wasted911

Well since it's an extra long weekend for me I'd figure that I would do a quick comparison between the two woofers. The box used is my current home theatre box, which is about 8.5 cubes tuned to 18 hertz. The amp being used is a Dayton 1000 watt plate amplifier that does 1000 watts @ 4 ohms. Impressions of both woofers: RE SX18 I've owned the RE for about a year now, and it's made its way from the car to the house. The packaging was nothing more than unimpressive. A single ply cardboard box with 5 pieces of stiff foam keeping it in place. It's about 26 pounds and looks pretty sharp. The basket is pretty much identical to the Mach 5 SPL series (only not milled down). The terminals on the RE were a bitch as they are hex screws, and the positive is a different size than the negative. It's a paper cone, and a pretty inverted dust cap. The rubber gasket is also a little queer as it can be a real pain to get the screws through the holes, as well as trying to find the screws when you want to pull the sub out of the box. Mach 5 MJ-18M I was pretty excited to get a chance to use the MJs when they got to my door. The packaging was the best I've seen. I've gotten a few items from Mark now and all of which have been packaged VERY well. There is one cardboard box inside the other, and numerous pieces of cardboard above the woofer itself. The Sub is about the same weight as the RE, and looks a little more bland. A plain basket sits on top of a beefy motor with double stacked magnets. The terminals are much easier to use than the SX18's but are a little flimsy. They're jus ta simple push terminal that pretty much all of us have used. The dust cap is a simple paper one that you'd expect to find on a speaker from the mid-80's. There is no gasket to go around the sub itself which is VERY nice to deal with and installation was a breeze. Listening to each of the woofers: RE SX18 This is a subwoofer that is capable of a lot. Watching movies is a blast with this woofer as it plays as low as I could ever ask for. At the same time the subwoofer is very musical and sounds lovely listening to anything. It sounds slightly mechanical at times but it's usually too loud to notice. It's quite punchy and produces soem really mean lows. Mach 5 MJ-18M The MJ right off the bat didn't sound like a subwoofer that I'd use to listen to music. It seemed pretty sloppy on kick drums. It almost seemed like it wanted to throw a bass line after each one. Listening to some rap music (UNK - Brand New Day) it simply thundered out the lows. On the highs however there seems to be a rattling in the woofer somewhere. At first I tohught it might be the tinsel leads hitting the cone, but looking at my other MJs none of them seem like they would have the problem. Conclusion: Price tag aside, the RE I believe is a better driver for people looking for a subwoofer they can listen to music with as well as watch their favorite movies. If you were just looking for something to watch The Transformers with, go with the MJ. Customer support will without a doubt go to Mark and Mach 5. RE has completely chit the bed with helping customers these days. Time for some pictures.

hahaha.. well the camping trip I just took put a damper on things, but it looks like I may have found a buyer for the old set up. He said he'd prefer to put some money down so I dont sell it on him. I figure I'll use the money down to get the box done. I also found out that I can get 5x10 of MDF through work.

It fits very nicely when you screw it down. The SPL12 was the same way.

agreed.. Well I started to plan out the main entertainment centre, and it doesnt seem like it's going to work the way I planned. So I think I will end up making a small unit in the middle, and put a longer top on it that extends to each sub box.

Enjoyed a few Light Wheat beers from there last night. Only place I buy from now. Wasted, where are you from? I'm in Saskatoon here.. College park I think. yourself? Also, I just put the order in for the woofskies. I BE BALL SLAPPIN IN NO TIME

this just in.. I am friggen lazy. I figure once I'm able to order the subs, I should be able to start building everything.. Or at least have the motivation.

hahahaha... some day you'll have to come down here and we can have our balls slap together... ok ok.. that was just wrong. But back to the build. I havn't been able to do jack chit up here due to chitty weather. And I dont have a garage to do anything in so it's going to happen outside. Tomorrow if I get my house cleaning done in reasonable time I'll get started on the centerpiece.

hahahaha.. alright. Mark if you want to come up with something (I'm really lazy) I can now use whatever depth needed.. we'll say up to 30" annnnddd.... GO P.S. I'ma go slap my own balls now.

ME NO CAIR ME WANT LOW lol... really though. the last 18" shook my testicles when I was on the toilet. I want my testies to slap!

that's not tuned lowwwww enough.... come on now boy. Iz GOTZ TO GO LoWWWWWWWW

well the cash is sitting here waiting for you go get to work.

ahh fine... just for that you're doing all the work.

ah nuts.. 24" wide

hmm... well I have to be 18" deep on the side thats towards my TV, the other side can stay at 18" or I'd be willing to do some 22.5 degree cuts. Height can vary. It's gott stay under 6'6" so I cant stand the box up though.

ok... does someone wanna desigm me some boxes? lol

that doesnt apply to me does it?

as posted above I have B&W DM 560

I should add that everythng in the picture is to scale. I'm now actually a little worried that the speakers may be a bit far from the TV

I will be painting it before it enters the living room. Like I said earlier, I work at a cabinet shop... I have da mad hook upz. Well anyways, here's a quick drawing of some pieces.

Alright. It's time for a new build as I'm bored of my home theatre subwoofer. I already talked with Mark a bit and I'll be picking up 4 MJ-18s along with a Beringer EP-2500 amplifier. I'm thinking it will be made up of 5 pieces. (2) sub boxes, (2) speaker stands, and the main unit. The sub boxes will have 2 18"s each, and I'm probably going to go taller this time around and get it a bit skinnier. The speaker stands will hold one B&W DM 560 with the bottom of the speaker at 30". I believe at that height with our couches should be almost ideal. The main unit is going to hold out cable box, my Denon AVR-1707, the PS3, the PS2, the N64, the Beringer, my mini-fridge, and shelving for DVDs/BDs. I'm probably going to put a door in front of the DVD shelving as well as the PS2/N64 areas as they just gather mess. I'm thinking 18" deep with a large cutout behind the reciever. It sohuld give me enough room for cables etc. I'm going to do everything other than the sub boxes from 1/2" MDF and if it needs bracing I will do so. The sub boxes will be either single ply 3/4" MDF with a lot of bracing, or doubled up 3/4" MDF with minimal bracing. I havnt decided if I want to tune the boxes differently or have them both tuned very low. I'm going to have to research that one a bit. As all good builds, it starts with a drawing. I've gotten that done, and I will be drawing it in a cabinet layout program I use at work because it will give me reasonable cut lists and is fairly accurate. It is also great for drag and drop. The subwoofer enclosures will be drawn out in Google Sketchup as well so I have a really nice idea of what I'm looking at. Here's the original drawing:

good

you still drive a neon.. so in my books, you're just like kevin miranda

for the next test (that I've heard was coming) can you measure the power for each woofer? This might help. link

Can you try them in a smaller box, such as 1.5-1.75? Many of the DD users find that they are very good in smaller boxes.