DVC Subs, for the nerds in the house
July-4th-2003, 12:09 AM
#1
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DVC Subs, for the nerds in the house
WARNING! TECH NERD POST AHEAD!
Somebody was asking about DVC subs in another thread and I was going to explain it there, but I figured it deserved its own thread. So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you THE THEORY BEHIND DVC SUBS, by 03SilverProLX:
To understand a DVC Sub, you have to understand a few basic things about electricity and how speakers work. I'll be as terse as possible to get to the good stuff.
ELECTRICITY:
Any good electrical engineer or high school physics student will tell you that V=IR, or Voltage=Current multiplied times Resistance. Current is the number of electons flowing, and Voltage is the energy those electrons have. Resistance removes energy from the electrons, and it's all related in that equation. The only important thing to remember is V=IR.
...AAAAND THEEEN?
Resistance is kind of a funny subject. A given RESISTANCE can remove a certain amount of VOLTAGE (energy) from a given CURRENT (flow of electricity. This is expressed in that V=IR equation. So if you have 2 amps going through a 4 ohm resistor, you'll have a voltage drop of 8 volts. But if you pass that 2 amps through two 4 ohm resistors in a row, you'll remove 16 volts of energy from them. See a pattern? I hope so. If not, read it again--this is where it gets confusing. In the last example, you went through two resistors, one after another. However, if you hook up that circuit to where the current can pass through those two resistors AT THE SAME TIME, it's called hooking them up in 'parallel.' So now 1 amp of current goes through each resistor, and the voltage drop is only 4 volts. This would be the same as pushing 2 amps of current through a TWO OHM resistor. Stick that in the back of your head....we'll come back to it later.
But what is POWER?
You'll notice amplifiers are rated in Watts, just like light bulbs and appliances. Well, power is a measure of energy delivered or absorbed in a given amount of time. 1 Watt equals 1 Volt multiplied by 1 Amp of current; P=V*I. Using the equation above, you could also say that P=V^2/R or P=I^2*R. For example, the voltage coming out of the wall in your house is 120 Volts. So if you hook up a 60 Watt light bulb, you can figure out the current through that light bulb by solving P=V*I. 60 Watts = 120 Volts * I, so I=0.5 amps. I'll explain why that's important in a minute. But first....
SPEAKERS:
Most of you probably know this already, but I just want to make sure everybody's on the same page. Sound is just variations in air pressure picked up by your eardrums, and all speakers do is create variations in air pressure. But how do they do this? A speaker is basically a cone attached to a magnet, and this magnet has wire wrapped around it a bunch of times. (Actually, the cone might be mounted to the wire coil and the magnet around IT, I can't remember, but it doesn't really matter right now.) When current passes through that coil of wire, it generates a magnetic field that opposes that of the magnet around the coil. So the coil tries to move out of this angry magnetic field the only way it knows how: moving the speaker cone out. Then the current stops and the speakers goes back to its starting point. Repeat this process 60 times in a second, and you get a 60 Hz bass note. The important part is this: The more current you can pass through that coil, the farther the speaker will 'jump', and the louder the sound will be.
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER (THE BEAUTY OF DVC SUBS)
Now what does this have to do with anything? I'll explain. Your amp, like a light bulb, is capable of putting out a certain amount of POWER. You'll notice that one of our equations for POWER above was something along the lines of P=I^2 * R. So the power output can be expressed as a function of the resistance. (Quick note: for our discussion, you can use the words 'impedance' and 'resistance' interchangably.) In one of the examples I saw was '100 watts into 4 ohms, or 200 watts into 2 ohms.' This means the amp can 'push' 5 Amps of current through 4 ohms of resistance, or 10 Amps through 2 ohms. If you remember our example above, we got 2 ohms of resistance by hooking up two 4-ohm resistances at the same time; in this case, we get 2 ohms of impedance (resistance) by hooking up 2 speakers at the same time (as opposed to 'daisy chaning' them, or whatever it's called.) So a total of 200 Watts of power is used by 2 speakers, as opposed to only 100 Watts if we hook up one speaker. So we effectively double our power by hooking up another speaker in parallel.
WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH DVC's?
FINALLY! The beauty of a DVC, or Dual Voice Coil sub, is just that: it has two different voice coils. What that means is you can basically hook that speaker up twice, essentially in parallel with itself. This drops the effective impedance/resistance of the whole setup, and now we have 200 Watts going into that one subwoofer, instead of the 100 Watts we used to have. So you get all the advantages of a single sub, but with a lot more power. This translates to bass with some serious THUMP.
There's your electrical engineering lesson for the day. If you have any questions, ask them here or e-mail me.
chad
Somebody was asking about DVC subs in another thread and I was going to explain it there, but I figured it deserved its own thread. So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you THE THEORY BEHIND DVC SUBS, by 03SilverProLX:
To understand a DVC Sub, you have to understand a few basic things about electricity and how speakers work. I'll be as terse as possible to get to the good stuff.
ELECTRICITY:
Any good electrical engineer or high school physics student will tell you that V=IR, or Voltage=Current multiplied times Resistance. Current is the number of electons flowing, and Voltage is the energy those electrons have. Resistance removes energy from the electrons, and it's all related in that equation. The only important thing to remember is V=IR.
...AAAAND THEEEN?
Resistance is kind of a funny subject. A given RESISTANCE can remove a certain amount of VOLTAGE (energy) from a given CURRENT (flow of electricity. This is expressed in that V=IR equation. So if you have 2 amps going through a 4 ohm resistor, you'll have a voltage drop of 8 volts. But if you pass that 2 amps through two 4 ohm resistors in a row, you'll remove 16 volts of energy from them. See a pattern? I hope so. If not, read it again--this is where it gets confusing. In the last example, you went through two resistors, one after another. However, if you hook up that circuit to where the current can pass through those two resistors AT THE SAME TIME, it's called hooking them up in 'parallel.' So now 1 amp of current goes through each resistor, and the voltage drop is only 4 volts. This would be the same as pushing 2 amps of current through a TWO OHM resistor. Stick that in the back of your head....we'll come back to it later.
But what is POWER?
You'll notice amplifiers are rated in Watts, just like light bulbs and appliances. Well, power is a measure of energy delivered or absorbed in a given amount of time. 1 Watt equals 1 Volt multiplied by 1 Amp of current; P=V*I. Using the equation above, you could also say that P=V^2/R or P=I^2*R. For example, the voltage coming out of the wall in your house is 120 Volts. So if you hook up a 60 Watt light bulb, you can figure out the current through that light bulb by solving P=V*I. 60 Watts = 120 Volts * I, so I=0.5 amps. I'll explain why that's important in a minute. But first....
SPEAKERS:
Most of you probably know this already, but I just want to make sure everybody's on the same page. Sound is just variations in air pressure picked up by your eardrums, and all speakers do is create variations in air pressure. But how do they do this? A speaker is basically a cone attached to a magnet, and this magnet has wire wrapped around it a bunch of times. (Actually, the cone might be mounted to the wire coil and the magnet around IT, I can't remember, but it doesn't really matter right now.) When current passes through that coil of wire, it generates a magnetic field that opposes that of the magnet around the coil. So the coil tries to move out of this angry magnetic field the only way it knows how: moving the speaker cone out. Then the current stops and the speakers goes back to its starting point. Repeat this process 60 times in a second, and you get a 60 Hz bass note. The important part is this: The more current you can pass through that coil, the farther the speaker will 'jump', and the louder the sound will be.
