Building a Subwoofer that KICKS HARD

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]What does it take to make a subwoofer that cakes hard?

[00:00:06]Well, I've got one right here, the one that I'm going to build on this video.

[00:00:10]Stay tuned. I'm going to show you just exactly how I built it. Yes, it does kick hard. This thing is super strong in the mid-range. Let's get building.

[00:00:29]Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.

[00:00:31]Today's goal is a little bit different.

[00:00:32]Usually, I swing for the fences on the super low tuned subwoofers. Today, we're going tight and fast. I want tight, fast bass, and I wanted to kick like a mule.

[00:00:45]So, if you want tight, fast base that kicks like a mule, you're going to need a tight, fast driver. Now, this is an Eminence driver. It's power torque.

[00:00:57]This is Let's just show you some shots of it, shall we?

[00:01:03]This is an Eminence Tourgrade 18in driver. Now, Jerry, one of the lead engineers over at Eminence, got a hold of me and says, "Hey, we've got a bunch of drivers that we test, and we can't really sell them as new drivers if they've been tested." So, he offered to send one of these out to me and I said, "Don't have to twist my arm."

[00:01:27]So, I'm just looking at this thing. Very nice quality. It's a Neo sub, so it can be lifted.

[00:01:34]Weighs about 30 lbs.

[00:01:37]Um, I'm thinking dual spiders. I see one on top. I see evidence of another spider down here. So, should have very good linear performance. This thing has sensitivity in the mid90s, so not going to take a lot of power to drive it. One of the themes I'm going for is cheap.

[00:01:54]Just so happens I've got a bunch of free pine plywood that I can use. This speaker was a gift.

[00:02:02]Cheap. Cheap. And kicks like a mule. Who could ask for more? Let's get building.

[00:02:37]Now that I have the panels cut and everything seems to be going together, By the way, this is just laying together. I had to make a lot of adjustments and this wood was so warped that even for test fitting, I had to use clamps. This is not glued. This is just a test fit and I'm having to use clamps just to see if it fits together.

[00:03:02]Now, I'm going to try something a little experimental with the ports. You'll see what I'm talking about in just a minute.

[00:03:09]These are going to sit right there.

[00:03:17]So, I'm basically gonna direct the energy off the back of the subwoofer, up into the ports, and out.

[00:03:45]Here's something kind of cool. As you can see, subwoofer is all put together, but it's full of scrap. Now, I was experimenting with this scrap. Now, if this doesn't work out, if this demonstration doesn't work out well, you won't actually ever see this in the video, but let's see if I can make this work. This is pretty cool.

[00:04:07]Okay, we have ourselves an empty subwoofer box. Now, I've got these triangle pieces for the corners.

[00:04:15]Notice that when I drop down in here, you can hear my voice very well because we're getting standing waves. Not sure if that's coming through on the mic or not, but watch this. Okay, so put the corner pieces in. This isn't the whole story, but it helps.

[00:04:35]These are these are equilateral triangles with 45° bevels, by the way, in case you're wondering.

[00:04:47]Get in there. Okay, there we go. Okay, the video is not going to be great, but listen.

[00:04:56]Okay, still got a standing wave, but it's more narrow.

[00:05:03]Let's put some more stuff in there.

[00:05:05]Watch this.

[00:05:07]I've just got a couple of pieces laying against the corners in here. So less 90° angles.

[00:05:19]You can still hear it, but it's the bandwidth is even more narrow now. So we just got one tiny note that you can still hear that standing wave on. Okay, not done yet. Watch this.

[00:05:33]Okay, I'm just holding a couple of these in my holding a couple of these with one arm while I run the camera.

[00:05:46]Okay, I can still hear it just barely, but it's it's nearly gone. The sound is almost uniform across the range.

[00:05:56]So, again, I don't know if that's coming through the same way it is for me as it is for you over the mic, but kind of cool what you can do with a little bit of geometry.

[00:06:06]My goal is not to be using any damping with this particular subwoofer. Let me see if I can get a little bit of a better shot for you. I'm kind of holding everything in place. Just imagine they were there. But okay, all corners.

[00:06:24]Okay, whatever. We're back to square square one here. But all corners. And I'm going to put the ports right here so that there won't be any 90° angles on this thing.

[00:06:35]Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to make the face piece. So, by the way, yes, it does appear that a forklift drove over this piece of wood before it decided to grow up and become a subwoofer.

[00:06:47]Anyway, let's get this I guess what do you call it? The front baffle. Let's get the front baffle done.

[00:07:04]Heat. Heat.

[00:07:40]All right, ladies and gentlemen, she's bolted in. This plate isn't glued in yet, but I like to bolt it down, tighten them up, get the T-nuts set in exactly the right direction so that it'll screw in nicely the next time I mount it.

[00:07:56]Right now, it's a sealed subwoofer. And >> subs, >> well, we can't have that >> So, I'm going to get some ports cut in this thing. We're going to make this thing happen. But first, I've got to put the face plate on. So, let's do that next.

