to go with a subwoofer or not?

[gebohmusic]

I have an Allen ADC 3100 with two HC14 speakers and two HC15 speakers. The organ and speakers are in an average size bedroom.

I also have an Allen Ensemble unit that has two 32' pedal stops.

I understand that 32' pedal stops go down to 16hz -- and of course the space and room plays a big factor.

My current speakers will not effectively produce the 32' pedal stops.

I was thinking of getting an Allen HC12 speaker for the 32's -- but I do not have the space for another large speaker.

I have been looking at a SuperCube 4000 or a SuperCube 6000 due to their size and performance. These are not cheap -- but I found an online vendor who has the 4000 for $515 and the 6000 for $815. These are lower prices than elsewhere.

Here are my thoughts:
Is it worth getting any speaker/subwoofer for just two 32' pedal stops from the Allen Ensemble?

If it is --- would the SuperCube 4000 be adequate?

If I go with a SuperCube -- do I have to have a crossover?

If all of the organ, speakers, etc is in a bedroom --- is this even worth considering?

Thanks :-)

[myorgan]

If all of the organ, speakers, etc is in a bedroom --- is this even worth considering?

Taking your questions one at a time (out of order), in a bedroom, I'd say no, unless you really feel the need to shake the floors, walls, and disturb the neighbors.

I also have an Allen Ensemble unit that has two 32' pedal stops. I understand that 32' pedal stops go down to 16hz -- and of course the space and room plays a big factor. My current speakers will not effectively produce the 32' pedal stops. I was thinking of getting an Allen HC12 speaker for the 32's -- but I do not have the space for another large speaker.

Is it worth getting any speaker/subwoofer for just two 32' pedal stops from the Allen Ensemble?

IIRC, the two 32' stops are one 32' Reed, and one 32' Flue. With the Reed, it really doesn't need a 32' sound because there's not too much fundamental you would hear in that particular stop. With the 32' Flue, I've obtained satisfactory results by using an HC-12, but you won't hear lower until you add the subwoofer. For a sub to adequately reproduce that sound, you'll have to find a larger bedroom-MUCH larger. Most subs (if not all) that will adequately reproduce those sounds are much larger than the HC-12

Sorry I coudln't give you better news.

Michael

[John Vanderlee]

Bass in a small space presents all kinds of problems; I mean the kind you can actually feel. The lower the pitch, the longer the wavelengths which need room to develop. In a small space they don't, and wind up cancelling much of each other due to out of phase reflections. We have an ADC3160 at home and I added a sub to it for the 16' pitches. (more on that in a moment) Up close it's hardly discernible but as I walk through the length of the house, I note very pronounced bass a fair distance from the sub, an effect that literally undulates depending on where I am. So where the wave moves unimpeded, I can sense it. For 32' you'd need even more space. Also that pitch requires an enormous amount of air to be moving (that's why organ bass pipes are large!) So you need a big "pump", hence a large speaker. I 'll refer to a different argument on here about speaker size vs. Bass. A previous poster claimed small speakers can do the job because ear buds can! The big difference again is how the wave gets to your ears. First, what he heard was was an upper harmonic of the fundamental from a small speaker, and second, earbuds are different because the vibrations are coupled directly to your eardrum, instead of having to travel through space of some sort before they even get to your ear.

About adding a sub, and why you may just do something anyhow: My wife complained of a lack of clarity on large registrations on our ADC3160, especially when the 16' stops were involved. The organ plays through four channels driving 4 Allen HC11 speakers - the baby size version of the HC15. I had already added presence projectors for more brilliance, but mud was still there. Studying the channels I noted all of the 16' stuff came from Channel 1 which also played other pitches. I put a passive crossover before the CH 1 input that basically split high and low, sending the high only to the Channel 1 amp. The low portion I fed via an additional amp to a large dual 15" driver system. The difference was dramatic. It wasn't more bass we heard, it was cleaner. The HC11 no longer was "messed up" by trying to do all that bass while playing the other stuff. Of course my location in the house, as mentioned before, was still affecting what we heard bass-wise. My point is that if you get a sub just to clean up your sound, you might still be pleased at the result even if it's not for the 32' stops. Many active subs have a "crossed over" output of highs only that you can use to drive your Allen Channel.
Maybe this helped, maybe not?
John

