Big Woofer

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Did some more fiddling around today despite my messed up ankle. Found the solution for my underwhelmed impressions of the IXL, and I'm kicking myself for not trying it sooner. I should have known better.

I just fired it into the corner, and turned the corner into a folded horn thusly:



The woofer is firing to the right, with the horn "mouth" facing left. Then I tried The Haunting again in DTS. Same volume level as Halloween night.

Before: impressive performance, but not overwhelming.

After: absolutely scary. At a guess, I must have picked up a good 10dB of extra output here. Everything in the room rattles, or tries to. There were scenes when it could get up and punch me in the chest, and now on the same scenes it kicks me in the chest.

Subsonic performance has not changed a bit. There's nothing there below 17Hz. Due to where the port is, I'm not surprised at all. But, I now notice more output between 18Hz and 22Hz than I did when the IXL was pointed straight into the room.

[madmat]

You might be able to spin it so that the port faces the floor and lift it 3" off the floor. Loading the port on the floor should net you a bit more gain.

[Oklahoma Wolf]

True - as long as I can find a way to do that without it coming up too high and hitting the right front speaker.

I had some fun the other day - ran the Pioneer up to -5dB and played some test tones from 10-20Hz to see if the sub could handle it without over-excursion. It could. 20Hz had the lab door across the basement flapping like a jackhammer. That whole wall was rattling like crazy. Then I smelled warm voice coils and realized I was torturing my main left and right speakers too - had to stop then.

[Oklahoma Wolf]

So the vent is now firing down with the subwoofer firing into the corner as before. I have the thing 1.5" off the floor using the leftover 5.25" cutouts from the main speaker builds as stands. Just got done running my 10-20Hz test tones.

The result is that I am now noticing significant subsonic content at the seating position. I could feel it all the way down to 10Hz. Made a D cell battery dance on a shelf nearby... this was at -10dB volume level. Still can't feel anything through the concrete, but them's the breaks. It shook the couch well enough, so I'm pleased.

I think I found my optimal sub placement at last