Giant Sub-Woofer 392
PuceBaboon sent us linkage to an amusing story about building a
gigantic custom sub woofer. I was about to yawn until I looked at the pictures of them excavating a 60 cubic meter hole, and laying bricks. This one might be a little outside the realm of reasonable, but it's damn impressive.
The "Biggest" (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:5, Funny)
I think so, but wouldn't it'd be cheaper to just buy an SUV?
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:2)
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:5, Informative)
The bass you hear on your home hi-fi is most likely produced by resonance, something you should avoid if you really want to hear what those bass notes are sounding like. But resonance is cheap! Large bass horns are neither cheap, nor easy, but they sound so much better...
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:5, Informative)
32 foot pipes are the largest commonly found, and even then only on very large instruemts. A 64' pitched rank is exceedingly rare. The only instrument I'm aware of (in the US) with real 64' pipes is the one at the Atlantic City Convention Hall (website: http://www.acchos.org/ ).
The Washington National Cathedral, in DC, has a 64' pitched rank, but if I recall correctly it's electronic (using speakers), not with actual 64' long lengths of pipe.
Bear in mind, a 32' pitch C is already below 20Hz, well below what most people can hear. A 64' pitch is more of an impressive "special effect" than anything else.
Actually, if anyone else can cite another pipe organ with a 64' pitch (US or otherwise), I'd love to hear about it, so I could hear that monster!
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:2)
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:2)
That is because pipe organs produce the sound by vibrating the air in the pipe - which you will notice is very long and usually several times wider than the pipes on the other side of the chromatic scale.
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:3, Interesting)
Using bass traps in the corners of the room, which is where low freq's tend to rest can go a long way in ensuring that the low-end you hear is not the room, but the actual sound.
Of course bass traps aren't a "fix-all" good acoustic absorption goes a long way as well to stop the slap-back and other nasty room things.
Ah... but you'd have
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:5, Interesting)
Heh, um... if you are in a recording situation... the only use headphones have is for tracking/monitoring. Doing a mix or mastering using headphones? Um, no. Not in a million years
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:5, Funny)
Then I go hit on the wife while the guy spends an hour fiddling with the dials and sliders.
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:2)
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:4, Insightful)
Hi-fi audio is all about vibrating air to sound "like" a real performance. If all you think about is the electronics, you are forgetting about the physical properties of the chosen speaker, the way the cabinet affects those properties, the accoustics of room, the precision of human hearing, and the subjective perception of the listener. Audio design is a discipline which demands that one think about not only electronics (although electronics are important), but wave physics, biology, and psychology.
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:5, Funny)
I'm still not convinced. Does anyone have an
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:2)
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:2)
Re:Bowel movement (Score:2, Interesting)
No shit!
Re:The "Biggest" (Score:3, Interesting)
If I remember, 15 Hz would make you feel all wobbly, and puking, and you had lotsa other effects for every pitch up and down.
I just want to be there when his SubWoofer System will get into RESONANCE WITH HIS HOUSE !!!
With so much power, we will have something like the Horns of the Bible, and the Crumbling walls of Babylon....
I r
Oh my (Score:5, Funny)
drool... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh man.. that room with Motorhead's [imotorhead.com] Boneshaker DVD [amazon.com] and some Fort Garry Dark Ale [fortgarry.com].
All that'd be left are greasy, bloody smudges.
Re:drool... (Score:2)
Re:drool... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:drool... (Score:5, Informative)
Forgive my naivete, but I cannot see how that can be. My understanding of acoustics and digital sampling suggests that a DVD or CD only has a top limit (of 22-24 kHz). Low frequencies, like 10 Hz, are easily represented by almost any digital sampling standard; they are all over the Nyquist frequency of 20 Hz.
Any problem with bass reproduction from a CD or DVD is purely a matter of the amplifier or signal reproduction circuitry between the CD/DVD player and the speaker, not of the medium itself. Or is there something in the Red Book standard that limits the reproduction after the signal is read off the disc?
correct - had a DAT that recorded DC. (Score:4, Interesting)
We used it to record serial data, either as analog from the satellite, or digital after we'd sampled it, and both worked. Of course, to record RS232, we needed to keep the level in check, but the output looked square on an oscilliscope.
Oh man... (Score:5, Funny)
You mean... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oh man... (Score:5, Funny)
Giant Subwoofer + Barry White Record (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Giant Subwoofer + Barry White Record (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Giant Subwoofer + Barry White Record (Score:5, Funny)
Que funkalicious bass line...
