My DIY subwoofer, kinda normal looking, but trick finish

[cash68]

I found some birch ply and MDF at school, and parts express was having a sale, so I picked up a shielded DVC sub for $25, and decided to put a cash limit on this project of $50. Anyway, here's the progress pics so far:





After that coat of primer, I sanded it down, filled in spots with spot putty, painted, sanded, spot puttied, etc a few times, then a nice coat of black laquer:





That black laquer was only a basecoat though... for the finish, I'm using a spray on rubber, it's actually black 'plasti-dip' in a spraycan, which I was pretty excited about, as the rubber should help absorb vibrations, and actually improve the performance of the sub a wee bit.

[cash68]

Pic of 1st coat of spray on rubber:




I lined the inside with some latex foam rubber, and some acoustic foam a friend had. Used spray adhesive and staples.

Anyway, pics:






(I put felt on the feet after that)

I really dig the rubber coating though. It looks very nice in person.



The driver is a 10" DVC shielded sub from parts express, on sale right now for only $25. For the amp, I'm using a 1978 Technics SU-7300 or 7700, I don't know which yet.

I tested it with ONE channel from the 7300 last night, and it's LOUD. I can rattle me entire apartment with it. Hehe.

Total cost was under $50!!!!!!!!

[ArticWolf]

I give you an A+ for you project. I thing it might look good with a speaker grill to help protect the speaker. BTW the speaker box looks professional. Buy all means keep up the good work!

[jrrdw]

You should have cut a reflex hole in it some where, not having one reduces sound quility, and causes excess vibration you where thinking about. looks great though, you need a pair of them. Really piss your nabiors off. Nice work.

[cash68]

Do you mean a port? Ports actually decrease sound quality, but increase the amplitude of the lower frequencies. The length of the port can be altered to tune for differerent frequencies, but sealed enclosures offer the tightest, most accurate reproduction.

[cash68]

I give you an A+ for you project. I thing it might look good with a speaker grill to help protect the speaker. BTW the speaker box looks professional. Buy all means keep up the good work!

The sub is on hte bottom though, so I don't really see the need for a grill, as it'd be pretty hard to damage.

[ArticWolf]

Yea you are right the grill would be useless, but it might add some attitude to it though. You never know if it would fall over, or get knocked over just some food for thought.

[cash68]

I don't want attitude. I like my stuff clean and classy.

If you're interested, here's a shot of some of the rest of my system:





All vintage technics stuff. Top of the line quadraphonic amp from 1977, and two integrated amps (43 watts per channel on one, and 50 something on the other). The quad handles some vintage panasonic (technics) SB-550 speakers, pictured here:



They're sealed enclosures with 3/4" thick void free ply, covered with a hand rubbed walnut finish. Dome midranges, and dome tweeters, and you can adjust the attentuation on the tweeter and the midrange. THe best thing is you can not only bi-amp these suckers, you can TRI-AMP them, meaning, have a seperate amp for the woofers, mids, and tweeters. It'd be sick, I'll probably do it eventually.

The integrated amps drive my custom center channel (see other thread), my $50 subwoofer (this thread), and bass shakers installed under my couches:



It's completely insane how great this system sounds, and I built if for .... under a grand, probably around $700, but it is just insane how clean and loud this setup is.

[ArticWolf]

That stuff looks sweet. I wish I had the money for the same stuff you have. I love my radio systems and the louder it is the better, clean sounding and alot of bass works for me. I like the idea you did on the love seat I'll have to try that looks cool.

[cash68]

It's not as expensive as you think. Just keep your eyes peeled on craigslist. I scored my mint quadraphonic system for $150, and if I had resold it on ebay it would have probably gone for over $1200. The guy selling it didn't know what he had. At all. The center channel cost me around $60 in parts, the sub was $50, the two integrated amps were around $50 each, the DTS/Dolby Digital Decoder was around $50, and the bass shakers (4 total) were around $100.

So, yeah, I guess the total is even less than I thought.

[ArticWolf]

I'll have to search the garadge sales around here then you never know what you'll find and Ebay works the best too all I have so far is a digtal fisher rack mount radio and an 12 band EQ sofar but my speakers that i got are old and need new ones for the case and they are American Acoustic Labs with 2 10" subs each

[jrrdw]

Here's 1 of a pair of Sunn concert stacks packing 4, 15" wolfers each 400 watts each. Heavy duty! --

[rna_duelers]

Nice little box!And I mean that in a non sexual way .Did you add foam to the inside or bean bag balls?Because the aim of a sub inclosure of a sealed version is to completely block out the noise form the box,because with a sub not in a box they don't get very loud at all due to the sound vibration cancling each other out and the foam/bean bag balls help with reducing the sound.

And yes a sealed enclosure is for more SQ and a Ported box for higher SPL usually.Hence very large ported inclosures in SPL cars.

What watts is the sub and its sensitivity?

[cash68]

Yeah, kinda the opposite of the direction I went. Pro sound is really durable, and really loud, but the sound quality isn't so hot. Still better than most home theater in a box setups though.

[CS]

That there be looking noice!

Seems to conform to a metropolitan looking modern theme, a look I really like. Perfectly executed I might add. Seems like everyone in my woods class think that a piece of furniture must be multi-faceted to look nice. In truth it is very hard to assimilate a complex piece of furniture, into a room with other furniture. Only place I have seen it well implemented is in gothic styled churches, and castles. Seeing as you don't live in either, this is a bangin' (literally with the sub) piece of furniture. As well the table leg contrast well with the all black body. IDK, think it would have looked better if you had recessed the sub, in the body of the piece, and possibly looked for a alternative terminal.

Me like, and again a very nice piece of work.