mfishmike

Hayden, I'm fixing to hit my dual 15" RL-P's with dual amps for a total of 2800 watts next weekend. Watch my thread to see my results, or put your ear to the ground at 9:15 p.m. Friday the 16th, Central Standard Time and listen for them.... Mike Cason mfishmike

Mike, I have a legal question for you? What is the most decibiles allowed out of one subwoofer in the State of Texas? I just bought another QSC 1450 amp off of EBAY, and will be running parallel bridged to mono amps to those dual RL-Ps at 1400 watts each.......I'll daisy chain the terminal strips on the inputs...2800 watts to one sub....Sounds kinda scarry hugh? I won't be concerned about the fan noise from the amps anymore as I probably won't be able to hear anything after next weekend! The home theater already sets off the shatter switches to my home alarm system just as it is! I won't get it until next Friday, so I'll post some results Saturday the 17th. Mike

Mike, I'm one step ahead of you. Check your email at SS. I've already suggested that you and Kyle use what ever you guys want! We're all here to make things happen, and if I can be of further assistance, please let me know. Are you coming by in the morning for coffee? Sincerely, Mike Cason

The results are finally in!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :dancingsmilie: They are fantastic, even with the QSC 1450 450 wpc amp! It's not working as hard with these 15's as it did with the two 12" Titanic MK III's! There is virtually no amp clipping at very high levels! At this point, I have no intentions of upgrading to a more powerful amp! I finished them up last night and I installed four of the Dayton #295-194 15" passive radiators and carefully added weight totaling 1100 grams each, including the mms of the prs. The maximum recommended weight for this pr is 1200 grams. I had about 4 lbs of polyfil inside the cabinet to make it think it was larger than it really is, and I found that the prs weren't in sync because of the mass of the polyfil and the sound wasn't quite right. After removing all of the polyfil, things changed drastically! The cabinet is lined with 2 1/5" eggcrate foam to reduce the standing waves. These drivers are also designed to work with a smaller cabinet. The cabinet is about 5.0 cu ft i.d including displacements of the drivers and bracing. It has a 1 1/4" total wall thickness with a 2" bottom. The finished weight is 235 lbs without an amp installed. I keep the amp in the equipment rack behind the glass to reduce the fan noise and bi amp the drivers with L & R channels. Now for the results.......... :musik05: For those older audio enthusiasts, you will recognize Frederick Fennell's Cleveland Symphonic Winds and Michael Murray's Saint-Saens Symphony # 3 "Organ" with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. The kettle drums sounded to be in the living room along with the rest of the members of the orchestra. The marches were like you were there! When the kettle drums were struck, I was startled! The organ music was superb with Michael Murray's performance! I went on to play Eric Clapton's Crossroads album done in Fort Worth last year and a performance by Fleetwood Mac and Sheryl Crow and I was equally impressed with everything I heard. I listened to the SACDs and DVD's at both high and low levels and no distortion was noticed at all. It was very a very, very, detailed bass, and was clean, and not boomy or boxey sounding. The performance with Buddy Guy, BB King, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Vaughn all playing together was as stunning as could be imagined with the richness and the quality of the deep clean bass. I put in Joe Satriani Live in San Francisco two nights later and cranked it up. The bass player had two stacks of dual quad drivers (16 total drivers) for his speaker system. My system reproduced the music like you were directly in front of the stage. What else can I say about these drivers! I show a Devcon two part epoxy product to secure the washers, and I want to add that I used one complete two part package for each passive radiator. Any good epoxy will work. I put a good bed of epoxy on the passive radiator and started stacking the 16, 3/4" washers. After I laid the first washer down, I slipped the 2" EMT sleeve over it and finished adding washers. I coated the top of each washer as I added them so nothing will be coming loose to annoy you later. As the epoxy oozed out the sides of the washers, that filled the gap to the emt sleeve and secured it as well. The 17th or last washer is a 1/4" fender washer which held the remaining washers secure while the epoxy cured, and also helped align them on the PR. I have spent a lot of time taking these photos and uploading them to a server to help any of you wishing to have such an extraordinary sounding subwoofer for your home theater or audio system. I have a total of 4 rebuilds on this subwoofer project and feel quite confident that it will be my last. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions, or if you are in the Clear Lake Texas area, stop by for some coffee and an audition of this very musical system. I've noticed that if you aren't a member, or are not logged in, that you can't see the signatures at the bottom of each post where I have my link posted. For those of you that are interested, here is the link to the photos and the construction details: http://photobucket.com/albums/b148/mfishmike/ Thanks, Mike Cason [email protected]