Wow, flashback to high school (Other bass CDs) (Score:5, Informative)
This text is filler, because apparently my per line character rating is too low. Hopefully it's an average, so this fluff will bring it up. Please fix Slashcode so that this crap isn't a problem. I have sincere doubts that it does any good to stop the trolls (browse at -1 if you don't believe me). So why torture your other readers/posters by making them jump through the troll hoops?
Dare I ask (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Dare I ask (Score:5, Funny)
ear wax
Re:Dare I ask (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dare I ask (Score:2)
LOL. That was the first thing I thought when I saw this. Great minds think alike...either that, or like me, you still think that potty humor is funny as hell.
Old News (Score:5, Funny)
Nevermind.
Biggest? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Biggest? (Score:5, Interesting)
A candidate for the "bored with extreme wealth" category, though not yet a grandpa, is Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. When he revamped his Pacific Heights home a few years ago and wanted to eliminate a lap pool on the bottom level, Green convinced him to turn it into a massive subwoofer instead.
Green said that when he and Ellison played Jurassic Park to test the system "the part with the dinosaur stomping actually lifted us up out of our seats. (The sound) was moving eight inches of concrete" on the floor.
In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
Disaster Area scheduled to appear (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory DNA text (Score:5, Informative)
Their songs are on the whole very simple and mostly follow the familiar theme of boy-being meets girl-being beneath a silvery moon, which then explodes for no adequately explored reason.
Many worlds have now banned their act altogether, sometimes for artistic reasons, but most commonly because the band's public address system contravenes local strategic arms limitations treaties.
This has not, however, stopped their earnings from pushing back the boundaries of pure hypermathematics, and their chief research accountant has recently been appointed Professor of Neomathematics at the University of Maximegalon, in recognition of both his General and his Special Theories of Disaster Area Tax Returns, in which he proves that the whole fabric of the space-time continuum is not merely curved, it is in fact totally bent.
Re:Disaster Area scheduled to appear (Score:5, Funny)
When I first saw the concrete work, I thought it was the bunker for the listeners and the woofer would be in a seperate facility.
Obviously they're just... (Score:2, Funny)
Not Worth It (Score:5, Insightful)
If he ever does use it, I bet he'll feel that really cool thumping sensation in his chest though.
Re:Not Worth It (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not Worth It (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not Worth It (Score:2)
So, while a horn costs a lot to build, it doesn't cost much to run....
Obligatory Spinal Tap reference... (Score:5, Funny)
questions, questions... (Score:4, Funny)
where do i plug in my guit?!
this is awesome. really, incredibly oversized and inappropriate - but absolutely awesome.
Blown Speaker? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Blown Speaker? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway if you had looked at the pictures, the speakers are easily accessed through a removable floor panel. Similar to the wiring in a server room.
Why is it that people look at a project, which someone else has put a ton of time and effort into, and think they can find flaws in less than a minute. Is your opinion of your fellow man that low, or your opinion of yourself that inflated?
Similar (Score:2)
That said it's not a flaw, they obviously are there for a reason. These people are clearly willing to go to quite some lengths to achieve a special effect so lifting up that marble if you have to is just part of it.
Re:Blown Speaker? (Score:4, Funny)
If nothing else, the output grates certainly don't weigh a ton. Just remove one, and send your buddy crawling down the horn with a flashlight and screwdriver to replace the blown cone. Oh, and promise him that you won't fire the system up while he's down there. ;-)
Re:Blown Speaker? (Score:2)
How about... (Score:5, Funny)
We called it "A Bong" (Score:3, Funny)
From the article... (Score:2)
Wow, they must have a killer psychedelic budget in addition to the insane audio budget.
Mod me down if you must (Score:5, Funny)
All your BASS are belong to us
Re:Mod me down if you must (Score:2, Funny)
Is that a geek fishing joke? Maybe they would appreciate it here [go.com]?
shame video didn't get the same attention (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:shame video didn't get the same attention (Score:5, Funny)
Officer? (Score:5, Funny)
Policeman: The neighbors are throwing up. Can you please turn down your gigantic, crater-filling sub-woofer?
Speaker guy: Huh?
For a direct-radiating subwoofer, check this out (Score:3, Informative)
Richard Clark's "Bread Truck" subwoofer [autosound2000.com]
Here's a guy who designed and built a custom driver to compete in car stereo SPL competitions. The driver was built to be mounted in the box of an old bread truck. It was driven by 2 custom 10,000 watt amplifiers.
