New Computer Subwoofer

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Being somewhat bored this afternoon, I decided I finally wanted to do something about the very anemic bass response of my Sony SRS-300D computer speakers. Before today, I used headphones to get any kind of bass out of these things. Not anymore ;)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v297/Oklawolf/Speakers/Dscn2489.jpg

First, I took an old Sears speaker that's been sitting in the storage room a while. Bought it for $5 at an auction when I was a kid. Opened it up to find...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v297/Oklawolf/Speakers/Dscn2490.jpg

What the... how did that get in there? Oh wait... uh... nevermind :D

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v297/Oklawolf/Speakers/Dscn2491.jpg

Trust me, it sounds unspeakably awful. Now, to show you what was to become the new subwoofer next to the above Sparkomatic. It's a Chrysler/Infinity 6x9" amplified speaker from a 1988 Dynasty:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v297/Oklawolf/Speakers/Dscn2492.jpg

Snipped the tweeter wires (it's dead anyway) to said Chrysler/Infinity speaker, soldered two pairs of wires on for signal and power, and put the Sears speaker back together.

Then I opened up the, ahem, "subwoofer" module of the Sony set:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v297/Oklawolf/Speakers/Dscn2493.jpg

Soldered wires to the, ahem, "subwoofer" driver - yes, that is a 3.5" driver there:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v297/Oklawolf/Speakers/Dscn2494.jpg

Put the module back together, shoved the Sears and its new powered Chrysler/Infinity woofer into a corner, connected everything, hooked up the amp power wires to my old CWT 235W PSU, and proceeded to have a listen.

The question is, does it work? The answer is... I'll say. It doesn't sound real good, I had to EQ things drastically, but I'm actually able to hear bass now. A fair bit of it too for one 6x9" driver. I have a second one I'd like to use too, but no enclosure to put it in. For now, the Sony's "sub" driver is still connected, but I reserve the right to go in and unplug the little noisemaker at any time.

And that's how I spent my birthday. Total cost, about $10 - half for the speaker, half for the salvage yard Chrysler/Infinity :D

[madmat]

You might want to bear in mind that you're placing one hell of a load on the amp for the sub driver. It was most likely designed to be marginal for the 3.5" in terms of impedance and you've either halved that or more than halved it. Adding another 6x9 will drop the value even further and most likely result in letting the magic blue smoke out of the amp.

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Not really... the 6x9's amp is a 20 watt booster amp designed to take 4 ohm loads, which is what the Sony sub driver is rated for. The Chrysler/Infinity is pretty much set up the same way it would be in a car. I probably won't add the other one - this one's doing really well and I don't have another enclosure.

That was a concern though - what would happen to the Sony's amp if I disconnected the little 3.5 and tried to run the C/I by itself. Another reason I didn't just pull the 3.5 out of there altogether. But at this juncture I'm more worried about the C/I's amp overheating in the enclosure.

I'm fast finding out as well the Sony has a terrible low pass filter on the sub - it's letting a lot of midbass through. Since the C/I's amp also has no low pass filter I can tell exactly where it is in the room :(

[CAD4466HK]

Speaking of PC subwoofers,
My daughters Microsoft Sound System 80, gave up the ghost last night.
So I pulled it apart to discover that the sheer weight from the trasformer, cracked the PCB from years of being carried from LAN party to LAN party by the previous owner.
The 5 1/4 sub and the 5 /14 rad are still in good shape,but now it's passive
with a choke coil on it.
I had to give her my old Logitech X-530 5.1 system:p

Here's some pics:

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Cool :)

I tested my new subwoofer with the movie I've been quoting in my sig for the last couple weeks... did just fine. It wasn't too easily localized until it really wanted to be.

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

:eek:

deffinetly not a smart thing if you want that amp to live. and probably sounds like complete crap.

its better to have weak bass than shitty bass.

[Oklahoma Wolf]

:eek:

deffinetly not a smart thing if you want that amp to live. and probably sounds like complete crap.

its better to have weak bass than shitty bass.


For a $10 project I don't particularly care how it sounds or how smart the idea sounds. It improved the Sony speakers a heck of a lot, which BTW were in line to be replaced anyway. I'm not a newcomer to the world of electronics, knew exactly what I was getting into, and knew exactly how the Sony amp was going to work with the booster amp on the C/I speaker. I wouldn't have tried it otherwise.

Bottom line is, it works and is holding up just fine ever since I put it together. The Sony amp actually runs cooler than it used to, because I don't need to crank the bass level to get anything from that little Sony 3.5" munchkin :p

Edit - aaaand life's just full of cute little surprises. Had to take the C/I out of the box. Don't get me wrong, the amp on it is fine. The Sony amp is fine. Everything's in perfect working condition, except... one of the rear C/I speakers in my New Yorker, which started buzzing like crazy with any bass content. Probably means a tinsel lead came loose - it's one I had to repair before due to literally falling apart when it came out of the donor vehicle.

So, since the subwoofer project had the only 6x9 intact enough to take a good tweeter, I had to pull it out and mount a good tweeter in preparation to go into the car. Its companion, which had no hope of taking a tweeter, is now in the subwoofer project. And working just fine.

[$cooter]

Ahh.. the Sparkomatic. They were the flagship line for wal-mart when I was in highschool, and a redneck's best friend. I hadn't heard or thought of them in 15 years easy. At $5 for the spark'o'static, it sounds like they haven't depreciated much in value. ;)

Glad to hear it worked out for you.

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Heh - going on two months now and still working perfectly ;)

[Spectre]

I am way too lazy for that...so instead I used this to solve my anemic subwoofer problems:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v478/S_p_e_c_t_r_e/DSCN0684copy.jpg

[jonnyGURU]

LOL!

I love how the bullet point for a Velodyne amp is the fact that it's made by Velodyne. :D

I don't get it.

It's not like the Premier (yes, division of Audiovox) amp that I had that had the bullet point that it was actually made by Zapco. ;)

[Spectre]

What's worse I have been using that subwoofer for over a year...and I haven't taken that card off :o

[Oklahoma Wolf]

That's certainly one way to solve the anemic bass problem ;)