Video Asylum

Posted by Mikey Likes It (i) on June 29, 2001 at 18:04:03

In Reply to: Your Subwoofer advice please posted by Mike D on June 29, 2001 at 13:41:47:

From an engineer that went to a Big 10 school.

Your speakers must be in a very very large room. The JBL's have 15 inch woofers in them with 100 watts driving them. This should produce ear bleeding bass in any normal size room. Your budget will get you between an 8 to 12 inch woofer which will not come close to your requirements. In other words if two 15 inchers can't do it I doubt a single 10 inch driver will.

Now on to options.

You could try an place your speakers closer to the wall or a corner. This will reinforce the bass but will remove some of the soundstaging abilities of the speakers. It seem your friend is not to interested in this anyways.

Another option is to get a bigger amp for the 15 inch woofers. This would drive the woofers harder and produce more bass. I have seen Yamaha M-2 amps (240 watts @ 8 ohms, 330 watts @ 4 ohms) for sale on e-bay that are well within your budget. These are pretty rugged amps and should do the trick. You might be able to try this out first before you buy. You can try the Physic, EE or campus radio station and borrow a larger amp for the woofers and see if it works.

You need to make sure you don't drive them to hard or you will destroy the speakers. Also you want to check the sensitivity spec of these speakers. The woofers could require massive amounts of power. If you don't have the specs of your speakers try JBL's web page or e-mail them.

If you insist on a sub I would recommend that you get a vented (or ported) sub as opposed to a sealed sub. This will play the loudest but will not be as musical since the sub will play at the one note of the port.

Remember Physics is Phun

Good Luck