Unfortunately, one giant sub doesn't always work as well as several smaller ones, because he didn't win squat with this setup. However, it's not like he needed to prove anything to those in the car stereo world (check out some of the tech briefs on their Main Autosound2000 website [autosound2000.com])
I'm not an expert... (Score:2)
My understanding is that negative feedback improves the temperature stability and frequency response of an amplifier for virtually no cost. Why remove it?
Re:I'm not an expert... (Score:2)
Because it's the same word as the feedback you get when you put a microphone too close to the speakers?
Who knows. Odds are the electronics cost far more than they should have done, but audio electronics tend to, I think :-)
Re:I'm not an expert... (Score:2, Informative)
The early 70's Marketing pushed the THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) measurment as a indication of superior design of the trasistor amplifiers. A good tube am
Re:I'm not an expert... (Score:2)
Re:I'm not an expert... (Score:5, Informative)
Purity. Negative feedback is never quite phase coherent with initial signal, you get filtering effects and so on. AFAIR, Bob Carver's wonderful Phase Linear power ampflifiers ran on a similar principal - they sounded terrific, which is why Pink FLoyd's techs chose them as PA power for the Wall tour 25 years ago. We did an A-B test blindfold between these and some MOSFET power amps years ago - and could tell the difference in a matter of seconds. The Phasies won hands down, of course.
Meanwhile in the afterlife... (Score:3, Funny)
OK for the kids' room, but what about the theater? (Score:2)
dudes are somewhat obsessive with their victolas,wot?
that should be a reference room to judge other stuff by.
oh, it used to be ultra-common to build echo rooms in sound studios for enhancement of dead-miked voices. while it is not so common now, that's how you avoid c
Hotblack (Score:5, Funny)
Fans whom have will heard it claims:
-It really rocked!
Oh Joy! (Score:3, Funny)
Broken english, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Would you dare sit at this listening point? Is this where the Spanish Inquisition positions the comfy chair?
Wooden speaker cones (Score:2)
Big subwoofer designs (Score:2)
Take a five point penalty (Score:3, Funny)
A far better screenshot would have been "Apocalypse Now" or even a "Quake" game.
Biggest *Enclosure* not biggest Sub (Score:5, Insightful)
http://home.comcast.net/~ttriff//page2IB-Galler
Ancient Indians put the "rock" in "rock music" (Score:2)
Dear God... The Brown Noise! (Score:2)
Done before - at the New York Experience Theatre (Score:5, Interesting)
It no longer exists, but was on 5th avenue in the basement of the office building for a book publisher. In the 70's I was given a tour by the operators. The theatre was housed in space that had been built to be used as a small planetarium, but had not been completed. A seating floor was built at the base of the dome, and the speaker was built in the space below. The show was a multi-screen multi-media production giving a virtual tour of NY, with physical props included.
The speaker was an exponential horn, 26 foot in length, and used twice during the show (once was during a subway station scene, I forget the other). The cones of the drivers would only last for about 4 hours of operation, so would have to be reconed every few so many shows. The was built of wood, and curved so that the opening pointed up towards the feet of the attendees.
Having attended the show many times, (early geek destination in NY), I can attest that it was an intense experience, sitting in the opening of such a speaker.
Girls best friend (Score:2)
Finally! (Score:2)
Nobody cares about anything but bass, the lower and louder the better.
That's music!
Now that we have our giant subwoofer.... (Score:3, Funny)
That reminds me... (Score:3, Funny)
it's not a giant subwoofer, it's a giant enclosure (Score:3)
"Royal Device has on its own developped and built the biggest subwoofer of the world... SUBWOOFER horns are built underneath the floor in a cavity of 1 meter deep. Each horn is driven by 8 x 18" (47 cm) woofers. "
18"? That's a pretty common size, nothing special there.
Only thing this guy did different was dig a pit and put them in there, making a giant enclosure for the subwoofers.
A subwoofer is defined as a "A subwoofer is a loudspeaker device which reproduces sub-bass frequencies below about 80-100 Hertz" [wikipedia.org] and a loudspeaker is defined as a "a fibrous semi-rigid cone and attached to the apex of the cone is a coil of fine wire (usually copper), called the voice coil or moving coil." [wikipedia.org] So according to the definition of "subwoofer" all he has is 18" subs, not the "biggest subwoofer of the world" by far.
