as i’m preparing to build some subwoofers i have decided to watch some YouTube videos of other people building subwoofers to help me think of cons and pros of various construction methods such as using table saw vs track saw and so on …
but when i started watching i realized these people have shit for brains and i am probably better off not watching anything they do …
and then i realized i can actually make it into a thread of what NOT to do …
take these fucking morons here for example:
at 1:40 you can see him installing the driver
at 4:32 you can see him gluing the final panel of the cabinet
at first i was like - why did he install the driver in the middle of build process and not after finishing the build ?
and then i realized he literally buried the driver inside the cabinet and you can never replace it ! ! !
mind you this is a PA subwoofer - drivers in those get blown regularly - yet his design literally doesn’t allow for replacement EVER.
and it goes without saying that his acoustical alignment was never modeled and will sound like shit - i can tell just by eyeballing it and from my experience modeling horns that his alignment is all fucked. the horn is way too short. there is too much volume in the throat cavity and the transition from throat to mouth is too abrupt. there is also not enough bracing. but really the design overall is so laughably bad that even discussing it at all is a waste of time.
if you understand PA subwoofer design then you know what those guys built is literally this ( African Made Helicopter ):
this is why i tried telling idiots on other forums not to build their own PA subwoofers, because even if you aren’t as retarded as the guys in the video there is still ZERO chance you will get performance to weight ratio of properly optimized design like JBL for example.
when building a home sub you can afford to build something twice as large and heavy as it needs to be for a given performance level but PA use requires smallest, lightest possible speaker for any given performance level - and the fools in the video certainly aren’t accomplishing this. their speaker is twice the size and 3 times the weight of a JBL subwoofer of comparable performance plus additionally their subwoofer has neither DSP driver protection NOR any ability to replace the driver when it fails …
their ONLY hope here is that they are too broke to afford a real amplifier that would be able to break this driver. which is likely the case.
i mean chances are if they are DIYing this PA sub then the $300 or so they spent on the driver was all the money they had, which means their amp will also be about $300 in which case the driver actually will probably survive.
furthermore because they are broke they obviously don’t have any real system to compare this setup to which means they will actually think their creation is working great.
you’re probably thinking i dug this example up just to shit on DIYers but the sad reality is i didn’t - they are ALL this dumb. for the most part anybody smart enough to understand how to design speakers simply buys JBL instead of making their own. just like how anybody smart enough to know how to design computers simply buys Dell. the idiots who actually build their own THINK they know but they have no idea.
i fucking swear watching other people design and build speakers is like watching retards playing with their own feces, then taste them and be like " yummy ! "
i can’t believe i used to waste my time debating idiots like this on various internet forums
the difference between an average DIY subwoofer and average African helicopter:
is that at some point the African will have to face the fact that his helicopter doesn’t work. whereas the idiot DIYer will never understand the stupidity of what he has “accomplished” …
because everything is relative … even the worst designed 10 cubic foot subwoofer using a 18" driver will outperform the best 1 cubic foot subwoofer using 8" driver - at least in the eyes of the creator - as such 90% of DIYers who build garbage like this never come to realize what absolute trash they have built …
part of me feels guilty for mocking these retards i mean they were born this way - it’s not their fault their IQ is 60 and mine is 140 but i didn’t create this website to pretend like everything is fine
everything is NOT fine
that helicopter will not fly and that subwoofer will never be worth the cost of materials that went into it …
and check the comments … “Perfeito!” … which makes you wonder if the Nigerian with the Helicopter was also getting similar support from his comrades in his endeavor …
the sad reality is DIY Audio makes sense only in an extremely limited set of circumstances … it is easy to build a speaker and i have built many … but it is very hard to build one that makes more sense than a JBL speaker you can order from the internet …
only about one person in a million can out-design JBL just like only one person in a million can out-design Dell or Apple yet that doesn’t seem to stop anybody from trying … and in case of subwoofers people with 80 IQ seem to have the most confidence …
one of them literally told me that because he has freeware subwoofer design software that JBL can’t possibly compete with him … never mind the fact that his software only models about 10% of the effects that JBL models AND TESTS …
there is simply no value in discussing anything with these retards …
and here is the same guys doing a subwoofer half a year later
WOW !
big improvement !
they addressed pretty much all the concerns i had with the previous build.
most importantly they:
1 - made sure the drivers are easily removable, to the point of even installing metal threaded adapters to make sure the thread is metal on metal which is something i never even seen used in speakers !
2 - they now have two drivers in the same enclosure size dramatically improving performance to weight ratio
3 - the enclosure type is now “bandpass” which is a lot less bullshit than whatever the fuck it is the last one was supposed to be.
4 - there is bracing and some damping in this enclosure whereas in the previous one there was none
now i don’t know if they properly modeled this one or not and i am not saying this new enclosure is good design but it’s a HUGE improvement over the old one in just half a year !
maybe it’s just my personality that i like to know what i’m doing BEFORE i do it while other people like to learn by making mistakes …
it seems these guys aren’t as dumb as i thought. their design was absolute trash but they were able to learn from their mistakes and level up and if they continue in that fashion maybe in another 10 years or so they will actually be making great boxes.
but yeah personally i like to learn by reading and thinking not by wasting materials.
