Hey guys... I'm actually planning on doing a sealed enclosure that has nothing to do with this, but it has just been stuck in my head... Can someone explain to me what are the pros. and cons. of tuning your enclosure frequency low? I know that the sound is louder around the tuning frequency, and I also know that it is dangerous to drop to below your tuning frequency. What I want to know is, why doesn't everyone tune their enclosures to say: 20Hz?
I know there is probably tonnes of reasons, Port noise maybe? maybe not as loud? can't produce high frequency's very well? I don't know... If someone here knows, could you please clear this up for me?
most drivers, except higher end expensive ones (most of the time) don't perform well at 20 hz. you could say like buying a car that can't go past 3rd gear, its basically limited to its applications. your going to lose alot of sound because of that, next the curve is going to be sloped in the lower octaves, maybe good response from 20 hz to 30 hz, after that you will start to fall off and lose loudness very quickly. since the majority of lets say hip hop bass is between 35-50 hz your really not getting great performance. make sense? tuning around 32-35 is normally about the best to have peaks within the majority of music.
now for home audio this is different, for a home theater build sub boxes are tuned around 22 hz sometimes lower. why? because movies have tons of low bass and people want to feel that bass, I don't really care for all that, but alot of people do, now will they suffer from the same thing i just said above? yes, but the boxes are carefully tuned to the t/s paramters of the driver being used to give the best peak (just get the best sound from the sub) and also many home speakers have drivers 8" or larger than can drop down to 40 hz and can blend everything together, if done so correctly. in car audio its harder to do that, mostly because of space and the money spent to properly install speakers to blend in down to 40 hz with huge amounts of output to keep a flat response. trying to keep it simple lol let me know if you want me to explain more, i can but it will be more complex
and a subwoofer with a high bl number and xmax number usually does better when dropping below the enclosures tuning. at least to the best of my knowledge
I wouldn't tune that low in vehicle for one reason.
CABIN GAIN.
In vehicle, the length of the wave for lower freq. is shorter than the cabin of the vehicle. This leads to an amazing property known as cabin gain. Due to this, the waves literally double back on themselves and create increased pressure. You can tune in the high 30hz range and still get great response down to 20hz in many vehicles. Also, most music doesn't go that low anyways.
Box design will depend on your taste in music. Define your taste, then work on designing a box.
i have similar questions, i just built a 15 foot enclosure for 2 18" q's and im tyring to decide whether to tune it to 22hz or 28 hz. cant decide if i want it in my car or house. how much bass will i be losing music wise in a 22hz tuning?
No real reason to tune those q's down to 22 in your car. If you are worried about hitting the lows, I don't think you'll have a problem at 28hz. I've ran a single 15 q tuned to 28 and it hit the lows very well.
everything i've read and learned from scott have told me 28 for car, 22 for hoe for an 18 q. so im wondering how much i'll lose in each venue with each tuning
Thanks for all the feedback. yes, I thought might have an effect on the higher frequency's, and of course not all woofers will be able to go that low. I also did some reading up on the T/S Parameters, and it is starting to make sense. But I still need to get my head around it.