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER (THE BEAUTY OF DVC SUBS)
Now what does this have to do with anything? I'll explain. Your amp, like a light bulb, is capable of putting out a certain amount of POWER. You'll notice that one of our equations for POWER above was something along the lines of P=I^2 * R. So the power output can be expressed as a function of the resistance. (Quick note: for our discussion, you can use the words 'impedance' and 'resistance' interchangably.) In one of the examples I saw was '100 watts into 4 ohms, or 200 watts into 2 ohms.' This means the amp can 'push' 5 Amps of current through 4 ohms of resistance, or 10 Amps through 2 ohms. If you remember our example above, we got 2 ohms of resistance by hooking up two 4-ohm resistances at the same time; in this case, we get 2 ohms of impedance (resistance) by hooking up 2 speakers at the same time (as opposed to 'daisy chaning' them, or whatever it's called.) So a total of 200 Watts of power is used by 2 speakers, as opposed to only 100 Watts if we hook up one speaker. So we effectively double our power by hooking up another speaker in parallel.
WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH DVC's?
FINALLY! The beauty of a DVC, or Dual Voice Coil sub, is just that: it has two different voice coils. What that means is you can basically hook that speaker up twice, essentially in parallel with itself. This drops the effective impedance/resistance of the whole setup, and now we have 200 Watts going into that one subwoofer, instead of the 100 Watts we used to have. So you get all the advantages of a single sub, but with a lot more power. This translates to bass with some serious THUMP.
There's your electrical engineering lesson for the day. If you have any questions, ask them here or e-mail me.
chad
July-4th-2003, 09:16 AM
#3
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Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Mass
Posts: 351
Re: DVC Subs, for the nerds in the house
Originally posted by 03SilverProLX
WARNING! TECH NERD POST AHEAD!
Somebody was asking about DVC subs in another thread and I was going to explain it there, but I figured it deserved its own thread. So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you THE THEORY BEHIND DVC SUBS, by 03SilverProLX:
To understand a DVC Sub, you have to understand a few basic things about electricity and how speakers work. I'll be as terse as possible to get to the good stuff.
ELECTRICITY:
Any good electrical engineer or high school physics student will tell you that V=IR, or Voltage=Current multiplied times Resistance. Current is the number of electons flowing, and Voltage is the energy those electrons have. Resistance removes energy from the electrons, and it's all related in that equation. The only important thing to remember is V=IR.
...AAAAND THEEEN?
Resistance is kind of a funny subject. A given RESISTANCE can remove a certain amount of VOLTAGE (energy) from a given CURRENT (flow of electricity. This is expressed in that V=IR equation. So if you have 2 amps going through a 4 ohm resistor, you'll have a voltage drop of 8 volts. But if you pass that 2 amps through two 4 ohm resistors in a row, you'll remove 16 volts of energy from them. See a pattern? I hope so. If not, read it again--this is where it gets confusing. In the last example, you went through two resistors, one after another. However, if you hook up that circuit to where the current can pass through those two resistors AT THE SAME TIME, it's called hooking them up in 'parallel.' So now 1 amp of current goes through each resistor, and the voltage drop is only 4 volts. This would be the same as pushing 2 amps of current through a TWO OHM resistor. Stick that in the back of your head....we'll come back to it later.
But what is POWER?
You'll notice amplifiers are rated in Watts, just like light bulbs and appliances. Well, power is a measure of energy delivered or absorbed in a given amount of time. 1 Watt equals 1 Volt multiplied by 1 Amp of current; P=V*I. Using the equation above, you could also say that P=V^2/R or P=I^2*R. For example, the voltage coming out of the wall in your house is 120 Volts. So if you hook up a 60 Watt light bulb, you can figure out the current through that light bulb by solving P=V*I. 60 Watts = 120 Volts * I, so I=0.5 amps. I'll explain why that's important in a minute. But first....