Good point.....I've got to leave for a few hours so I'll pump in some good pink noise and let it rip (moderately, of course), till I get back in this afternoon. I think I'll be happy with the weight I have right now, by the way they sound. I can go to 1200 grams, but I don't want that much weight to be throwing back and forth. My little plant sitting on the top still hasn't moved because I'm using opposing passive radiators. My receiver doesn't have or need bass boost as it is a very high current receiver/amp, so I'm cool there..... Mike

Mike, I got the Dayton PR's installed last evening! Boy was I dis-appointed! I had to reduce the crossover to 40 hz to get a decent sound without the ringing or boomey bass. I couldn't imagine what the heck was going on! I kept making adjustments with the receiver and bingo, I found the problem. I had the subwoofer maxed out in three settings in the Rotel 1065 for the Titanics MKIIIs. I dropped 2 of the sub level adjustments to +2 db instead of having them set to max. I've got the crossover set at 60 hz now and it is fantastic! The mains said "thank you" now that they don't have to carry the heavy 40 to 60 hz load. That helped the overall performance of the surrounds too because of the load was lifted off of the mains and amp. I watched Diana Krall Live in Paris and Fleetwood Mac's DVD and the bass was everything I was hoping for. The wife going to bed factor kicked in so I turned it down, and the low hz frequencies and bass drums were still so clean and well defined at the low volumes. AAHHH.....High fidelity at it's finest! I was concerned about not having enough power using 450 watts per driver with the QSC 1450 amp, but it is quite acceptable. If I run across some extra cash later, I may buy another QSC amp and bridge each of them to increase the power to 1400 watts per driver, and daisy chain the amp inputs. That will give me some more headroom and an even better sound! The variable speed fans will be quieter too, without having to work as hard. I've loaded up the 4 Dayton 15" passive radiators with appx. 1060 grams total weight including the mms of the prs. I'll run some other DVDs and bass tests to see if they are where I want them. When I get the sub finished to my satisfaction, I'll shoot some photos of the project, along with my weight loading process, and upload them to a server for the group to view, hopefully by the end of the weekend. Thanks again Mike for a really great pair of drivers! Mike Cason

Just my .02 Why are you trying to stay with a PR design? Maybe I haven't heard many good ones but they usually have really high group delay. It could be very true that I've only heard bad PR designs. For the price of 2 RLP's did you not consider getting the RLS? But with your amp I could see how that might not work well. If you wind up strapping those rlp's with some good plate amps you should be happy. Was using your original box a major factor in your build? If so I guess that answers many of my questions. later, b <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The PR design will extend the bass deeper than a sealed box and will eliminate any port resonance or chuffing to achieve the same results than if I went a ported or vented system. I used to own a Legacy Point One subwoofer ($2,600) with a single spun aluminum driver and a downfiring cone type passive radiator and it was incredible and unbelievable in sound quality and deep bass at either high or low volumes. I didn't run the box calculations, but I would imagine there isn't enough room in the box to port the box properly either. I want the deeper bass because I enjoy music more than the movies and want that cleaner, deeper bass, and not necessarily at high volumes. I don't need the higher spl that the Supreme series would give me, and at the lower volumes I don't think I would get the deep bass that the Premium series will provide. That Supreme is a monster, and monsters need power, and with that power comes higher spl. I think it would work terrific though for movies with that extra punch, louder music, and spl competition in automobiles! You were right on the secound count too. I didn't have enough power for the Premium, and am hoping to get by with what I already have. After installing the new PRs and re-testing, I may find I'll still need more power though. If so, I'm looking at getting another QSC amp to drive the second driver in and coming up with a solution for the cooling fan noise problem, or selling the existing QSC I have, and just upgrading to a very good two channel amp like the Rotel RB 1090 which is a very high current amp giving you 380 watts @ 8 ohm or 700 watts @ 4 ohm per channel. I looked at several plate amps thought about putting a pair on the back of the cabinet, but I can buy the Rotel or similar amp used at Audiogon for the same or less money and keep it in the equipment rack. My receiver handles the crossover work quite well. Yes the box was a primary factor, as I already had the Adire PR's in there, and it was complete with grills. All I had to do was rebrace and cut the baffel holes bigger. That is a special order slate Pionite laminate that I used and i just didn't want to rebuilt the box again. I appreciate your comment and observations! Mike

Well, I spanked those monkeys without the passive radiators installed and it didn't sound good at all, cranked up. I used a couple of music concert DVD's with good bass and it was just loud, muddy, almost irritating. I'll see what happens with the Dayton prs installed and tweaked. These guys have to be built right to sound right!

