayton Titanic drivers are good (I use them myself) but they don't have as much difference between their xmax and xmech as some other options so they aren't forgiving if you drive them too hard below tuning in a ported box. I'd take a look at the Torrent Minstral, Exodus Shiva-X
and Tempest-X.
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hjmiller wrote:
Amp - As mentioned been looking at the PE Dayton 240W or the 300W BASH. If they cost the same I would go with the BASH amp most likely. 300W vs. 240W plus based upon the lack of a major heatsink it is apparent it is a much more efficient design (less likely to kick the breaker and less $$$ in electricty), however not sure the extra $50 is worth it at my budget. If I go with the Dayton should I get the bass boost version or standard? Other brands in a similar price range to consider? |
Both are fine. I use the PE 500W BASH amps in my HT but the other Dayton amps have a pretty good rep. In your price range the only other thing I've heard of is a 300W MCM amp that was on sale (and might still me). The bass boost PE amp is more for sealed designs and usually isn't necessary on ported ones.
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hjmiller wrote:
Design - Any recommendation on a starting point for a plan for a ported box design that I can tweak once the driver is picked out? The fit would be easiest if I made the box taller, and miminized the width. Are there restrictions on aspect ratio to be concerned with other than just bracing? |
Decide on a driver *before* you cut anything! Look at your space and figure out what the biggest volume sub you can build is. Don't forget to take the thickness of your material, port volume and bracing into account. Now you have an upper bound for modelling drivers to see which would work best. Having subs with big volumes is where DIY really starts to seperate itself from commercial subs (which usually have strict volume limits for marketing purposes).