New tip for peanut measuring

I wanted to offer a tip of a technique that I came up with myself...everybody knows the peanut method to measure your enclosure, but that doesn't do you much good once the enclosure is already made. What are you going to do, say "Oh no, my enclosure's not the right size, I guess I have to start over!" Yeah, you can aim small, and add stuffing to compensate for the enclosure's lack of size...but let's face it, it's not an exact science of how much you need to add for how much size compensation.

What you do, is figure out how much air space you need, measure out that much peanuts, and put it into a trash bag. My sub, a Diamond D6 12", needs .875 cuft of air space. The sub takes up .1 cuft. So that's .975 cuft, or 1 cuft if you don't feel like messing with decimals. ;) I measured out 1 cuft of peanuts, and made my bag. Then, I put it into the trunk to know how much I needed to mask. I'm currently laying glass onto my mold. It's almost there, just a few more layers in a few spots that I've been neglecting, and it will be ready. Then, I'll use my bag to get an idea of how much needs to be cut away. After that, I can use it to mount the ring, and know there's enough area behind it to get that 1 cuft. This is a great way to help myself actually visualize what 1 cuft actually looks like, while I'm fabricating an enclosure that's supposed to contain that. So far it looks like I'm right on target. ;) Hope this might help some of you out there.

interesting thanks for the post

Not a bad tip at all. This is appreciated.

-------------
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

When you do not know what you are doing and what you are doing is the best -- that is inspiration.

this will help the guy that wants to measure his airspace in liters, since trash bags will give you the volume in liters too.

All depending on where you tie it. Metric is the new and improved language of measures, so catch up.

All depending on where you tie it. Metric is the new and improved language of measures, so catch up.

what is the benefit of having less air space??

-------------
wuz craking

Well, in a sealed enclosure, once you pass the sub's ideal airspace amount, you start losing a lot of things. Power handling ability, sound quality, etc... When a manufacturer says a sub needs 1.0cuft to operate at its best, that doesn't mean it will be twice as good at 2.0cuft. I'm sure others can explain it better than me.

With less airspace, depending on the Qs of the sub, various things can happen...

Power handling goes up (in an ideally sealed box) but it loses efficiency for output (basic physics) ie it will take more power to make the same level of sound.

Response goes up as well, but depending on sub, it may become unstable. With those with a soft spider (such as kicker) the response clarity goes up, but it risks more distortion from overpressure for SOME notes.

A third effect is that the sub will heat up faster and MAY cause it to fail sooner from deforming the voice coil former or melting the glue that holds the magnet wire in place (and causes the really bad smell from burned speakers)

Other things happen too but I just mentioned the more noticible ones.

-------------
Never send your ducks to eagle school.
The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.
The 3Ls of life: Learn from the Past, Live for the Present, Look to the Future.