Hi Pete. I did serious, high-end car audio design and build in the early 90’s, and with an engineering and computer programming background, I wrote many of my own tools based upon the original T/S papers and measured drivers using techniques that were only just barely starting to factor in listening space. I stumbled upon this video, and am absolutely blown away by how detailed and thorough your engineering process has become. I am HIGHLY impressed!
So you use OpenSCAD to model the listening space, Freecad to build the enclosure, am I understanding that correctly? What do you use for the acoustic simulation generating FR graphs?
Most of the performance in any engineered assembly will be design driven. Simply by buying a commodity loudspeaker, you're paying for a lot of design work.
As a student studying acoustics, I am deeply thankful for this video. you are a huge inspiration to me. As a fellow bass enthusiast, a 3D designer, and a 3D printer enthusiast. Thank you so much.
This is so cool. Every time I think I know enough about sub design to get by on my own there’s just sooo much more knowledge to gain and improve. Thank you for sharing
Hats off, amazing work!! I just worry the model of cabin is way off from reality _garbage in garbage out_ Could there be a better way to model the space?
The video is a bare-bones visual representation (for the viewers, unused by him). It gives Layman's explanation with crayons compared to what he's really looking at when modeling. He mentions it quickly, but 99.x% of watchers won't catch it.
@@stevemilton3499 Pretty sure he's modifying a basic parametric model in openscad, 0:51 "all my models". He just mentioned opening the file in a 3D viewer for us to see, but it's not strictly necessary. So he's working off a realllly basic estimation that's probably nowhere near real world. There has to be a better way, maybe using something like a bunch of data collected with 'REW' in conjunction with the basic model, or even better a 3D scan or actual model from OEM
That is some advanced modelling skills at work. This video inspires me to upskill myself to make decisions more accurately. Great work Pete, Thank you for sharing your time and expertise with me.
@@EngineeringEssentials I'm good thanks. This video from hexibase has inspired me to go and learn some of the open source software he's shown. I already do acoustic simulations, etc like the ones shown. But if I learn this free stuff then I might actually be able to make tutorials on it, unlike the research/education stuff I currently use like ansys and comsol. How are you?
beautiful analysis. I think we all remember the days of grabbing some swap-meet subs and throwing together a box with some leftover plywood and a jigsaw and tossing it in the hatchback, mathematics be damned 😀
That feeling when you're 18 minutes into a brain-melting demonstration of enclosure design and you've been wondering the whole time how this would work in your 1990 CRX and he nonchalantly drops the set-up into a 1991 CRX... 😆🤯
Oh god... i was afraid of something like this. You do your calculations with an excel spreadsheet. Jesus. I guess you build that yourself? So there's no way for me to model something with your accuracy without building such a calculator myself?
Seriously though, I'm a software engineer but I don't know shit about cabinet design. If anybody wants I can write an excellent application to do this. I've always wanted to as well, I just don't know anything about how to turn the idea into the math into the cab.
The best I've ever managed is take a pair of 6x9s where I had access to those attribute numbers drivers have and build a pair of sealed cabinets with a decent response curve. Then I added all the electronics, gave it a lid, handles, wheels and a battery and basically made a _massive_ Bluetooth speaker.
@@MostlyPennyCat i would be able to manage to make a spreadsheet like his in the video but the amount of physical interactions between air molecules with each other and other surfaces is mind-boggling. No idea how to accurately represent everything with a formula. I'll try to find out
First off thank you for sharing these types of videos with us. I had read in another comment that you designed and built an enclosure for someone? If so what do you charge and what info do you need?
What software / visuals are used to create the pressure simulations, such as at 16:20? I thoroughly enjoyed this and might look into picking up model-based enclosures in the future. As of right now, most designs are just simple Bassreflex Boxes.
I would like to know as well! Been asking since the early days 😢 I don't mind being pointed in the direction of where to go, I also don't mind paying for a similar program. Can someone (Preferably Pete) guide us please?
From what I understand he designed the whole software suite himself by programming live scripts so he could output his SPL graphs in real time... Simply astounding level of engineering. I understand why he wouldn't want to share his intellectual property, but I would pay so much to get to use this software 😂
....Im still waiting for an answer whether a mk1 o r mk2 UMIK is better and why, but since you started building your own stuff, I figured it out also....so much more expensive where you live, I hope those endorsements work out....good day!
Can you also make sub recomendations? Seems much more efficient to have this done with the flexibility of picking a better suited driver before actually commiting to a subwoofer and make that fit as best as possible.
He can recommend from drivers he's modeled very recently, but that's just based on memory. His driver database is vast & runs over a decade and a half of models, versions, revisions etc and it takes man hours that can't be quoted on demand when you request a design. So, it's highly unlikely that you can get him to make a recommendation on drivers, it's much easier & responsible to let you dig your own foxhole & he just optimize it.