[SchnarrHorn]

To John's point, the wave length of 32' low C fundamental (16 Hz) is 70 feet.

http://www.mcsquared.com/wavelength.htm

[jbird604]

I'll be interested in hearing the outcome of this quest. Personally, I'm too much of a tightwad to pay that much for a subwoofer, but I've been tempted to shell out about $200 for one of the Dayton models from Parts Express. This is the one I'm drooling over at the moment:
https://www.parts-express.com/dayton...oofer--300-634

My home organ is under development these days, with a slow transition from an old Allen MOS to an eventual VPO setup. When I get to the VPO, I'll certainly want to have a big 32' pedal stop or two, and may well need a dedicated sub to get any useful output from it.

As others mention above, the space matters, and it may be impossible for guys like you (and me) to get the 32' impact we want in limited organ rooms. But I have to think a dedicated sub will be an improvement over the fairly compact speakers I have to use in my little organ nook. And the Dayton sub I'm looking at doesn't really take up all that much space. Basically a 20" cube. I think it can fit under my desk or perhaps be tucked away in another part of the living room, even out of sight somewhere.

I'll be following your thread and hoping to get some useful info.

[toodles]

I think your best bet would be to replace two of your current speakers with HC-12 units; then make sure the Ensemble mixes into the 2 channels that include the HC-12 speakers. That way you don't have to have more speaker channels nor amplifiers. It is doubtful to me that the DT subwoofers of the sizes you suggest can adequately handle the 32 ft bottom octave of the flue.

If you really want a subwoofer, consider using this driver in an infinite baffle: https://www.parts-express.com/replac...8-ohm--290-184

Mount it in a wall or ceiling with an opening at the back into the adjacent room or the attic. It'll likely do better than any boxed subwoofer you can find. If mounted in a wall, make sure the adjoining room doesn't have direct air flow into the room where the organ is. Also, that room will get the same bass sound that the organ room will get.

[jbird604]

Wow! I always wanted a RadioShack Mach One speaker back in the day! It probably only cost about a hundred dollars, but who had a hundred dollars in 1975? That driver looks like a good replacement for the HC-12 woofer. Do you know how it compares as far as the relative parameters?

BTW -- are you sure that driver would work in an infinite baffle? Looks like it would be more at home in a sealed box. But I agree 100% that an infinite baffle is the way to go if you have a place to do it.

[myorgan]

Toodles is right on the money with the use of an HC-12 speaker. That'll give you everything you need or can experience in a bedroom-especially if you don't have room enough for a real subwoofer.

I once played a concert using a single HC-12 for the 32', and someone I knew sitting in the balcony related to me, "I felt it in my chest." That was a very informative comment.

Michael

[Leisesturm]

Because John mentioned it in that LONG subwoofer thread last year, I bought that Parts Express 15" sub and hid it in our (unused) fireplace. Definitely perks up the low bass but were I the o.p. I would invest in what is called a "tactile transducer" for the organ bench. Parts Express sells several models. "Buttkicker" is the brand most used in Home Theater systems. They run from a little over $100 to ... I don't know ... several hundred probably. The smallest of them will do more than a small self-powered sub because they are applying all their energy directly to the ... listening area, instead of the entire room.

[jbird604]

"... listening area" ;-)

Strange as that sounds, I'm pretty sure I've seen an organ with "buttkickers" or something like that in the bench. I want to say it was a Wersi. Would be interesting to know if many of us organists would be fooled into thinking we were "hearing" our 32' stops if we were actually just getting kicked in the butt?

[SchnarrHorn]

Sounds like the "Tingler" and "Percepto".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tingler

[toodles]

I don't have the specs on the HC12, nor do i have one of them so I could measure it--wish I did.