That is an impressive ad about the housewrecker, but as you can see in the photos in my original thread post, I have built all of my speakers to match with black slate finish, matching grills, and gold nameplates. Adire is not making and selling the prs anymore, and another source which I won't name out of respect isn't returning emails so I've ordered the Dayton prs today. I won't load the mass so heavy and will keep it around 900 grams per passive radiator and will adjust them up and down until I get the desired results. The cabinet is operating as an infinite baffel right now with the prs removed, and it sounds great with the two RL-p 15" drivers. I am, of course, not driving them like I would if they were finished to keep them from over excursion. I believe these drivers are everything Mike has said them to be! I like the high motor strength and lower Q. I'll have the Dayton PRs here by December 1st and will post some results the following Saturday. I'll keep everyone posted as I think this is going to be a subwoofer that each and everyone of you would love to have! When I'm done, I'll post a complete photo essay with descriptions on a server everyone can visit without joining. Mike Cason

Mike..... Not good news this Saturday..... I tested the new drivers with a bass test cd and accidently hit the 10 hz when the amp was about at 1/2 power. and destroyed all four prs at the same time......we are taught not to do that in speaker building kindergarden. Now I've got to figure what road to take at this point. I had the pr's loaded at 1500 grams for the Titanics. I could block up the holes and have less efficiency but have a decent sounding sub, or buy new passive radiators and load them with less mass. I don't know if the extra expense is worth it......These are certainly great drivers......

Hi Kyle, I sold them and shipped them on Monday. I got about 1/2 price which is to be expected for used electronics and had to pay shipping. PE is now offering free shipping over $100 so I had that to compete with. I'm afraid he's going to destroy them because he's going to attempt to drive them in an infinite baffel application. A bunch of guys on Bob Stout's forum and myself have told him not to do it. Thanks a lot for your response..... I hope these dual 15"'s work well and maybe these DIY guys will buy some more of your PR's and drivers as they are fantastic, easy to load mass to, and work very well. Mike Cason

Thank "You" Mike for being so attentive and prompt with your emails and service. Others could learn by your email skills. "They know who they are". I'm able to use the black slate covered baffel I had in the cabinet, and there will be 1/16" clearance to the edge of the baffel. The grill will fit with 1/8" to spare. Those heavy drivers will have to be installed in the pre installed baffel first, using the PR holes to access the locknuts. I can hardly wait for your shipment!! ...

Here is the link to the finished project and associated construction photos and descriptions of the materials used. Follow the rest of the posts in this thread to see how I blew out the existing passive radiators, then I had to rebuild them again. I am driving this beast with two amplifiers now and have made posts regarding the final outstanding results in this thread. http://photobucket.com/albums/b148/mfishmike/ I'm rebuilding my home theater subwoofer for the 3rd time and am anxious for the delivery of the 2-Premium 15" drivers. I'll be installing them in a 1 1/4" walled cabinet with 4-1500 gram 15" passive radiators. I've been using two 12" Titanic MKIII's, but am not getting the performance in this type of configuration that I really want. The passive radiators eliminated the mid-bass boom and really smoothed out the bass with the Titanics, but the over all performance was not what I was hoping for. This is an expensive way to build a speaker, but you get what you pay for! I'll have two active and 4 passive drivers in a single cabinet. I'll keep the group posted with the results and am open to emails. I see more posts in this forum relating to auto installations, so for those of you that are interested in the home theater use of Mike's Sound Splinter Premium drivers, watch my posts as I'll have them finished by the end of the weekend. Attached is the photo with the Titanics before I disassembled the cabinet last weekend. I hope to be ready for the drivers when they get here Thursday. Mike Cason