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Enclosure Types: Isobaric tutorial | |
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There
are several different isobaric loading configurations to choose from,
so which is the right one for you? This is a loaded question that quite
often has no clear-cut answer. At JL Audio, we do not recommend the use
of isobaric loading to just anyone...we do not believe that the more
subwoofers that you can shoe-horn into any given volume of air produces
the best results. In fact, we're sure you've seen plenty of examples to
support this line of thinking. So, we only recommend that you consider
using isobaric loading if one or more of the following conditions holds
true: | |
 | |
| 1. You have more subwoofers than space to properly utilize them.
The first condition is a common occurence if you decide to change
vehicles and keep the sound system or when you out-grow that desire to
consume every cubic inch of your vehicle's storage space with
subwoofers. You don't want to sell your equipment because you've fallen
in love with it and so you begin to look for any way you can to keep it
all (after all it *does* sound impressive to say "Hey, I've got 16
eight-inch woofers in the back of my Jetta"). Since iso-loading allows
us to use the same number of pistons (a piston is one air-moving
unit--think of it as you would the pistons in your engine) in half the
space, an isobaric loading scheme might prove very attractive here. 2. You have more power than you know what to do with and little space to work with. The second condition may hold true if you've suddenly acquired a 500W amplifier for your subs and your poor little 150W subwoofer just cannot handle that kind of power. In this case, you might switch from one 150W driver (such as a JL Audio 10W1v2) in a 0.625 cubic foot enclosure to four of the same drivers (2 isogroups) in the same sized box. This would bump your effective power handling up to 600W -- which should handle the added power just fine. Of course, you could simply upgrade to a single 10W7, too. 3. You have more money than you know what to do with. The third condition is pretty self-explanatory... you've got money burning a hole in your pocket and rather than purchase a new set of tires to replace your balding Dunlops, you decide to splurge on stereo equipment and try to put as much stuff into your car as possible. 4. You are a golden-eared tweak who can detect subtle non-linearities in your sub-bass. The fourth and final condition is a subtlety that most probably won't be familiar with. One of the nice little side-effects of using a face-to-face (or back-to-back) loading arragements is the cancellation or driver non-linearities. This will be explored a little later though. |
In short, if you're out to try isobaric loads for reasons such as "It
looks cool" or "I heard that they 'hit harder than anything else", then your money would more
likely be better spent on something else a little less costly. Of
course, we wholeheartedly support those who love to try new things just
for the sake of trying out new things or to further their understanding
of various subwoofer systems so don't take what you read here as
discouragement...just fair warning of what to expect.
With all this said and done, let's explore some of the advantages and disadvantages of the "piggy-back" tunnel load, back-to-back tunnel load, the planar load and the "clamshell" isobaric configurations:     |
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