@@stevemilton3499 he must have a shortlist of what he knows works well in certain applications. Going by that would if you don't have specific preferences for a driver make life easier for everyone involved i'd imagine.
@Baron von Limbourgh if it were me, I'd liken that to "giving financial advice" or "endorsing an exact S/N product". This, because the customer will want to hold the engineer responsible for the failure of a product, specifically after the McDonald's tech dept guy points the finger away from his company.
my yamaha subwoofer has a "yst" system (yamaha active servo tech), would a system like that have a effect on the design of the enclosure? the yst would make the ts parameters and such from the driver itself unusable? would they measure the driver with the yst system active? or arent they matched at all and could use any random 10" driver?
This is frickin awesome! The video I've been waiting for from you! Frickin awesome! I had you design the sub enclosure for the bed of a show truck made out of aluminum. And I have always been curious about the methods you used. By the way, it hits so hard and sounds amazing!
When I specified my sub enclosure, I asked for sealed because I thought this would give me the most accurate response as it related to the kind of music I listen to which is metal with heavy double bass. In my experience a ported enclosure resulted in inaccurate sound at higher volumes. Is this correct? Should I have considered other designs?
This is why you have no option as to which alignment you get when using his services. You request a specific performance & then list the limitations, and as you can see, he then goes to Mars to find the best possible set of physical characteristics to achieve your goal.
This video is a bit weird in that the client wanted only up to 60hz and already had a driver/speaker. Ported designes are good getting more efficiency way down in those low frequencies where a ton of power is needed exponentially as you get lower. Usually crossover in a car sub will be higher than 60hz, depending on the car/situation (and as you noted, the playback content) ported design will struggle to provide tight bass when crossover is set to a more usual 100-150Hz, as most car 6x9 and door speakers still struggling down there. So barring some other low-mid solution, this client must have a big hole between 60 and wherever the other speakers come into their own. Maybe this is just for some competition thing
Probably should have stated your concerns about this and let him do the work. I am pretty sure he would have recomended the best possible option for your specific situation, no matter what it would have been. Like you see here, there is a lot more to it then the general simple rules people like to use/talk about. They probably hold true in most cases when you or me design a box ourselves. But probably less so when you are able to model basicly anything to perfection.
@@baronvonlimbourgh1716 The thing is, his perfection is only as good as model of the cabin he's basing everything on, and it's far from perfect. _Garbage in, garbage out_ Maybe down below 60hz it's fine as the waves are huge and rudimentary model works, but things get tricky as you get into the region between sub bass and mids You can engineer to the nth degree of perfection, but you also need to see the big picture, ask the right questions etc. Client may look at marketing for their 6x9s and tell you 60-80hz is a good crossover point, big picture outlook and experience will tell you that's not realistic. When client turns around and complains about loose muddy base, blaming client because they specified 60hz maybe technically correct, but still a design failure nonetheless
@@Username-qx9gk if that's the case, that would have been the exact advice he would have given him, wouldn't he? The OP is now questioning his decision. Would he have stated his concerns he either would have recieved a better sounding system or he would have had his experiences confirmed and would be confident what he has recieved now actually also is the best solution for his application. Pretty straight forward.
Do you know how to or know of any videos on how to evaluate and test a specific cars' acoustics and utilize/combine tbat info to build a more accurate or better SPL sub enclosure. Im asking this because i have a 2006 Nissan Maxima and i think its one of the worst acoustically sounding cars ive ever heard. I mean its REALLY terrible. The only thing i could think of is either using my Alesis MEQ-230(dual 30 band graphic eq) or my Behringer Ultra Curve Pro DEQ2496 to "flatten the car". Any suggestions?
Accelerometers on each panel, then extrapolate to build a model, like he showed you, with multiple compliances. Then figure out how that affects pressure waves moving thru it. Then figure out how it operates with hundreds of pressure waves moving thru it over time.
@@stevemilton3499 thanks whether i use that in this car, maybe. Do you or anyone know at car stereo contests, what cars are used in "sound quality" winners the most?
The software used at 6:15 is incredibly! Seeing how the enclosure affects the response live is amazing. Is that a software that is available somewhere? Right now I am looking for ways to simulate enclosures and room acoustics at specific positions and something like that would be awesome!
Haven't watched that far, but have you checked the video description? It says all used software is free or open source and has a list of used programs with links.
@@raw_000 None of the programs there seem to be capable of those acoustic simulations by themselves. There are programs that are open source and free that can be used for simulation though. Including one that can be integrated into FreeCAD.