The replacement Mach1 driver specs lists a vented box of 23.3 cubic ft volume, and that's pretty close to an infinite baffle! The Qts is lower than I'd like, but not by much. The key to getting a good infinite baffle to go really low is to get a low resonance (in this case, as close to 16 Hz as possible) and keeping the Qts between 0.6 and 1.0 or so. This driver comes as close to the requirements as those available today.

PE used to make some specific drivers for infinite baffle use and I have 2 of those, but, alas, they are discontinued. Those were model IB-385-8, (and a 12 inch similar driver). Specs are here: https://www.parts-express.com/dayton...oofer--295-455. They compare favorably to the Mach 1 specs, except the IB driver had a much larger excursion capacity.

[jbird604]

Interesting. I would've thought a foam surround woofer with such high Vas would just bottom out all the time without being in a sealed box. And that a stiffer cone would've been more appropriate, but I didn't have any basis for that conclusion other than a hunch. Thanks for the info. I didn't know that PE had ever sold a woofer specifically for IB installation.

[mlaird]

Good bass is hard to get in a small room, but you can get 32' tone even in a bedroom. It will just be hard to get it even, since as folks mentioned above, the wavelengths are much longer than the room's dimensions. Effectively, you will need to pressurize and depressurize the room at 16 Hz.

It is also true that the two 32' stops Ensemble are a 32' Contra Violone and a 32' Posaune, and only the flue is likely to have much 16 Hz fundamental. However, I would be surprised if Allen didn't use the same Contra Violone samples in the Ensemble as they did in my instrument, and my Contra Violone definitely has solid 16 Hz fundamental if you crank it up enough.

Personally, I bought a SVS PB-2000 to handle the 32' stops on my organ. It starts rolling off around 17-18 Hz, but with room gain, it does really quite well at 16 Hz. I have found and started eliminating a whole bunch of rattles throughout my living room :-).

[mlaird]

BTW, for those who believe low bass is impossible in ordinary-sized rooms, please consider exhibit A below. This is a spectrogram from a recording I made of myself in my living room with the SVS PB-2000 supplying the really low bass frequencies. You can clearly see the strong 16 Hz 32' fundamental! If anything, I might need to turn it down a little.

[j reimer]

I think we need a little more information to interpret that picture. That must be quite some microphone. What was it? What is the size of the room? And where was the microphone placed?

[myorgan]

Isn't Audacity great!!! Thank you for sharing this.

I, too, wonder about the size of the room, the microphone, etc. It looks like you were using your microphone jack to bring in the signal in.

Michael

[toodles]

Vas is a measure of the compliance of a speaker, expressed as an equivalent amount of air with the same compliance as the speaker. The surround material itself is not a particularly good estimate of the compliance, except, of course, that a paper fold surround is not very compliant; the other typical materials (treated cloth edge, foam, and rubber) are all capable of compliant and not very compliant resullts.

Foam is often chosen because there are many compatilble adjesives; cloth, also, though it is more expensive to fabricate; rubber, in many ways, is the best material in terms of longevity and the ability to dampen cone resonance but is the hardest to adhere and the most expensive to fabricate.

I can't say the the Mach 1 woofer is the best for IB use, but its low cost certainly makes it reasonable to try. Just don't drive it to excess, nor allow any transients to get to it--such as turn on and off surges.

Back "in the day" the biggest souce of these surges and ultra-low bass "noise" was the turntable--the "plop" when the stylus hit the record and the rumble produced by the turntable. Now, amplifier turn on and off noise and effects are probably the big issues.

[myorgan]

Back "in the day" the biggest souce of these surges and ultra-low bass "noise" was the turntable--the "plop" when the stylus hit the record and the rumble produced by the turntable.

Further, I remember having the needle weight set so sensitively, the bass coming from the speakers would cause it to jump a bit and create a sort-of feedback loop.

