Phoenix Gold Phorum

I just got my new Eclipse 8010 subwoofer and I built a box to the specs listed. The box is 2 cubic ft. ported. The port is 1.5 inches wide by 13.5 inches high. The port is tuned to about 33 hz. The sub hasn't had like any break in time but it slams the lows like no other sub I have heard. But the highs are non existent. It's rather annoying because the bass is so uneven. Would it be my box? or is it the sub? The sub is made to play low but it should play high too. the free resonance on the sub is 20 hz. Or could it possibly be that the sub needs to break in to hit the higher notes?

It is confusing because I have my RSD 12 in a 1.8 cubic ft ported box tuned to 28 hz and it slams the whole bass spectrum. It blends great, and it sounds great. But why would my rsd in a ported box tuned lower than my eclipse hit higher notes?

I need help please!

is that 2 cubes before the port and motor displacement or is that after the space they take up?

ttocs wrote:is that 2 cubes before the port and motor displacement or is that after the space they take up?

It is 2 cubic ft after the motor and port displacement.

its likely the sub. many subs roll off.

wait and see if the braek in helps. what are your mid basses crossed over at?

Bfowler wrote:its likely the sub. many subs roll off.

wait and see if the braek in helps. what are your mid basses crossed over at?

i am pretty much an amateur with car audio and cant afford component speakers haha. i only have pioneer 3 ways front and back running off my deck with a high pass filter at 80hz for them.

this is the time that the bass-cube could be your friend to help add a little where it is lost. Personally this is why I like sealed enclosures as they have a much smoother transition over the freqs. I have seen many many ported boxes that were one note wonders and would rock the HELL out of a couple of songs and send you searching for a problem inbetween them

ttocs wrote:this is the time that the bass-cube could be your friend to help add a little where it is lost. Personally this is why I like sealed enclosures as they have a much smoother transition over the freqs. I have seen many many ported boxes that were one note wonders and would rock the HELL out of a couple of songs and send you searching for a problem inbetween them

so true, maybe i will build a sealed box.

I used the Thiele Small parameters for the closest driver that the company that OEMed these for Eclipse currently makes. I couldn't find the Eclipse specs published, but, assuming they are similar #1) The driver is optimized for vented #2) It has almost a 4db peak centered near the tuning frequency on the box you built. See the screen shot bellow.

It looks like if you tuned for 26Hz with the 2ft^3 box still you would eliminate the huge peak centered on the tuning frequency, but you would have about a -1db slump from 31Hz-300Hz where it starts to flatten back out. You can play with the tuning of a ported box and manage to get it fairly flat, you could also add some processing to the scenario here and get rid of most of that -.5db slump.

BTW, you didn't cheat on the port length at all did you? WinISD comes up with 21.2" for your stated port cross sectional area and tuning frequency. If you cut the length down at all the tuning frequency rapidly rises and that peak in the graph just gets worse.

Good Luck,
Jason

Yeah you are right with that peak at around the 30 hz mark, its ridiculous. The port is actually 21 inches in length so I didn't really cheat on that part. What would I do to change the tuned frequency of the port? Use foam or something?

why dont u build a smaller ported box and tune it around 35to 36 hz

u will pick up some higher bass and still have some decent low end
u will change where the peak is up to about 38 to 40hz so u will get more "kick" out of it


or tune the box u have now at 40 but itmay still be too bottom heavy.

2cuft seems huge for a 10 if you ask me. Most of the time they are in the 1-1.5 range before port/speaker displacement. I wouldn't expect 2cuft until a 12" maybe. Where did you get the box specs?

Do you have the T/S parameters for that sub?

This is when a 4" round Aeroport would be useful. Seems like the box may need to be rebuilt to find the range he's looking for. With the aeroports you could try different length's on the same box.
Can you run your deck full range? Maybe just use the crossover on your amp for the sub.

there is not much you can do to change the tuning freq on most ported boxes except to cover the port and leave a really big enclosure for the speaker.

If you are not going to build a new box then the cube is probably the only thing that will help ya.

ttocs wrote:there is not much you can do to change the tuning freq on most ported boxes except to cover the port and leave a really big enclosure for the speaker.

If you are not going to build a new box then the cube is probably the only thing that will help ya.

Thats why I say a round port would be better. Remove and use a shorter/longer one.
How would a bass cube help in this instance? the cube is made to center on the ported boxes sweet spot/hit freq. the small dial beside the main volume knob is used as a subsonic filter, anything below that would not play much at all. I think he should rebulid the box. An EQ may be of some use. Unless I missed it we don't even know what amp he's using.

stryker, do you have a cube? I have them in both of my systems but use them moderatly. Just like he can set the freq and q to only boost the note that he is alread hearing too much of, he can also tune it to boost the freqs that he is not using. The subsonic function has nothing to do with the gain or freq dial on the remote.

