Scott's Dual RL-p18 'LLT' twins finished

[Scott S]

Hey all. This is for all you Home Theater Shack folks...


Build Thread : http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=845994

Design: EBS/LLT vented tuned to 11hz
Enclosure: ~25cu ft each (725 liters each) 24"wide, 45" tall", 50.5" deep
Driver(s): Sound Splinter RLp-18d4 (one per cab)
Amp: Behringer EP2500 (bridged mode)
EQ: Behringer BFD 1124p
Total cost: $750 for drivers, $350 for amp, $1-200 for everything else
About $1200-1300 total (inlcuding shipping)















UNIBOX sims...









Now, they arent stacked on the side anymore. The FR @ the listening position wasnt so good compared to how I have them now. They are now turning 90 degress each firing into the two front corners. Much better FR now. Ill post the oldest FR (stacked) and the newest FR (corners) so you get an idea of how much it changed.

Old FR (stacked)



Newest FR (corners)



Even newer FR (as of 10/02/2007)



These will continue to be updated as the weeks continue. Ill have to remember to drop by this thread for an update or two. There are plenty of listening impressions on my build thread. If you would like to skip to when I actually finish them, its on page 6. Everything after that is plenty of impression from me.

Simply put, they are bad!

***********************************************

I didnt noticed if there was a DIY showcase thread or anything like that around here so I figured I would start a thread about it. Since its finished we can just discuss them and not try and pry around on how to build them...cause I did that already.

Lemme know what you guys think.

[Sonnie]

I moved this to the SoundSplinter forum...

Nice build Scott... and really nice extension!

So you moved them from being co-located to being symmetrically placed in your front corners and that improved your response. If you wanna try to get rid of that 40-60Hz trough... experiment with crossing over one of the units between 50-60Hz. I ended up having to move one of mine to the rear of the room and cross it over at 60Hz before I could get rid of a similar trough I had.

[salvasol]

Scott S wrote:

..Hey all. This is for all you Home Theater Shack folks...Lemme know what you guys think.

Looks good ....

Now, I think you need a bigger TV ...

[Scott S]

I moved this to the SoundSplinter forum...

Thanks, Sonnie! I sorta glanced over the SS forum for some odd reason and thought they would just go in the sealed/vented forum. Thanks for moving me to the right place.

Nice build Scott... and really nice extension!

Oh, yeah! In-room into the upper single digits? Ahahah! Just what I wanted....

So you moved them from being co-located to being symmetrically placed in your front corners and that improved your response. If you wanna try to get rid of that 40-60Hz trough... experiment with crossing over one of the units between 50-60Hz. I ended up having to move one of mine to the rear of the room and cross it over at 60Hz before I could get rid of a similar trough I had.

Yep, went through that whole process that past month. Ended up with X-over for mains and LFE @ 60hz to clear up the rough area in the 50s-60s. Its the best FR I could get so far. Tried all sorts of xovers and such but nothing looked better than how they are now. They sound wicked!

Now, I think you need a bigger TV ...

Ahahaha! Tell me about. This is next to a 55" Hitachi RPTV but it looks so small next to them. I would like to get a 65"-73" Mitsubishi 1080p someday. Ahhh, someday.

[Bob_99]

Oh, yeah! In-room into the upper single digits? Ahahah! Just what I wanted....

Seriously, do the windows and walls show any signs of stress?

Bob

[Scott S]

Seriously, do the windows and walls show any signs of stress?

Most certainly. I can make this whole end of the house quake real good. Eh, honestly...Im still taking it a bit easy on "max SPL". When I changed the sensitivity on my BFD to "pro mode" (+4dB) I got all the headroom I needed outta these bad boys. It hit me whilst watching the EE of LotR:FotR. When Gandalf uses his special voice thingy when Boromir goes for the ring ...the BFD lit up like a Xmas tree and had to back down the MV about 5dB....it was too easy to clip the signal. Not once have I clipped or come close to clipping the amps. As far as I know, there has been ZERO distortion outta these bad boys. I dont think there ever will. I purposely over-engineered this alignment. Its almost impossible to create port chuffing with the low tune of 11hz. It would take >600w per woofer to get the port speed up high enough to chuff and thats only between 7-12hz so I say Im good in that case. Dunno if suspension distortion has been created here yet. I couldnt tell. The SPL is so high that I may never hear such a thing. Seems quite easy to hear bad bass from good which I think is a good sign of the SQ here. Awesome. Totally awesome.

I need to play the DTS copy of the Haunting again...I havent since they were stacked. That has got to be the one that still scares me to playback. Wotw is nuts but the Haunting scares me. Not that the movie is scary but I fear for the integrity of the house when I play that one....and now its very capable of going louder than I had it. Goodtimes. Titan A.E. scared the out of me the other day. Earth blowing up and the ice field sequence are pure house crumbling goodness.

