I've had subwoofers before, but I have always had to turn them off for
music, because they sound so dreadful. I know why this is - the bass
reflex design is so flabby that the whole thing just honks instead of
reproducing bass. The old test really showed this up; listening from a
distant part of the house, and hearing the booming of particular bass
notes.

So I decided to build my own, using a disused cupboard built under
some stairs. This is of brick construction and as solid as anything.
It is also about 80 cubic feet in volume. Having looked around for
drivers and finally got to the Adire Tempest (thank you Stewart) I
could see that this speaker, with its massive Vas would really benefit
from a sealed enclosure - which at 80 cubic feet amounts to an
infinite baffle.

Well it is finally built, and today I have been tuning it in to the
rest of the system. Easy! Got the polarity right, adjusted the cutoff
to 60Hz and set the level. It has blended in with the Sonus Fabers so
seamlessly that it is hard to tell when it is on, apart from the fact
that there are several new octaves available.

There are no resonant lumps to go boom and best of all, it doesn't
sound even remotely like an audio system with a subwoofer (it still
does the business on movie sound of course).

Time for all to get building - a big infinite baffle sub will be a
revelation for those who hate the normal beasts as much as me.

d

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