SPEAKERS:
Most of you probably know this already, but I just want to make sure everybody's on the same page. Sound is just variations in air pressure picked up by your eardrums, and all speakers do is create variations in air pressure. But how do they do this? A speaker is basically a cone attached to a magnet, and this magnet has wire wrapped around it a bunch of times. (Actually, the cone might be mounted to the wire coil and the magnet around IT, I can't remember, but it doesn't really matter right now.) When current passes through that coil of wire, it generates a magnetic field that opposes that of the magnet around the coil. So the coil tries to move out of this angry magnetic field the only way it knows how: moving the speaker cone out. Then the current stops and the speakers goes back to its starting point. Repeat this process 60 times in a second, and you get a 60 Hz bass note. The important part is this: The more current you can pass through that coil, the farther the speaker will 'jump', and the louder the sound will be.
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER (THE BEAUTY OF DVC SUBS)
Now what does this have to do with anything? I'll explain. Your amp, like a light bulb, is capable of putting out a certain amount of POWER. You'll notice that one of our equations for POWER above was something along the lines of P=I^2 * R. So the power output can be expressed as a function of the resistance. (Quick note: for our discussion, you can use the words 'impedance' and 'resistance' interchangably.) In one of the examples I saw was '100 watts into 4 ohms, or 200 watts into 2 ohms.' This means the amp can 'push' 5 Amps of current through 4 ohms of resistance, or 10 Amps through 2 ohms. If you remember our example above, we got 2 ohms of resistance by hooking up two 4-ohm resistances at the same time; in this case, we get 2 ohms of impedance (resistance) by hooking up 2 speakers at the same time (as opposed to 'daisy chaning' them, or whatever it's called.) So a total of 200 Watts of power is used by 2 speakers, as opposed to only 100 Watts if we hook up one speaker. So we effectively double our power by hooking up another speaker in parallel.
WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH DVC's?
FINALLY! The beauty of a DVC, or Dual Voice Coil sub, is just that: it has two different voice coils. What that means is you can basically hook that speaker up twice, essentially in parallel with itself. This drops the effective impedance/resistance of the whole setup, and now we have 200 Watts going into that one subwoofer, instead of the 100 Watts we used to have. So you get all the advantages of a single sub, but with a lot more power. This translates to bass with some serious THUMP.
There's your electrical engineering lesson for the day. If you have any questions, ask them here or e-mail me.
chad
WARNING! TECH NERD POST AHEAD!
Somebody was asking about DVC subs in another thread and I was going to explain it there, but I figured it deserved its own thread. So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you THE THEORY BEHIND DVC SUBS, by 03SilverProLX:
To understand a DVC Sub, you have to understand a few basic things about electricity and how speakers work. I'll be as terse as possible to get to the good stuff.
ELECTRICITY:
Any good electrical engineer or high school physics student will tell you that V=IR, or Voltage=Current multiplied times Resistance. Current is the number of electons flowing, and Voltage is the energy those electrons have. Resistance removes energy from the electrons, and it's all related in that equation. The only important thing to remember is V=IR.
...AAAAND THEEEN?
Resistance is kind of a funny subject. A given RESISTANCE can remove a certain amount of VOLTAGE (energy) from a given CURRENT (flow of electricity. This is expressed in that V=IR equation. So if you have 2 amps going through a 4 ohm resistor, you'll have a voltage drop of 8 volts. But if you pass that 2 amps through two 4 ohm resistors in a row, you'll remove 16 volts of energy from them. See a pattern? I hope so. If not, read it again--this is where it gets confusing. In the last example, you went through two resistors, one after another. However, if you hook up that circuit to where the current can pass through those two resistors AT THE SAME TIME, it's called hooking them up in 'parallel.' So now 1 amp of current goes through each resistor, and the voltage drop is only 4 volts. This would be the same as pushing 2 amps of current through a TWO OHM resistor. Stick that in the back of your head....we'll come back to it later.
But what is POWER?
