Death Star Subwoofer 357
bmfs writes "A subwoofer so powerful it could loosen fillings, shake out the cholesterol from arteries and generally make a lot of noise. It seems that the Death Star, ignoring the weakness that ultimately lead to its complete destruction, was a pretty good design... so someone made his own (with a lot of help from a housemate). The Death Star Subwoofer is currently up for sale on Ebay."
Wow! (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow... (Score:2, Interesting)
That's not a subwoofer.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wow! (Score:2, Interesting)
That ol' WAF again (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously, the power of this deathstar pales in comparison to the power of the Wife Acceptance Factor (OK girlfriend, same thing basically in this case) How about Wife Acceptance Force?
WAF -Bane of audiophiles, pretenders and geeks in general
Re:Nice Idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
The Death Star subwoofer is, well, a subwoofer. Most subwoofer crossovers filter frequencies above 80 to 100 Hz, per Dolby & THX recommendations, so the maximum frequency that will (hopefully) be generated by this sub is 100 Hz. The wavelength of 100 Hz is roughly 10 ft. The half wavelength at 100 Hz is 5 ft. The diameter of the Death Star subwoofer is 3 ft.
Basically, the smallest half-wavelength that will be generated by the subwoofer is greater than the diameter of the cabinet, so standing waves just aren't an issue here. It is something that needs to be considered for higher-frequency speakers, but a lot of the "rules-of-thumb" that are applicable to mid/high-frequency speakers don't apply to subwoofers because the wavelengths of bass frequencies are so large. (some gotcha's, like baffle-step, may apply, depending on the geometry of the cabinet)
Re:That's no moon... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.objectreality.co.uk/DeathStarPlans/ [objectreality.co.uk]
oh, CRAP, get an EV 30W and do it RIGHT. (Score:4, Interesting)
some notes. excellent article in a 1960s popular electronics on building it. you need a reflex or exponential horn cabinet, depending on how many mcf of room you want to rattle. cutoff frequency is 80 HZ, don't drive it any higher. you will need to use at least 1-1/4 plywood with stout internal bracing, screws, and glue to put the cabinet together, and 1-1/2 inch is better. "stout internal bracing" means clear hardwood 2x4 or larger.
this speaker was also used in the EV Patrician speaker system back in the day, as well as electric organs for churches and halls. they are very easily damaged in transit, and should be shipped in either the factory box or the original cabinet it was found it.
last ones I saw on eBay were $3500 each. they used to be $125 drivers back in the day. shipping of the speaker alone is over 100 pounds.
make a tennis-ball woofer with one of THOSE puppies, and write if your confuser survived turning it up. long been a dream of mine to whip one up, but never had the money or room....
Re:Wow... (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's some data in the format: "time -- time since article was posted -- counter on eBay":
11:35 -- 0 mins --
11:36 -- 1 mins -- 4000
11:48 -- 13 mins -- 11000
12:22 -- 47 mins -- 37000
13:42 -- 127 mins -- 84775
13:49 -- 134 mins -- 87721
13:51 -- 136 mins -- 88734
13:57 -- 142 mins -- 91214
14:03 -- 148 mins -- 94027
From this, we can see a couple of things. First off, ebay can be counted as one of the (few) servers that survives slashdotting (slashdot also seems able to survive). Secondly, if you fit the above data, the trend is quite linear (R-squared of 0.997). The slope of the fit indicates that after a story goes live, about 600 people per minute check the link supplied in the summary. Probably lots more people read the slashdot article without actually reading the linked article.
This is one of the rare times that slashdot links to a site that can handle the load, and supplies a counter. The counter in this case isn't unique to slashdot visits, but it looks like most of the hits on the counter have come from slashdot (it was at 4,000 before slashdot posted, and now is at >90,000. This makes for some fairly interesting statistics. I'm interested to see how long it takes before the curve starts levelling off. How many people read slashdot stories right away, versus how many read it the day after? Obviously this is not perfectly scientific, but it's kinda interesting all the same.