What he has is the largest enclosure, and I'm not even sure if that's right because there are many theaters and amphitheaters designed from the ground up to amplify and direct the sound of bass frequencies which is really all that his enclosure does.
They guy also claims to have the "the biggest AUDIO ROOM for private music listening of the world", but at 6.95 x 8.70 meters (22.8 x 28.5 feet, ~650 sq ft) I have my doubts about that claim too, especially since it has a lcd projector [royaldevice.com] in there so it would have to compete with all those privately owned theaters. I've read that Bill Gate's house has a 1,500 sq ft theater [blogs.com], triple the size of this guy's "the biggest AUDIO ROOM for private music listening of the world".
In the 70's there was "Earthquake" the movie (Score:3, Interesting)
and the theaters installed super huge sub-woofers for the effect. When the quake hit, they lit off the sub-woofers with sub-sonics that literally made you shit your pants in terror, not expecting it of course, and no one had ever experianced sub sonics like that before. It was awesome. The speakers were trucked from theater to theater in a semi along with the reels.
A few years ago, one of the local theaters folded and they tore it down. They still had a set of the "Earthquake" speakers there and they THREW THEM OUT. I would have picked them up and brought them home but I didn't have a truck at the time
Damn...
Re:Audiophile (Score:3, Funny)
> I have competed in IIASCA sound competitions
You seem to be contradicting yourself.
Re:Audiophile (Score:2)
Which I read as 110 dB with 1 watt of power at 1 meter.
And as anyone knows, 110 dBs, even if they're just mysql dBs, is impressive. [/joke]
Re:Audiophile (Score:2)
"The real maximum power fed to both subhorn measured with an oscilloscope at the highest musical peak roughly reaches 6 watts per channel."
Now, he's also stating that he calculated for the seating area about 110db/1w/1m. Since my math has gotten quite rusty, I'm assuming with a horn setup that it's quite loud.
What I don't know is if he's doing 6w/ch, meaning 6w to each sub, or 6w to each "set" of subs... so either 12 watts at musical peaks or 96 watts total.... either way, though
Re:Audiophile (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:bigger isn't always better (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:bigger isn't always better (Score:4, Interesting)
Seems that you didn't RTFA. This was built by a company who does sound engineering, and is their own showcase system. For some reason, I think that they probably have a better handle on what will sound good or not than you could get from looking at some pictures of their design.
Further, the "attack" you mention that it won't produce for bass drums and explosions, are high-frequency components of those sounds, which are handled by the other speakers. TFA doesn't say this is the only speaker in the system, and TFPictures show what else is in use. The highs get handled by those, the lows get handled by this.
Re:bigger isn't always better (Score:5, Informative)
Likewise, I am loath to contradict you, but I believe you don't quite have it right either.
Sound, as reproduced by speakers in this example, can be described as a combination of amplitudes of varying frequencies. If you put the sound through a Fast Fourier Transform, you can visually see the different frequencies which make up what you think of as the sound. A 20 Hz sound is going to have a slope which is, by definition, constrained by the shape of a 20-Hz sine wave. If the attack of the sound is faster than the slope of that line, that difference is made up by another sine wave (or waves) of higher frequencies, the sum of which add up to the resultant sine wave. A FFT ('an fft?') will show the components of the sound graphically, here [onosokki.co.jp] is one example. If you took an FFT of, say, a cannon blast, you'd see the low frequency component you expect, but the initial attack would show up as a higher frequency component which is, in this case, handled by the non-subwoofer speakers.
In other words, to get the A of the ADSR to the slope necessary, higher frequencies have to be added to the low frequency to get there. A fast attack, by definition, has to come from higher frequency sounds; it's the only way to get the sum from one place to another quickly.
Re:bigger isn't always better (Score:5, Insightful)
To give you an example, my small horn speakers with a 7.5 watt amp go as loud as my brother's PA speakers on his 750watt amp. Do the logarithms and that means that my speakers are 20db more sensitive than his - because of the horns! (actually about 6db of that is due to bigger magnets, but the rest of the increase is down to the horns)
So, the end result is many, many times superiour, with louder sound, with less distortion than your "box" speakers.
Re:bigger isn't always better (Score:3, Insightful)
Horns do indeed provide great efficiency benefits as well as vastly improved harmonic distortion, but overall they do not exhibit less distortion that "box" speakers. Horns have terrible directivity issues and have very p
Re:bigger isn't always better (Score:3, Informative)