You'll notice amplifiers are rated in Watts, just like light bulbs and appliances. Well, power is a measure of energy delivered or absorbed in a given amount of time. 1 Watt equals 1 Volt multiplied by 1 Amp of current; P=V*I. Using the equation above, you could also say that P=V^2/R or P=I^2*R. For example, the voltage coming out of the wall in your house is 120 Volts. So if you hook up a 60 Watt light bulb, you can figure out the current through that light bulb by solving P=V*I. 60 Watts = 120 Volts * I, so I=0.5 amps. I'll explain why that's important in a minute. But first....
SPEAKERS:
Most of you probably know this already, but I just want to make sure everybody's on the same page. Sound is just variations in air pressure picked up by your eardrums, and all speakers do is create variations in air pressure. But how do they do this? A speaker is basically a cone attached to a magnet, and this magnet has wire wrapped around it a bunch of times. (Actually, the cone might be mounted to the wire coil and the magnet around IT, I can't remember, but it doesn't really matter right now.) When current passes through that coil of wire, it generates a magnetic field that opposes that of the magnet around the coil. So the coil tries to move out of this angry magnetic field the only way it knows how: moving the speaker cone out. Then the current stops and the speakers goes back to its starting point. Repeat this process 60 times in a second, and you get a 60 Hz bass note. The important part is this: The more current you can pass through that coil, the farther the speaker will 'jump', and the louder the sound will be.
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER (THE BEAUTY OF DVC SUBS)
Now what does this have to do with anything? I'll explain. Your amp, like a light bulb, is capable of putting out a certain amount of POWER. You'll notice that one of our equations for POWER above was something along the lines of P=I^2 * R. So the power output can be expressed as a function of the resistance. (Quick note: for our discussion, you can use the words 'impedance' and 'resistance' interchangably.) In one of the examples I saw was '100 watts into 4 ohms, or 200 watts into 2 ohms.' This means the amp can 'push' 5 Amps of current through 4 ohms of resistance, or 10 Amps through 2 ohms. If you remember our example above, we got 2 ohms of resistance by hooking up two 4-ohm resistances at the same time; in this case, we get 2 ohms of impedance (resistance) by hooking up 2 speakers at the same time (as opposed to 'daisy chaning' them, or whatever it's called.) So a total of 200 Watts of power is used by 2 speakers, as opposed to only 100 Watts if we hook up one speaker. So we effectively double our power by hooking up another speaker in parallel.
WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH DVC's?
FINALLY! The beauty of a DVC, or Dual Voice Coil sub, is just that: it has two different voice coils. What that means is you can basically hook that speaker up twice, essentially in parallel with itself. This drops the effective impedance/resistance of the whole setup, and now we have 200 Watts going into that one subwoofer, instead of the 100 Watts we used to have. So you get all the advantages of a single sub, but with a lot more power. This translates to bass with some serious THUMP.
There's your electrical engineering lesson for the day. If you have any questions, ask them here or e-mail me.
chad
-R
July-4th-2003, 03:59 PM
#4
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Originally posted by blue LEDz
that's how they run a **** ton of power to a single sub. they usually use a quad VC sub with 8 amps hooked to it.
that's how they run a **** ton of power to a single sub. they usually use a quad VC sub with 8 amps hooked to it.
July-4th-2003, 07:21 PM
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Location: Fremont, CA
Posts: 456
Okay, I got a question. 
I am very familiar with Ohm's law, but I wasn't sure of the applications of this in speakers, so I asked what's a DVC sub and what does it do. Now that I have seen the advantages of having a DVC my question is: how are the two coils separated? Can you use only one of them? Basically, how is it wired? Is the second coils just an extension of the first one (sort of like splicing two connectors at the middle of the coil and saying that this lenght of wire has 2ohms of resistance, then connecting one more terminal to the end of the wire and saying that the total lenght is doubled and the resistance is effectively doubled). Or are there two electrically independent coils, wound in the same .. medium..? How does it work out?
