Making A 21 Inch Woofer Pop

Loudspeakers haven't really changed much in in their basic build in well over a hundred years now, but they have evolved to become much more robust than ever.

Here's an interesting video that shows just what's needed to pop a massive 21 inch Pyle woofer (it's not easy even with 2000 watts of power). There's also an interesting tear-down at the end where you the entire speaker taken apart, even the magnets.

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The World's Largest Subwoofer

You think you've seen large subwoofers? Yeah, that sub bin with dual 18's is pretty big, and that 32 inch woofer is very impressive, but I don't think the world has seen anything like audio designer Roberto Dell Curti has dreamt up.




He's literally built his entire house around this sub, as each channel is 21 foot long and 3 feet deep. Each channel uses eight 18 inch woofers, but there's no word on how much power is used to drive them (I bet a lot). Dell Curti calls it the Real Total Horn.

It reportedly can reproduce down to 10Hz! I wonder if this causes the listener to loosen his bowels when the subs really get going?

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The Biggest Subwoofer In The World

There's absurd and then there's ABSURD! and this 6 foot subwoofer falls into the later category. It's actually a project for the UW-Madison Engineering Expo by a couple of Phd electronic and mechanical engineering students. They call it a "bass cannon" and it's said to cause loss of bowel control all over the building it's located in when it operates.

The speaker itself is 6 foot and made of two sheets of polycarbonate riveted together to form the cone, the voice coil is built around a fiberglass frame, and the magnetics are secured by 10 inch steel pipe. The cabinet is 8 foot by 8 foot by 2 foot, and the sub's peak electrical draw is 6kw. Oh, and it reproduces as low as 5Hz.

The video doesn't do it justice, but then how could it? But it's better than wearing rubber pants and seeing it in action in person.

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3 Steps To Adding A Subwoofer

It's not unusual for musicians and engineers that are doing a lot of work in their home studio on bookshelf-sized speakers to crave more bottom end. As a result, the first thing they think about is adding a subwoofer to their monitor system. That's all well and good, but there are a few steps that you can follow that might help your venture into low frequency territory a lot easier.

1. Do you really need a subwoofer? Before you make that purchase, it's a good idea to be sure that a sub is actually necessary. Here are a couple of things to check out first:

  A) Are you monitoring at a loud enough level? This is a trap that people with home studios fall into; they don't listen loud enough, at least for a short period of time. I know from personal experience as I did that for years and found that everything changed for the better when I turned it up for a little while when working.

First of all, if you monitor too quietly, your ears begin to emphasize the mid-frequencies. This is great for balance but bad for judging the low end of things. Crank up your monitors to a moderately loud level, at least when you're working on the low frequency end of the spectrum. If you still don't have enough low end, go on to B.

  B) You have an acoustic problem in your room. Chances are that either your monitors are too close to the wall, or they're placed at a point of the room length where standing waves causes some of the low end to cancel out. This is more likely to be the cause of just one area of the low frequency spectrum rather than the entire low end though.

Just to be safe, move your speakers a foot or so backwards and forwards and see if you get some of the low end back. If not, move to #2.

2. Purchase a subwoofer from the same manufacturer as your main monitors. The easiest way to get a smooth sounding low end that doesn't cause you more grief that it's worth is to buy a sub from the same manufacturer as the monitors you use most of the time. That means, if you're using JBL's, choose a JBL sub that's made specifically for that system; if you're using Genelecs, do the same, KRK's, the same, etc. This will make a huge difference, especially at the crossover frequency point from the mains to the sub. It's usually impossible to get that area to sound natural if you mix brands.

3. Calibrate your sub correctly. Most musicians and engineers that choose to use a sub just randomly dial in the level. You might get lucky and get it right, but it's more than likely that your level will be off, causing a number of funny sounding mixes until you finally figure it out. Here's how to calibrate the sub to your system:

A) Without the sub connected, send pink noise to your main monitors. At the listening position and while listening to one monitor only, use an SPL meter (just about any will do to get you in the ballpark, even an iPhone app) and adjust the level of monitor until it reads 85dB. The SPL meter should be set on C Weight and Slow. Repeat on the other channel and set that so it also reads 85dB.

B) Turn the main monitors off. Send pink noise just to the subwoofer. Set the level of the SPL meter so it reads 79dB. 79 works because there are fewer bands of low frequencies than high (3 for the low and 8 for the high), so this number takes that into account. You might have to tweak the level up or down a dB, but this will get you into the ballpark.

C) If there's a polarity switch on the sub, try both positions and see which one has the most bass or sounds the smoothest in the crossover area. That's the one to select.

If you follow these steps, you'll find that integrating a subwoofer into your system (if you decide you need one) will be as painless as possible. And by the way, don't you just love the picture on the left?

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A Breakthrough In Subwoofer Technology

As I've posted many times before, loudspeaker technology hasn't had a real technological advance in more than a hundred years. Sure, speaker science has evolved nicely to where it's very efficient and linear, but there hasn't been really anything that you'd call groundbreaking in a long time. We've seen novelties like gas modulated lasers, modulated flames, and vibrating membranes (which still might catch on in the future) that I've written about before, but finally there's something new that really shows some outside-the-box thinking.

Eminent Technology's TRW-17 Rotary Woofer (pictured on the left) doesn't have a cone-type woofer or even cabinet; instead it looks like a fan or propeller, yet it reproduces frequencies down as low as 1Hz, and is powerful enough to be heard more than 3 miles away!!!!! High-end subs are lucky to make down to 18Hz, and the vast majority of subs won't even touch 30Hz on a good day.

How does it do it? The TRW-17 really is a constant speed fan, but its blades are modulated up and down and side to side in order to generate sound. It's a wonderfully-simple design that makes you want to hit your head and say, "Doh!" As a result, the transducer (you can't call it a loudspeaker) can push far more air than any speaker/cabinet combination, and that lets it easily reproduce the 11Hz sound of a helicopter's rotor blades, the real infrasonic shock of an earthquake, or the rumble of everyday wind. If this system takes off, just wait and see how realistic movie sound finally becomes, or theme park rides, or war simulators.

The downside? First of all, the TRW-17 Rotary Woofer retails for $12,900, but you have to build it into a room so it acts as an infinite baffle (a totally closed speaker system). Eminent Technology will take care of all that for you and add the amplifier and cross-over network, but it pushes up the price to $25,000.

That being said, numerous audiophiles with too much disposable income have already installed the unit, but so have museum installations like Evergreen Aviation's Titan Missile exhibit and the Niagra Falls Welcome Center (you can see why this unit makes sense for them). It doesn't seem like there are any theater or pro audio installs yet, but expect some as the word gets out.

You can read more on the technology behind the TRW-17 here.

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