[00:09:03]Heat.

[00:09:25]All right. Looks kind of cool. I mean, we're going to have energy coming off the driver. We're going to get the energy from the back of the driver out through the ports. I mean, I kind of make fun of the sealed sub guys because they're missing half of the energy. I mean, they're getting what comes off the front. They're not getting nothing from the back.

[00:09:46]I mean, yeah, sure can sound tighter and cleaner, but sorry, sealed sub guys. No, I'm just kidding. You guys, okay, you like your sound quality, whatever. I like to feel it and have a sound good at the same time. But yeah, I'm just a ported sub guy, I guess.

[00:10:07]Anyway, um let's do a blowout and see how these ports are flowing, shall we?

[00:10:19]Oh yeah, they are flowing. Did you see that? Right out through the parts. Okay, I'm not worried about this. up. This is going to be cool. Um, tuning.

[00:10:30]Well, I'm going to finish building it, of course, but it's going to be in the mid to maybe even high30s. I mean, it's going to hit hard. And of course, the home theater subwoofers, they'll reach all the way down into the single digits, but how do I explain this? Yeah, they hit hard and they feel good, but sometimes you just want to hear that and feel that slam. And I think this subwoofer can do it. You got one more piece of wood here.

[00:11:00]Okay, I'm kind of thinking this thing deserves a speaker cover. So, I'm going to build one.

[00:11:41]I don't know, guys. You think I got enough clamps on there?

[00:11:45]Oh boy. I might need a little bit more.

[00:11:47]Anybody know where I can find more clamps?

[00:11:53]Yes, this wood is warped, but I think that's I think that's plenty.

[00:12:39]Well, ladies and gentlemen, Not quite sure what I think of how those ports look. I mean, it's pretty cool. I did kind of want a horn effect. I mean, the the one in round over will make a little bit of a horn effect. Okay, one and a quarter inches, whatever that is.

[00:12:55]But, okay, I'll take it. Um, it's going to look better once we get it dyed black, but overall, pretty cool looking sub.

[00:13:07]And uh again, it's going to have a pretty high tune, but this thing is built to kick hard. So, and so far, it's free. I haven't spent a thing on this thing, including the driver. Another shout out to Eminence, uh Jerry over at Eminence. Thanks for contacting me, sending that driver over to me. Really appreciate that. This thing is going to be awesome. Uh I just going to keep going. It's I'm going to do some uh sanding and then I'm going to turn it black.

[00:13:51]Now that the cutout for the speakon connector is done, it's really time to turn this thing black. So, uh, again, I'm just going to use what I have.

[00:14:01]and I don't have enough Durotex. So, it's not going to get Duratex. I do, however, have plenty of super black. Now, someday I'm going to go with a different color, but for this time, just going to go with what I've got. And what I've got is black. So, we're going slightly more upscale than Duroex. And let's see how this thing turns out.

[00:14:29]Well, ladies and gentlemen, I tried spraying this stuff down the ports with a spray bottle, and it worked. Worked really well. Was it clean?

[00:14:41]No, not even close. I traded time for cleanliness, but it does work in case you're ever wondering.

[00:14:50]Here's where we ended up. Again, very fast, very efficient, but very messy.

[00:14:57]You feel every kick drum in your bones.

[00:15:02]Seal subs off of girls who will sip their drink slow.

[00:15:07]Snap a little picture for their story then go. Real men run ped wide open. Let that low hit like a John Deere rolling.

[00:15:19]Tailgate shaking on this back row. We're rolling. Real men run.

[00:15:26]And here we are. If you couldn't tell from previous videos, I got a little bit of a thing for wood grain. That looks really nice. I mean, it's pine, but it looks really good. I'm very pleased.

[00:15:41]Okay, got to make some decisions on how I'm going to finish the rest of this. I may do just some clear epoxy or I could do some black epoxy and see how that works. Maybe just a some epoxy spray coat finish.

[00:15:59]And here we are. So, yes, you can make pine look pretty good.

[00:16:04]You can still see some of that wood grain. I'm not sure how much of that is coming through the camera, but you can still see that it's made out of wood, which is kind of cool. And again, I wasn't going for a perfectly smooth finish. I'm actually happy with this.

[00:16:24]All right, we're going to Let's load this thing up with a speaker and see how she sounds, shall we?

[00:16:30]Look, we've got some damping in there after all. Oh, my damping is escaping.

[00:16:35]Just kidding. We wouldn't do that to you guys.

[00:16:41]We adopted these three little kittens a little while ago, and they have been a lot of fun. My kids are loving them.

[00:16:48]Here we are back in the theater. I was going to go through and do results and testing in this video, but it was just getting too long. So, I'm going to do the results and testing session next time. Spoiler alert, this thing tested super good. You guys are going to be surprised.

[00:17:08]I was surprised. So, stay tuned for next time. Until then, thank you very much. I appreciate each and every one of you.

[00:17:15]Remember, if you build it and it's cool, that's a righteous build. Thanks a lot, guys. Have a great day. Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time.