I can go on and on....

EDIT: Bah! I couldnt edit my stuff without crapping out words next to them. Ahhh, its late. I ment to say that with >600w is just barely get to the point of chuffing. 30-32m/s is the typical area where an 6" or smaller port will chuff. Since these are 8" that point is supposed to be more like 36m/s so Im pretty good with putting about 1000w into these. I start to use up the rated Xmax with about 800w but will never hit the mechanical limits of these unless I put more than 1000w them or run them that hard below tuning. Either way, this is a very safe setup with almost zero chance of over driving them. Like I said, completely over engineered. Maybe another amp so there is one for each woofer...ah, that would be nice. Oh, and another pair of these wouldnt hurt either. Im a little crazy.

[terry j]

not much chance of hiding them from the missus eh! Can the mains keep up?? They are totally DWARFED man!

Do you run a house curve there??

I can see from your comments that you are stoked with them, well done. (ha ha, wonder what commercial sub can keep up with them??)

[Scott S]

not much chance of hiding them from the missus eh!

Eh, she's the understanding type. She really thinks its a wonderful project. Gotta love this woman.

Can the mains keep up?? They are totally DWARFED man!

I haven't a problem yet. Haven't listened to too much music yet but with movies they are just fine. At some point I will be getting amps for the center and mains but at this point I have other things to purchase. (ticket to australia of all places. )

Do you run a house curve there??

Not really, its just plain ol' room gain coming in here. Only use the EQ to tame those nasty peaks.

ha ha, wonder what commercial sub can keep up with them??

None. Absolutely zero commercial subs can touch this performance. That was the whole point. Even a Krell Master Reference ($28,000) couldnt touch these. But then again, no commercial subs are ever this big.

can see from your comments that you are stoked with them, well done.

Thank you very much for the compliment. They are very wicked subs.

[terry j]

Scott S wrote:

Eh, she's the understanding type. She really thinks its a wonderful project. Gotta love this woman.

i'M LUCKY TOO, A ROOM FOR MYSELF AND i CAN DO WHAT I WANT! (sorry about caps)

Scott S wrote:

at this point I have other things to purchase. (ticket to australia of all places. )

not sure how far you'll wander over here, but look me up if you get out this way, free beds for fellow shack members ha ha!!

Scott S wrote:

None. Absolutely zero commercial subs can touch this performance. That was the whole point. Even a Krell Master Reference ($28,000) couldnt touch these. But then again, no commercial subs are ever this big.

you are correct about the size, but I suspect you are even MORE correct about the performance.

[Blaser]

Well done Scott, Congratulations!!

I suggest that in the future you add a second amp... Forget completely about port noise or air speed. On program material you will never even be close to shuffing these monsters at 11 Hz (that is unthinkable)...BTW, I cannot shuff mine on program materials with 2000 W (on say WOTW), hit 125 db/box and nime are tuned 13.5 Hz....

Great job, enjoy!!

[Scott S]

Im not too worried about port noise. Id have to run them at crazy levels and even then the range is so narrow I may never hear it. Ive tried playing plenty of <15hz content at loud levels (not quite MAX spl but loud. ) and I hear/feel nothing but bass, bass, bass. Oh, and the house creaks a fair bit.

Sometime I will add another amp, just for "headroom".

Right now Im having a real fuss with EQ'ing these things. I cant find one Im happy with. To tell you the truth, I hate EQ. It sucks the life out of the sound these produce. Seems like if I ever have to use more than one or two filters it gets like that. That or overly aggressive EQ. (At the end of my Tempest's career in my HT I had the BFD on bypass all the time.) And I need to do some aggressive EQ cause the response isnt very flat and the peak right next to a null area isnt helping things. Sometimes I just want to turn off the EQ but then I hear a slight ragged response that shows up worst in sweeps.

Dont really have the option of having a sub behind me cause I need access to the closet behind me. Its a real tough call in this house. Definitely not well suited for HT, performance-wise.

EDIT: Ive added the current 'Unibox' sims of this particular setup (on here and the last page on my AVS build as of today) for those interested in how the FR "translated" into in-room response. Also, sims show what kind of air-speed is going on at the typical max power these will ever see until I upgrade the amp sometime down the road...

[WillyD]

Right now Im having a real fuss with EQ'ing these things. I cant find one Im happy with. To tell you the truth, I hate EQ. It sucks the life out of the sound these produce. Seems like if I ever have to use more than one or two filters it gets like that. That or overly aggressive EQ. (At the end of my Tempest's career in my HT I had the BFD on bypass all the time.) And I need to do some aggressive EQ cause the response isnt very flat and the peak right next to a null area isnt helping things. Sometimes I just want to turn off the EQ but then I hear a slight ragged response that shows up worst in sweeps.

Given thought to some economical DIY bass traps?

[Scott S]

Given thought to some economical DIY bass traps?