I've been using one for over ten years and I know exactly how they work. Trust me I do not need any lessons. read my sig it's there.
Why would he tune it to boost freq's that aren't there. The main function of a bass cube for a ported box is to enhance the sweet spot of freq to which the box is tuned at and filter all freq's out below the tuning of the box.
this is to prevent uncontrolled movement of the sub below the boxes tuning freq. If he wants to enhance the freq's to which are not there he needs to EQ them in with an EQ. Using a bass cube on a sealed box is different than a ported box but of course you know that.

its is not that the notes are not there. The cube doesn't add them to the music just boosts them. Just like it can make the tuning freq of a ported box louder, it can also make up for a weak box in this case. The box in my truck does great on low bass like he describes but not so much on the higher freqs so that is where I use it. it boosts those signals to the point that they will be heard where they once were not.

The cube is nothing more than a single band parametric EQ that offers positive gain adjustment only with a few other refinements. PG suggests that you set the subsonic filter to "track" for ported enclosures, this keeps the subsonic xover point theoretically just bellow the tuning frequency of the enclosure to keep the driver safe. You can however still set the subsonic filter to a fixed xover point and adjust said point by opening the cube itself.

So yes, you can use it as a 1 band EQ to make up for frequencies that are lacking. Seeing as it is parametric eq, it does not just boost it's center frequency, but a fairly large frequency band centered on the center frequency. The problem is that it is not going to be able to flatten out that slump where the driver rolls off, it is just going to be able to add another peak to it. If you want to get the response truly flat, you will have to use a multiple band eq.

And Scott, there are plenty of things you can do to tweak a vented box. You can change the volume with foam/wood blocks just like people do with sealed boxes to adjust the volume. I personally try build my vented boxes with multiple smaller ports instead of one large port. For one, multiple smaller ports means that they can be shorter in length and thus easier to fit for the same tuning frequency, and if you don't like it, blocking off ports will lower the tuning frequency of the box. Combine that with any volume tweaks, and you can probably change the response more on a vented enclosure than you could ever do to a sealed enclosure.

Later,
Jason

I am powering the sub with an alpine pdx 1.600 amp. Like I said, I have no problems with my rsd 12 in the 1.8 cubic ft ported box but this eclipse only plays lows. I did modify the port and everything today on the box and it still barely helped. I also tried a 1 cubic ft sealed box too. Still sucked. I am just going to sell it and save myself the headache. It's on craigslist right now in fact. Thanks for your help guys!

Are you sure your crossover points have not gotten screwed up? New amp/bumped setting/HU xover settings maybe? Just a thought. I had some of the first Eclipse aluminum subs and they were bad ass. Not sure how they compare with the newer stuff, but I'd make sure I investigated everything before giving up on them.

Well there really isn't much to my deck, I have bass, treble, subwoofer level, and a high pass for the speakers. So it's a pretty basic deck, My amp is set at pretty much everything I like it at, I did adjust the gain for the sub more and the low pass but still no luck, It is most like my boxes. I was getting the eclipse sub for a nice spl sub so I could switch out my sub periodically. I need to retry on a box. Any suggestions for dimensions and port size on my next box? Id like my box to have a nice smooth frequency band. I don't like sudden peaks in certain frequencies much. I would also rather have a higher tuned port so I can get my highs out of my sub, just like my rsd gives me. I would be willing to sacrifice some low end just to get killer mids and highs.

Here are the T/S Parameters listed in the book.

700 rms

Frequency response- 20-200 hz

FS- 21 hz

qms/qes/qts- 5.25/.39/.36

Vas- 28 L

MMS- 356g

Xmax- 22 mm

Sd- 347 cm^2

BL- 20 Tesla Meters

So, I used your specs you just posted and holy crap, no wonder you hate this. The driver response in that enclosure is the very definition of "one note wonder". It has a 8.33db peak at 34Hz and at a very steep slope as well. The graph actually puts it at nearly ruler flat response after the peak for tuning frequency.

Anyhow, I dicked around with it some, and I found something you should be able to try with your current box. You will have to somehow (styrofoam, wood blocks, legos, whatever) cut your box volume approximately in half. So, 1ft^3 internal volume and block off most of your port as well leaving it 1.5"x4", a caution here, you cannot just block the end of the port unless you divide it somehow. Best suggestion would be cut pieces of foam to block the entire length of the port until you get it to the above dimensions. 1ft^3 with a 1.5x4x21" port puts your tuning frequency at somewhere in the neighborhood of 26.5Hz and bellow is the frequency response graph. The tuned peak is a lot less aggressive and the slope is much more gentle. It still stays fairly flat after the port frequency rolls off. If you can manage to try it with the current box design I think you will like it a lot more. You may have to adjust the over all subwoofer gains and xover point to your liking now that you have gotten rid of the ridiculously sickening LF peak.

In the end, that small of a port may have some excessive port noise, according to WinISD it is still within reason, but depending on where the box is, it may be annoying. We can fix that and keep the same frequency response if you decide to like it and want to rebuild the enclosure.

Later,
Jason

Those sub parameters are crazy! You could put six of those subs into a 2 cu ft sealed box Or three in ported.

That sub is meant to go in a very small, maybe 0,7 cu ft bass reflex box. The only way to get a low enough tuning of 20-25Hz is a passive radiator.

That sub (or ten) would be great in HT applications.

Wow that is ridiculous man! It even says in the book to put it in a 2 min ported box and 3 maximum ported box. I figured that box was a little too damn big for the size of that woofer. Thanks a lot Jacampb2.