# College Student IB



## Xander (Mar 20, 2007)

I started this a few months ago, and had to wait a while for my AE IB15s, but they came in eventually and work great. Since I got them tuned in we've watched quite a few movies and had a couple extensive listening sessions at my house. The setup impresses everyone. Never fails.

Equipment:

Mains and center: RS150 mtm with H1212 designed by cjd, built by myself
Receiver: Marantz SR4001
Sub EQ: Shure DFR11EQ
Amps: 2x Crown XLS 402D, 1x Crown XLS 802D

Pics:

Design in SolidWorks:

















Gluing up:









Baffle:









Priming:









Installed on wall:









Vent in bathroom:









Finished Pics:


















The power at low frequencies can be insane. During tested we took turns sitting in the bathroom while playing back the slow motion howitzer firing during superman returns. It feels like the bathroom is caving in on you. It's nuts.

The transients and clarity on music is awesome too.

I can play 10 hz sine waves and see objects in the room flutter, but hear nothing. Not even motor noise. It's awesome.

If you're considering it....DO IT.


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## Get_Zwole (Nov 15, 2008)

Nice man looks sick im not good enough to make my own lol. Im running Ascend acoustics and an ED sub sounds great but your setup is just DAMN....


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## 98RedGT (Jan 11, 2009)

That looks awesome -- I bet you have some neighbors who love you.

How do you like the Marantz SR4001?


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## Xander (Mar 20, 2007)

Thanks guys.

The funny things is, you can barely hear it outside. Certainly not enough to warrant any calls to the cops from neighbors.

While we were watching Iron Man I was outside on my cell phone and heard the soffit rattle a few times and you can obviously hear the movie a bit with the windows open, but the lows stay in the house for the most part. We live almost a mile from campus, so it's mostly older people living around us, they never said anything about it yet.

I like the Marantz a lot...it just has two quirks about it I've found out over the last year.

1: If you have separate video and audio sources selected, and the video source drops for a second (like when a video game starts up) then it sometimes goes to complete video noise. I just have to reselect the sources and it works again.

2: It will not take 5.1 pcm through HDMI from a PS3 and convert it to 7.1. It will play the 5.1 just fine, but won't process it to 7.1 no matter what I do. Believe me, I tried for hours. But it will do it just fine with 5.1 bitstream from optical. So I settled for that. I'm not 100% sure I could hear the SQ difference anyway, and I would rather have the full 7.1 since sometimes we have 10 or more people watching a movie and without the rear speakers the sound field collapses forward quite a bit during action scenes.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

LOL your ****ter! Nice job! I'm diggin it.


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## el_chupo_ (May 27, 2007)

Xander said:


> Thanks guys.
> 
> The funny things is, you can barely hear it outside. Certainly not enough to warrant any calls to the cops from neighbors.
> 
> ...


Good to know about the Marantz. Do they have any way to select what speakers would be on for 5.1, or could you switch outputs for rear and mid to make it work?



Looks sick, giving me ideas for my attic...


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## Xander (Mar 20, 2007)

el_chupo_ said:


> Good to know about the Marantz. Do they have any way to select what speakers would be on for 5.1, or could you switch outputs for rear and mid to make it work?


5.1 uses the surround speakers that are supposed to be between 90 and 110 degrees back from in front of listening position (if that makes sense). Some people think of these as side surrounds, when in fact they are not.

The rear surrounds are for 7.1 only. I don't know of any receiver that allows you to use them in a 5.1 setup...


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

FWIW this is EXACLTY what I'm thinking of doing between my shop and garage, then flipping the polarity on the garage speakers, 2 birds of bass, 1 stone. Do you think 4 of these would feed a 2 car garage well?


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## el_chupo_ (May 27, 2007)

chad said:


> FWIW this is EXACLTY what I'm thinking of doing between my shop and garage, then flipping the polarity on the garage speakers, 2 birds of bass, 1 stone. Do you think 4 of these would feed a 2 car garage well?


That would be awesome. You guys are inspiring me...

I would think 4 would be awesome. 

I am thinking of this for my house now. 

it is kind of like this...

Text drawing didnt work. 
Basically a 10 ft pitched ceiling on one side of a wall, 8ft flat ceiling on the other. So 2ft above dining room ceiling blowing strait into the living room, with attic above. Basically these things about 5' above the TV blowing straight out...
And then have the subs up at the top of the wall, motors in the attic. 