I think he has actually written everything in Libre office calc. It is just a spreadsheet with things color coded to make it look like a GUI, with buttons have macros assigned to them. I think the simulation is being done numerically in the spreadsheet, which is certainly possible although the math behind there must be crazy. It's also possible that the macros are launching something else to perform the simulation.
This is extremely exciting! I've been working on my own suite of software and workflow, and this indicates to me that I'm on the right track. I've been working with FreeCAD, SciLab (and similar), Ngspice, VituixCAD, etc... Though I have no intentions of refining this much further, the practices and concepts explored here are applicable too so many different areas. I come from an electronics/RF background with a hefty helping of computer science, and all but the loudspeaker specific software is new to me. This recent revisit of the acoustical side of my hobbies has been a boon to my knowledgebase, moreso than possibly any other facet I've explored. Systems modeling, control theory... Mmm, so good. Thanks Pete, for the inspiration and motivation.
Meanwhile I just designed my box in SketchUp by only having the max size limit of my trunk to go after, and basic knowledge of sub boxes. Smacked that shit together and prayed it would work. And it did! Could it be designed a lot better? Definitely, but for the last six years I've lived in ignorant bliss as my 10" Digital Designs chuff along in their tiny enclosures. Pretty inspiring what you do, I wish to have this knowledge.
Exactly, This is all very impressive and absolutely worth it for some people. But with a few weeks of research and practice you can use WinISD to figure out your enclosures' specs and design the box with SketchUp or even just on paper and your enclosure will still perform 98% as good.
Oh hell yea thank youuuu!!!! Ive been waiting for something like this. I have searched the internet to find a way to model frequency response using capacitive and inductive reactance because something is missing from my calculations. I hope this video has what i need
Watched this video 2 times. Makes me wonder how long it will take for me to get to this level. When I was a kid my idol was Zaph Audio, but times change. Great work man!
This is outstanding! I didn't know someone would really go to that much effort to simulate a loudpeaker enclosure from start to end so that the frequency response it creates in a specific environment matches a predefined curve at the listening position. Two questions: 1) What simulation software do you use? How did you achive live-update of the simulated frequency responses while tuning the parameters in CAD? 😧 2) 04:27 - Equal Loudness Target. Why do you want to match the equal loudness curve in the first place? Producers create their music on systems that follow a rather linear frequency response and not one, that follows the shape of an equal loudness curve. So why should our subwoofer do? In my view it just adds a colouration to the low end sound. What am I overseeing?
Yes and no. There are different problems at the same time when mixing music. Yes, you could compensate in the production or mixing stage of your music BUT: the lower the note the bigger the wave and less space in the mix. So when compensating for equal loudness you'd have to limit different notes differently or you overdrive very low notes, so you only do this in a very rough way eg. octave jumps
I agree using the Equal loudness contour diagrams in this way does seem odd. I've only ever used it for comparing differences at two different volumes and compensating for that so that the content sounds the same at a volume louder or quieter than the reference. I can't quite see why he would try to trace the contour in this way. I'd like to hear his thoughts on this.
1) This is really interesting to me too... I'm pretty sure he's taken advantage of OpenSource CAD editors so he can easily write and run a script (possibly written in Python) from whatever operating system he's using (in this case, Windows). The script periodically extracts data from the CAD file and parses it into another text file, which the Sheets editor can then read in real time. This can be achieved using plugins or macros. Afterward, it calculates and prints data and frequency responde charts using macros within the same spreadsheet file.
Please help explain: This level is above me and have some basic questions. I understand the bass distance is based on the hz it is played at, 28hz around 34 feet. But does certain box enclosures change the distance of the apex? Or is it just the note played? Is the apex also the completion of the frequency wave? Or the whole wave length? What would be the order of distance apex be- sealed/passive radiator/ported/4th order/horn?
I would really enjoy it if you got involved in the community! Like in live video format,so we could ask questions in real time to get answers and idk get to know you better ! It would be super awesome to see one of the top acoustic engineers in my humble opinion just grace us with your presence and touch on a bunch of different topics just would be so amazing. If you were to go on Big D's 12volt talk like Aaron W did that would be sick cause thats how I fell in love with audio dynamics and you bro! Please consider it Pete??? 🙏 I know it's probably not your cup of tea but it would make the world to us fans!!!
Did you catch where he mentioned that he doesn't work through his anus by limiting the sub to one enclosure alignment before he even starts modeling for a target customer requested response?
Well, I just realised WinISD and SketchUp aren't gonna cut it if I ever wanted to be a professional enclosure designer. I'll stick to being a weekend warrior 🤣
I think I know just enough of what you're saying to follow along but realize how little I know. This make my brain hurt, but in a good way. I think this could have been broken into a half dozen videos explaining all sorts of acoustic design principals. I really enjoyed this, but now need to go watch some silly cat videos. Thank you.