I am very familiar with Ohm's law, but I wasn't sure of the applications of this in speakers, so I asked what's a DVC sub and what does it do. Now that I have seen the advantages of having a DVC my question is: how are the two coils separated? Can you use only one of them? Basically, how is it wired? Is the second coils just an extension of the first one (sort of like splicing two connectors at the middle of the coil and saying that this lenght of wire has 2ohms of resistance, then connecting one more terminal to the end of the wire and saying that the total lenght is doubled and the resistance is effectively doubled). Or are there two electrically independent coils, wound in the same .. medium..? How does it work out?
July-4th-2003, 09:34 PM
#7
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Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Fremont, CA
Posts: 456
Originally posted by blue LEDz
as i understand it, they are 2 totally seperate windings. you could hook up just one. some manufacturers specify that in their literature, but not all. i don't see how that would have any adverse effects. how exactly they are seperated i can't elaborate on, cause i've never researched it
i haven't really cared how they work, as long as they work
as i understand it, they are 2 totally seperate windings. you could hook up just one. some manufacturers specify that in their literature, but not all. i don't see how that would have any adverse effects. how exactly they are seperated i can't elaborate on, cause i've never researched it
i haven't really cared how they work, as long as they work
For example in your car you have 4 cylinders (maybe 6 .... or 8.... or 12... or more...
), and you use half of them - then you get half the power output of your engine. By using all of the coils, you could reach the maximum output of the device. Hmm...
July-4th-2003, 10:04 PM
#9
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Posts: 456
Originally posted by blue LEDz
wow, i just got done reading this link:
http://adireaudio.com/tech_papers/dvc_subs.htm
i learned a lot of stuff i didn't know about DVC subs. i especially liked the info about putting a potentiometer on one VC and hooking the other to the amp
wow, i just got done reading this link:
http://adireaudio.com/tech_papers/dvc_subs.htm
i learned a lot of stuff i didn't know about DVC subs. i especially liked the info about putting a potentiometer on one VC and hooking the other to the amp
are those the brahma guys?
could you recap in a sentence what's the deal with the potentiometer?
I finished writing a "tutorial" on how to install a "remote trunk release" and I'm kind of tired.... (lazy to read the whole article).
July-4th-2003, 10:41 PM
#11
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Join Date: Mar 2003
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Voice coil philosophy 101 aka deep thoughts by Jack Handy. Just kidding you all! I wondered how a DVC works when using a single woofer. I understand the magnet part of it, but if it is used to move waves opposite to the voice coils, then how does it work with DVCs unless they operate in the same manner, but times two. Do they work in synchronous then? Maybe I should have given Blue my SPL12s before chunking them in a dumpster so he could use the jaws of life to break them in half to see just how it works <much like disecting them>.
MiStEr T
I wondered how a DVC works when using a single woofer. I understand the magnet part of it, but if it is used to move waves opposite to the voice coils, then how does it work with DVCs unless they operate in the same manner, but times two. Do they work in synchronous then? Maybe I should have given Blue my SPL12s before chunking them in a dumpster so he could use the jaws of life to break them in half to see just how it works <much like disecting them>. MiStEr T
July-4th-2003, 10:54 PM
#12
get orvillized! WTF?
Join Date: Mar 2003
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Originally posted by blue LEDz
i've chucked all my fried subs that died out after my 30 day keep it or kill it period except one. that's my autotek mean machine that handled my abuse for over a year it handled a huge amp, low voltage problems (which is what i think fried it, when my battery went dead and the alt couldn't keep up), and 4 different boxes
i did rip apart one of my old hollywood edge subs, but it was SVC, and i didn't really pay much attention to it. i just wanted to use the cone as a decoration in my apartment
i've chucked all my fried subs that died out after my 30 day keep it or kill it period except one. that's my autotek mean machine that handled my abuse for over a year
it handled a huge amp, low voltage problems (which is what i think fried it, when my battery went dead and the alt couldn't keep up), and 4 different boxes i did rip apart one of my old hollywood edge subs, but it was SVC, and i didn't really pay much attention to it. i just wanted to use the cone as a decoration in my apartment
MiStEr T
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