Very Inexpensive Subwoofer

Although I yearn for a sophisticated audio system to compliment my Hauptwerk system with it's incredible dynamic range, reality monetary considerations got in the way of my fantasy !!!. Instead, I opted for using headphones. Professor Maier ( OrganArts) recommended using AKG 701's. These headphones are quite amazing, yielding a clean and clear response with a very wide dynamic and audio range. The one thing that I did miss, though, was the "feel" of the 16 foot stopped or open wood pipe ( i.e. a 16' Bourdon). In a real pipe organ, part of the thrill is the "feel" of that low note, as well as it's frequency.

I experimented by taking some Radio Shack Mach II speakers that had 15" woofers in them. I disconnected the midrange and tweeter to see if the 15" cone would give me that rumble that I wanted. It did, but the extended range of this 15" speaker made the 8 foot registers on the pedal and manuals way too muddy. I needed to limit the frequency to about one octave ( i.e. I did not want the speaker to register any notes above an 8 foot pipe ( 64 hertz). I found that a company in Brooklyn , N.Y. ( Pyle electronics ) had a electronic powered ( 12 volts DC) subwoofer crossover called the PLX-2 for $14.95. I considered the low price worth the risk of an experiment. I routed the device to my 15" woofers and it worked !!!!!!! The unit allows the user to adjust the cut off point, but I limited it to 50 hertz. Now, I can play using my headphones and the 15" woofers that add that rumble that I missed.

If I go up the pedal scale from 16 foot low C, it quickly goes away about an octave above that. Quite amazing. The unit even has a subwoofer bass boost of
-12 db but I don't need to use it. My amplifier ( 200 watts per channel) makes the speaker cones rattle my light fixtures. These Radio Shack speakers that I retired years ago are really bad speakers, but for this application they are excellent. My investment was less than $20 so I am quite happy.

Dear Antoni

If I remember correctly a lot of the thrust of your energy is on Midmer Losh and no doubt being abstemious about a sub-woofer will no doubt be helping that big monster . . . and it's good to know that often expensive equipment simply isn't necessary to get good results in this region.

You have hit on something very important - past research by members of the EOCS determined that one of the main "giveaways" that one is listening to an electronic is boominess in the 100-150Hz region. It's for that reason that I recommend speakers with a crossover no higher than 100 Hz or so and if there is an acoustic cutoff of the high freqency unit below 150 Hz, all the better.

Best wishes

David P