Pete, Have you considered making a design for Barevids competition he is running? He is using a 2" driver and a cabin as a scaled cabin volume with viewers submitting 3d printable box designs that he will be testing in a head to head setup. I would be very interersted if you would go through the design process of such an enclosure, as well as going through the science of how well the setup mimics the behavior of a single 12" in a scaled cabin, of course once you scale the frequency response by a factor of 6 as well as the cabin volume. Maybe you could even collaborate on the video.
Next time someone ask me to build a sub box and I say "I can build you one that will sound pretty good, but I'm no expert. You should get someone smarter than me to design it first." I'm going to send them to this video.
А что если сделать корпус в виде улитки? Напечатать его. Длину портала выбрать 12 м, форма которого будет длинный узкий прямоугольник. При такой длине порта, волна от передней стороны динамика развернется на 180 градусов на частоте 30 гц. Ваше оборудование позволяет сделать это. Мне же удалось сделать без 3D принтера улитку с длиной порта всего 2 метра. ru-vid.comBckM-nlDA8w?feature=share
I recently bought a 2015 MX-5, and have been looking at my options for getting a decent sounding system in it. Thanks to this video, I now have a LOT of work ahead of me, tearing the car apart to take measurements of the area under the soft top behind the rear bulkhead so I can model an enclosure... Part of me (the part that makes spreadsheets for literally every major decision I make) is super excited. The other part (the part that has a limited number of hours in the day to screw around) is scared, lol.
Good god. All of my early 2000's modeling was stone age stuff compared to now. I'm way out of the game now but I do have to say the modeling as described in this video is absolutely insane - in an awesome way. A great time to be a loudspeaker designer, for sure.
This is pretty incredible, and honestly looks more approachable than I'd expected; Do you think it'd be possible to invert this workflow in order to design a soundproof enclosure for a specific sound source? Also, the description lists all software as being free or open source, but I'm not sure which one the actual speaker configuration and acoustic simulation program is supposed to be; It looks like it might be in-house software?
It blows my mind on how intelligent you are when it comes to doing these things. I'm a bit envious. It would be interesting to see what you could do if there was a fiberglass enclosure, molded to the wheel-well of the vehicle. and what kind of outcome it would produce or what it would need additionally to produce a proper conclusion. Love all your work bud! Have a great day! :)
I would prefer to have a flat response and let the electronics handle the loudness curve. For the obvious reason loudness needs to flatten out at louder volume.
Hi Pete, have you seen the "Spiral Magic Port" this guy in Indonesia came up with? If so, thoughts/experience with it? Here's an example: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gqq00lhiaek.html
Absolutely amazing, I understand some of it and can make sense of most of it (having watched this video more than 10 times because its just so cool) except the FreeCAD. How did you make FreeCAD do that?? I have been really interested in the electroacoustic world for years now and I have never seen such an in depth design and simulation software setup. I imagine it might be a bit off topic for the channel (and a massive ask) but if you made a video explaining how the FreeCAD software is customised in this way I'm sure a lot of people would be really interested. (I know its been over a year since this video came out, I've just never had the courage to leave random comments so just don't comment, but here's one anyway).
What software are you using in the 10 minute 15 second point in this video that lets you see and dynamically change the Box configuration while updating the frequency response curve?
My mind just blown away realizing you've practically built a software calculator using spread sheets that actually uses data from cad files to work.. I'm sorry, but how on earth did u do that? hahaha.
I thought I knew a little bit about sound enclosures. But, even from an engineering standpoint I was lost in the first few minutes. This dude is Way-Way beyond me. They say a picture sais a 1000 words but even this video doesnt say enough for me to understand... and I've watched it 2ce. I'll have to stick to micro's...
Yeah, I understood about 3% of what you said. I wish I knew how to do this for what I was planning but wow this is more complicated than I thought. You are really good at what you do man.
Very thorough, I have to watch your videos at least 5 times to catch everything you present! Please do a video on using multiple drivers like 4, 8 even 16 subs , I am sure the response would greatly vary compared to 1 Great channel
BRAVO! I'm only knowledgable enough to follow along at a high level, understanding bits and pieces throughout at varying depths, but what's abundantly clear - you're a master of your craft, and I looooved the reasoning behind the 'no on the spot enclosure recommendations' snippet towards the end.
The cynic in me thinks that a car is about the worse possible listening environment for audio, esp when driving and thus most of this work seems like a general waste of time, the difference vs just throwing a big sub in the boot in a standard box is going to be indistinguishable...
I used to target an equal loudness curve also. More recently, I’ve decided the production team already takes this into account in the mixing studio. Therefore, a flat response is quite adequate. What are your findings with mixing levels from the studio? Thanks.
