I used to own a Bag End 1x18; I paired it with my Trace Elliot 2x10 for a time, and used to shake the rafters.
...at least, that's what I thought I was doing most of the time. I was wrong. It only sounded mighty if you were standing DIRECTLY in front of the rig. For what it did, I was better off just sending a signal to the house and letting whatever subwoofers they had take care of the lows... at least everyone ELSE could feel them then! ...and besides, the cabinet was huge and very impractical to lug around. Hernia Central, baby. Ugh. I got rid of it.
As it turns out, one 18" driver isn't a very effective means of reproducing the low end frequencies most of us are looking for.
When you see subwoofers at a large concert or in a club, you'll most likely find a few things:
-The cabinet will employ some kind of FOLDED design. I mean, the face of the speaker will not be pointing OUT; you'll see the back carriage of the speaker angled slightly upward and IN-ward; the driver directs the sound against the back corner of it's own cabinet, and then that sound bounces down against an angled panel, and then out the big gaping hole in the front.
This design is not practical for reproducing anything but ground-rattling low end, but it does it far better than a standard, speaker-facing-outward cabinet. Bass sound waves need ROOM to travel before they hit you, and the folded design gives a little more room, therefore the sound is BIGGER by the time it comes out of the enclosure.
You'll also notice that these subs are usually in corners, or at least touching a wall. This is because bass travels very well through a lot of types of physical matter, and doing this effectively turns an entire ROOM into a subwoofer.
At a concert, you'll usually notice that the entire floor in front of the stage is lined with subwoofers. This is because low range drivers throw out sound in a straight line; there's not a lot of sound dispersion like there is with treble frequencies. If there was only one sub in the middle, and you were standing off to one side of the stage, you wouldn't feel that boom the same way. The sound would need to bounce off something at an angle to be spread around.
I found that a good way to handle a lot of these issues was to turn the bass cabinet towards the closest CORNER of the room. This sort of addresses each of the three things I just described. It doesn't look cool by any means, but if you're looking to send those boomy frequencies all over the place with as little gear as possible, let the room do the work for you... first make sure there are no curtains or sound-absorbant material covering the walls, then angle the front of the cabinet so that its face creates an equilateral triangle with the two walls in the corner, only a few feet back... you need to give the sound room to escape... and then crank your rig. You've used the wall to create a primitive "fold", it's bouncing into different directions at once, and it will travel along the walls. Viola; instant subwoofer! 8)
Keep in mind, this is only for big, woofy, boomy, smear-y LOW end. I would still keep the smaller speakers facing the audience to give all the other aspects of the sound the way you like them.
Wow. This has turned into a pretty cool post. I think I'm moving it into "Tips and Tricks"!
...at least, that's what I thought I was doing most of the time. I was wrong. It only sounded mighty if you were standing DIRECTLY in front of the rig. For what it did, I was better off just sending a signal to the house and letting whatever subwoofers they had take care of the lows... at least everyone ELSE could feel them then! ...and besides, the cabinet was huge and very impractical to lug around. Hernia Central, baby. Ugh. I got rid of it.
As it turns out, one 18" driver isn't a very effective means of reproducing the low end frequencies most of us are looking for.
When you see subwoofers at a large concert or in a club, you'll most likely find a few things:
-The cabinet will employ some kind of FOLDED design. I mean, the face of the speaker will not be pointing OUT; you'll see the back carriage of the speaker angled slightly upward and IN-ward; the driver directs the sound against the back corner of it's own cabinet, and then that sound bounces down against an angled panel, and then out the big gaping hole in the front.
This design is not practical for reproducing anything but ground-rattling low end, but it does it far better than a standard, speaker-facing-outward cabinet. Bass sound waves need ROOM to travel before they hit you, and the folded design gives a little more room, therefore the sound is BIGGER by the time it comes out of the enclosure.
You'll also notice that these subs are usually in corners, or at least touching a wall. This is because bass travels very well through a lot of types of physical matter, and doing this effectively turns an entire ROOM into a subwoofer.
At a concert, you'll usually notice that the entire floor in front of the stage is lined with subwoofers. This is because low range drivers throw out sound in a straight line; there's not a lot of sound dispersion like there is with treble frequencies. If there was only one sub in the middle, and you were standing off to one side of the stage, you wouldn't feel that boom the same way. The sound would need to bounce off something at an angle to be spread around.
I found that a good way to handle a lot of these issues was to turn the bass cabinet towards the closest CORNER of the room. This sort of addresses each of the three things I just described. It doesn't look cool by any means, but if you're looking to send those boomy frequencies all over the place with as little gear as possible, let the room do the work for you... first make sure there are no curtains or sound-absorbant material covering the walls, then angle the front of the cabinet so that its face creates an equilateral triangle with the two walls in the corner, only a few feet back... you need to give the sound room to escape... and then crank your rig. You've used the wall to create a primitive "fold", it's bouncing into different directions at once, and it will travel along the walls. Viola; instant subwoofer! 8)
Keep in mind, this is only for big, woofy, boomy, smear-y LOW end. I would still keep the smaller speakers facing the audience to give all the other aspects of the sound the way you like them.
Wow. This has turned into a pretty cool post. I think I'm moving it into "Tips and Tricks"!
O
odominguez
Guest
Good post indeed Seth. Sorry to bring this back, but I spent quite a few hours today playing the prototype for your bass and found it to be quite inseteresting...
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I've never met anyone who had a good thing to say about an 18" speaker!
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paulmossuk said:
It works nice as a sub for my home cinema.