Michael

[SchnarrHorn]

Fellow I worked with many years ago cleaned his stylus with one of those stylus brushes while the system was on. Destroyed the woofer in one channel.

[rjsilva]

+1 for mlaird regarding getting bass in a small room.

In BachOn's thread (I think...) I posted a couple of videos showing the <32hz performance of the Walker Quaker at my church and the Walker B2 in my home. Both showed solid 16hz performance, and my B2 is in a room which is literally only twice the size of my organ console (and is in the same room as the console).

I'm sure the B2 would perform better in a large room with less power, but it's not impossible to get 16hz performance in a small room. Just takes more power.

[myorgan]

I'm wondering if yes, the speaker will change the SPL (sound pressure level) in the room, but is the sound perceptible?

I don't want to take us down another sub-woofer rabbit hole (we've been there at least twice in the last year or so), but the cursory concepts can be re-stated here. Regarding the OP's question, It may not be worth purchasing a sub-woofer for use in a bedroom organ because of space considerations, but in another location, it certainly could be considered for all the points mentioned above.

Michael

[SchnarrHorn]

Isn't the problem in small rooms, not that you can't get the bass, but due to the wave length and standing wave, you get very obvious nodes where there's nothing and then move a little and you get full bass?

[rjsilva]

There may be some difficulties, but I am saying that my experience challenges the notion that you can't get good subsonic frequencies in a small/tiny room. There were some upper harmonics in the FFT analysis (half the amplitude), but they seemed to be speaker produced.

[John Vanderlee]

Circling the "rabbit hole" ;-)
I find it interesting the way many bass speakers are advertised. For example as "having punch" , "thump", or "kick", or "rocking the house" which says nothing about being able to truly reproduce a continuous low note accurately in the nether region. Usually specs show a rolloff somewhere around 30 or 40 Hz, but that's Ok because these days everything bass-like seems to be based on the bass guitar.

[mlaird]

think we need a little more information to interpret that picture. That must be quite some microphone. What was it? What is the size of the room? And where was the microphone placed?

Sorry for not explaining what my screenshot represents - I'm an amateur audio engineer, but I shouldn't have assumed everyone else is!
That shot is from Audacity (as Michael noted), and is a spectrum plot showing time left to right, and frequency from bottom to top. The scale on the left is in Hz. The intensity of the plot indicates the volume at that frequency. The gray and blue is the background noise with almost no sound energy, and then the scale goes from pink through red to white for the loudest pitches.

It's pretty easy to see that the last chord of the piece I was playing was in C major; the lowest frequency is 16 Hz, and then you can see the 16' stops and the first harmonic of the 32' stops around 32 Hz. One or both of the 32's must have a strong 2nd harmonic around 48 Hz, and then 64 Hz is also clearly visible. Above that, things get rather dense and harder to figure out. :-)

If you want to listen to this last chord, the recording from which this plot was taken is up on YouTube:

The room is my living room, which is about 14.5' x 16.5' and has two open doorways and four windows that tend to leak a lot of bass. It has a normal 8' or so ceiling height, so nothing fancy there. Room modes start around 30-something Hz, IIRC. I calculated them in REW (Room Equalization Wizard, a home theater and speaker tuning program that I also used to test my home-built speakers). I still have a bunch of work to do to smooth out some bumpy areas in the voicing due to those room modes. To address SchnarrHorn's comment about standing waves, I find those to be more of a problem in the 16' range than 32', since as mentioned, the lowest room mode is somewhere in the 16' range (32 Hz or a bit higher). Below that, the waves are so long they can't fit in the room, so standing waves can't affect the sound nearly as badly.

My microphones aren't anything that fancy; they are a pair of M-Audio Pulsar IIs that I bought quite a while ago, recorded on my old M-Audio Microtrack digital recorder into a high-bitrate MP3. The microphones were just placed near the center of the room, basically as far back from the console as I could manage before the piano got in the way.

[jbird604]

That's marvelous! Love that arrangement, and the sound is impressive for a home setting. Quite a nice "home organ" too!