16" on center studs, so only 12s for me...


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## niceguy (Mar 12, 2006)

Saw it over at AVS...very nice....venting into the bathroom was a good idea....masks the other 'rumblings' going on in there. As long as the bathroom rumblings don't vent as well


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

el_chupo_ said:


> 16" on center studs, so only 12s for me...


Think manifold


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

niceguy said:


> As long as the bathroom rumblings don't vent as well


Agitates the Pharts.......


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## IBcivic (Jan 6, 2009)

violent/smelly bass air:laugh:

great set-up!


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## ccdoggy (Jul 2, 2006)

I have been there and experienced it. Its a great setup, clean, deep, and looks badass with the motors sticking out like that. I did not go into the bathroom though, but i am sure its really intense in there no matter what is playing. we listened to some reference music and is blended really well and smoothly with his mains. kinda jealous, but ooh well i took a different route.

Although i personally like my EBS sub setup a little better just because of its total clean output down low. But its hard to argue when one is at this level of sound. its all personal preference.

Great job on it!


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## Xander (Mar 20, 2007)

chad said:


> FWIW this is EXACLTY what I'm thinking of doing between my shop and garage, then flipping the polarity on the garage speakers, 2 birds of bass, 1 stone. Do you think 4 of these would feed a 2 car garage well?


Yeah, that's a great idea. I wanted to throw some speakers in the bathroom for showering music.

4 15s would be plenty for a 2 car garage. My living room is open to the kitchen and a huge stairwell to the basement. I have a large null in the corner of the kitchen, but other than that great bass everywhere.


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## Diru (May 23, 2006)

Talk about a power dump :toilet:


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## EVcelica (Dec 30, 2008)

wow great idea and great job on the box build. Looks insane. did you build the main speakers as well? Either way it looks awesome. solidworks huh? engineering major I'm guessing.


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## Xander (Mar 20, 2007)

EVcelica said:


> wow great idea and great job on the box build. Looks insane. did you build the main speakers as well? Either way it looks awesome. solidworks huh? engineering major I'm guessing.


Thanks man.

Yup, I built the mains about a year ago. Learned a ton doing that.

That is solidworks. I was an engineering major...I got my BS in mechanical engineering. I'm starting a different school and getting an Audio Engineering and Production degree.


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

how large is the vent through the wall? does the 2nd model show that, and you're just going straight through the framework into the bathroom? If so, do you feel that vent size (guessing it's about 1.5ft^2 on the sub side) is enough? I thought I had read that the venting area needed to be that of the sd of each driver, so in your case it would be 4*sd. I don't know if that's correct, because my memory isn't too great. 

I like this idea. I'm still trying to decide if I want to go IB upstairs or not. I have plenty of attic space on the backside. Just need to cut a vent through the wall and I'm set. I had planned to do the same as you did, though, and use a larger air vent to conceal the vent.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

If venting area needs to be that big Bikini.. then tell me how so many people do manifolds? It's just a bakkids manifold!


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

you're probably right. I'm trying to recall what the rule of thumb was, that I had read on 'cult'. Can't friggin remember and am too lazy to search right now.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

bikinpunk said:


> you're probably right. I'm trying to recall what the rule of thumb was, that I had read on 'cult'. Can't friggin remember and am too lazy to search right now.



It would have to do with the total cubic volume of air moved I would imagine.

BUT on that site I have see TONS of big ass drivers manifolded into 16X16 or 24X24 manifolds.


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## Xander (Mar 20, 2007)

ThomasW says that in general the cross sectional area of the passage from the manifold to the other side should be no less than 1/2 the total SD of the drivers. Mine is just barely over 1/2. The bad thing is that it is so off center, it causes unequal excursion. The driver closest to the "vent" moves the most, while the one farthest away moves the least. It's not a huge amount, but definitely will not build it this way again.

I am moving to a new house in a couple weeks and bringing my system to use in my new room. I'm going to use the subs in an OB configuration. Hopefully I can get extension down to 30 hz. I'll do some modeling and see if I can modify the manifold and use it as the new baffle.


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## RavynX (Jun 22, 2009)

My neighbors would have killed us if we had something like this in our apartment in college. XD Must be nice to have a house. haha! Nice setup.


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## Carlo SQ (Jul 1, 2009)

WOW, gorgeous setup!!

From one college student to the other, PROPS!


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