Doing a RL-p15

[adamt]

I am getting ready to do a sub-woofer for my home theater. I've pretty much decided on the Sound Splinter RL-p15 in a 2' cube sealed enclosure. I leaning towards the behringer 2500 despite their questionable reputation in the music instrument world.

My budget is 800 bucks for the whole gig, amp, enclosure, driver, which means I'll probably spend 1200 before it's all said and done.

I am looking for a reputable cabinet builder that has experience with this type of enclosure and can build it with little or no input from myself on specifics. Can anybody give me some leads? I don't mind paying the shipping as I just had a sub box for my truck built and shipped from Canada. I'm looking for optimal conditions so any input on box design would be great. I'd like to stick with the 2' cube but I'm lenient on size in order to achieve the best sound I can get from the enclosure.

I am running a Yamaha RX-v2600 pre/pro and am curious as to how I should go about connecting the amp to the receiver. I am also unsure of amping the driver with the two voice coils and what impedence to shoot for. Looking for some general ideas of how I should go about getting this thing up and running once I get it all together. I'm pretty much a newbie so any input will be greatly appreciated.
Adam

[adamt]

Okay, I've been doing some reading and I'm feeling a bit embarrassed for wanting to do a sealed eclosure. I think I have enough space for a ported or sonotube enclosure.

I found the sonotube calculator and I'm feeling somewhat confident that I can pull off building a sonosub. We use to use sonotube for pouring concrete pillars when I was building metal buildings a couple of years ago.
I have some more questions about this sonosub stuff. It seems like this page is geared more towards the pros so I'm feeling a bit left out. I have ADD real bad so searching has led me off on quite a few wild goose chases. I must say I have learned quite abit from searching but I still have a ton of questions. I was hoping to find more information before I went ahead and laid them out but I'm more lost then found so I'm firing away.

1.Where do you get the larger sonotube? I'm pretty sure they don't carry the larger sizes at the local home depot or lowes.

2. How do you secure the round inserts to the sonotube? If I remember right that stuff is basically a composite cardboard like material. Construction Adhesive-Strap Clamp?

3. Are there any baby step walkthrough guides to building a sonosub? I haven't really found too many pictures that show the guts of one of these things. I have access to PVC of just about every diameter imaginable so getting the port material should be fairly easy and very cheap.


Anyways, my best intuition says to follow Sound Splinter's optimal recomendations on their website. The RL-p15 recommended vented enclosure volume is 10cubic feet. That's roughly an 18" sonotube 6' tall. I think I can manage that space wise. I have a copy of winisd at home and I can figure port length and diameter to get the fb of 14.5hz they reccomend.

Am I missing anything here. Please somebody throw me some pointers and what not to help me get on my way.
Thanks again
Adam

[adamt]

What did they quote you for shipping? I have a guy that can build the box, but like I said before he is in canada. He does some really nice work but is mostly in the car audio world. I'm trying to keep as many options open as I can at this point.

I have recently started leaning towards the sonotube design because it puts the volume in a vertical location and doesn't take up as much floor space as a larger enclosure would. Cosmetics aren't as important as function.


Where do I buy sonotube if I decide to go that route? I've been looking on the net but haven't found much yet.

Edit: I think I am going to go with a crown xls402 for power

[adamt]

Thanks for replying, I appreciate the input. I will check out the cost of some sonotube tomorrow at a couple of the building supply joints in town. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go this route at this point.

[SteveCallas]

1.Where do you get the larger sonotube? I'm pretty sure they don't carry the larger sizes at the local home depot or lowes.

Look up "concrete" or "concrete forms" in the ywllo pages and make some calls. Someone will point you in the right direction pretty quickly. For the RL-p15, you'd ideally want 22" diameter tube - aim for ~290 raw liters.

2. How do you secure the round inserts to the sonotube? If I remember right that stuff is basically a composite cardboard like material. Construction Adhesive-Strap Clamp?

If you measure precisely and have good tolerances, you will have to force the end caps in place - with a lot of force. The resulting fit will be air tight and all you'll need is a ring of caulk on the inside seams.

3. Are there any baby step walkthrough guides to building a sonosub? I haven't really found too many pictures that show the guts of one of these things. I have access to PVC of just about every diameter imaginable so getting the port material should be fairly easy and very cheap.

This one is old and uses flush fit endcaps (which I don't care for), but it has lots of costruction pictures. Sonosubs are really pretty easy, no need to be intimidated.

Anyways, my best intuition says to follow Sound Splinter's optimal recomendations on their website. The RL-p15 recommended vented enclosure volume is 10cubic feet

Nah. That's not geared for home use in my opinion. The design that has become the standard for the RL-p15 is effective 260 liters with a 6" diameter port that is ~30" long. Do some searching, it has proven itself well

Forum groupthink is a powerful thing, and certainly ports have their advantages, but I'd never under any circumstances recommend that someone who can't measure the exact drivers that will be used do anything but a simple sealed box. Drivers vary so much (even good lines) that a vented box will basically never turn out as the graphs predict.

Funny you say that, as Ilkka just finished testing a TC 2k LLT and it measured virtually identical to the simulations. It also has a large performance advantage over the same driver in a sealed enclosure.

[adamt]

Thanks Steve. As I mentioned in my "build" thread, I may be getting boneheads RL-p15 sub. He is somewhat close to me and I think he did a really good job on his build. We will see in the coming weeks how that goes.

[adamt]

Just out of curiosity how much power are you guys throwing at these rlp15? I've read that the large vented enclosures will do better with less power in comparison with a smaller sealed enclosure.

[SteveCallas]

Right, as you get much higher low end sensitivity. Seeing as my views on power have changed quite a bit after this latest round of testing by Ilkka, I'd shoot for 1000-2000 watts.

[Jerm357]

Im using bridged Behringer EP1500 on my large ported RL-P15 with great results.