Oh sure, absolutely! I want to make some small panels for the walls to control some reflectivity in the room too. Im sure my 9' ceiling is causing all sorts of problems with the overall FR in the room. Its just not been a high priority for the time being.

Im still going to try some other orientations for the subs. I need to purchase an extra spool of heavier gauge speaker wire as I have run out. So for now, Im stuck with the position they are in.

As for bass traps...Im not sure where they will go. Do I stack some on top of the subs (since they are in the front corners? Or do I just add some to the rear of the room? Not too sure about all that but it has been a thought.

Any particular ideas, Will?

[Scott S]

New pic! This is how they sit now.

[myn]

That looks really sharp. Nice work

[Scott S]

Thank you very much!

I need to take a newer pic of the setup as I have pulled the face of each sub about a half foot away from the walls. Sounds even better now. It looks about the same as it does in that pic above, just picture the far left and right being pulled a little closer to the outer edge of each main. The woofers were about 2-3 inches away from the wall now they are about 8-10 inches away.

[Avus_M3]

You ready for me to check it out? Hehe

[Scott S]

Heheh, sure thing Dave. You coming down this way soon? Ill put in my typical demos.

Thank goodness I have them Blu-ray/HD-DVD players now. Boy, do they sound good.

[jagman]

Scott... looks nice !!! So, the drivers and ports fire into the corners? Isn't that kind of like a slot port? No wonder the house shakes . I bet the deep LFE movies are loads of fun.

EDIT: I know your SO is easy going... but the new layout looks much better. As huge as the boxes are, they are much less intrusive as you now have them. Of course it's even more important that the frequency response is better , but it's nice when things line up as they have for you.

[jagman]

Ohh yeah... have you knocked over your "equipment rack" on the right yet? I can imagine the woofer and port behind it generating enough wind to blow it over !! Instead of the leaning tower of Piza, you'll have the leaning tower of Scott.

[Scott S]

Ahahah! Nah, not yet. Even though all that stuff is sitting on a cardboard box, it is quite sturdy. Been holding up over the years and recently, some serious woofage.

For a little while I did have the woofers and ports firing into the corners. For the past month or so, I have had them reversed so they now fire at each other directly behind the tv. Still sounds good. Makes the tv buzz (ugh, need front projector) but it sounds pretty good. Totally rocked out to Cloverfield yesterday. I should do a new frequency plot though.

Oh wow. They are big aren't they? Heheh. The "cool factor" has dropped a bit having them how they are now but I do agree that they are much less intrusive. In fact, just having them as a "normal" appliance in my HT...I forgot I have them sometimes.

EDIT: Oh, they way they look in the pic above is pretty accurate. Though, shortly after taking that pic I pulled the face of the subs (with the woofer and driver. Erm, baffle I mean.) away from the side walls so they weren't as close as it looks in the picture. For a little while, yes but I heard what sounded like air turbulence. Not the typical compression from a port but all the air around the woofer seemed to be ...well, compressed but only during loud bassy moments. After a few hours I pulled them each about a foot away from their respective walls. Ran them like that for a month. Then twisted one of them so one was behind the tv and the other still fired into the wall. Now they both are twisted towards each other and fire behind the tv. Haven't run REW for a while. Probably a good time for me to do that now.

All in all it is a great system. May need another amp at some point though I don't believe my house will supply the power anyway. Ugh. Its nice having one of the biggest dual woofer box system around though. Most forum users opt for a sonotube.

[Platform]

What mains and surrounds are those ?

[mdrake]

You must have one NICE wife to let you put all that gear in her house.
You know a false wall with a projection screen on it to hide the subs and window would be COOL.

Matt

[Scott S]

Platform - the mains are a kit from Adire Audio (no longer with us ). Kit281 is what they called it. And the center is also from Adire. It is the 'original' LCC or Large Center Channel. They perform very well. Wish I got more kits from them to use as surround though I never did. Now they are all discontinued. My surrounds, which arent pictured on this site, are floorstanding KLH speakers. I dont really like them but its all Ive got for the moment.

Yeah, she is great! I have been very fortunate. I plan on getting a front projection system setup this summer. Not sure how big of a screen I will have just yet. Somewhere in the 80-100" range. Hehehe...thats a pretty big range but its my first FP setup and I dont know how big to go. May start really big and then work my way down. The screen thats there now is a 55" 4:3 rptv and going up to a 100" 16:9 would be quite a difference! Depending on how all that goes I may hang a giant black curtain to hide everything else up front. We'll see how all that goes this summer.

[Scott S]

Got some new (better) pictures of my new setup. Enjoy! 8)

As you walk in...



...and then you site down.



Both of those were overexposed for detail.

Next is a closeup of my simple equipment.







A second pair of new surrounds and acoustic treatment are on my adgenda now. Keeping the evolution of this theater moving.