Awesome stories!

These are with the original, well your original imperial design?

I may have to build one for absolutely no reason now, I have no room for it, and no cash to pay for it, but I need it.

But honestly, for bass only, SO or normal Imperial?

As I will be taking the box apart again to add weight to the speaker cones or completely replacing the subs I now have a question about sand filling the dead spaces in the box.  I have read reports that sitting a sub in a sandbox (not likely for most people) and putting a 100 lb bag of sand on the top can improve response by up to 3 db.  The Dinsdale articles describe a method of using sand filled panels to actually make the box.  And sand filling dead cavities is generally accepted as good practice as long as you can deal with the extra weight.

I want to know if anyone has tried any of these options in an imperial and if it is worth it, as it would certainly be a lot of weight and my box is already well over 300 lb.

I have now read this thread at least three times and have to chime in. My acoustics instructor has all kinds of custom, very fancy folded horns with Lowther DX3's (pictured below). However, he has two Jensen Imperials in his "home office". I have heard his full 5.1 system with the lowthers and a klipsch folded horn corner subwoofer. He says his two imperials blow his horn-loaded 5.1 system out of the water. In his words "Nothing can compare to the Imperials."



I know putting these horns in an imperial thread is tantamount to blasphemy, but I decided to anyway.

It is my understanding he has the first of the two, with the rectangular footprint. He also gave the class copies of an original Jensen Speaker building manual (circa 1956) which has both designs detailed in it. So, I have plans for the original imperials (rectangular and corner design), but not Steve's new and improved design.

BTW, the illustrations in the manual are hilarious, very 50's!

[quote author=J_Rock  link=1139429263/30#30 date=1139590319]These are with the original, well your original imperial design? [/quote]
Hi J Rock, as I understand it these stories from Steve were with Jensen's design!  Steve did not come out with his improved Imperial until Christmas 2002 when he debuted it here in these forums in the "Hell Those Aren't Big" thread.  
He should be able to kill even more mice now.

Great news!  I 'm happy for you Randy.

Well ..... Saturday went well.  We worked for about 5 hours and got most of the big pieces cut and trimmed to exact specs.  Mike worked a few more hours on Sunday and got a good number of the smaller pieces cut .....

We dry clamped the outer pieces of the big box together so that I could do a little drooling ..... I created a lovely puddle .....

Mike promises to take photos at each stage of construction when he starts putting them together.

This might be the longest month of my life ..... ???

Randy

[quote author=Brian  link=1139429263/30#37 date=1140728993]The much smaller size makes that corner Imperial  interesting.  I would like to hear from someone who has used one of those.

Edit:
I found this in the classic Imperial thread:
"This is the "cut-corner" home version of the Imperial. Paul and I have built a pair of these also, still have them.  They do not compare to the full size imperial with one 15.  They really do not compare to the new models.  They do not go much lower than 37 Hz, and they sound sloppy compared to these new ones." - Steve D.

So I guess that answers that. [/quote]


I missed this entry..
I built a single of the corner Imperial in a SO configuration out of cardboard Some of it was wood and it was heavily reinforced.
they had to be in a corner and and worked well and now is a Imperial without the SO mod and seems louder but not as low but I never did any real testing.
I can't speak for the full range but my first rendition of this design was nice in the right location.
the horn mouth is much smaller and thats where the wall comes in..
I have them laying in the garage under my workbench with the top off and the horn extended by my workbench they sound great and low.

I would build the imperial over most designs in a sub and likely a full range if I had the room.
I have yet to build a full range Imperial design..

the Transflex design is in a attempted redesign at the moment and I am trying to convert it into a corner design about 8 feet tall. It was Johns idea to try it but I have not been happy with what I have come up with yet. I don't want to use all that wood on a bad design.

It ain't no horn but its a Jensen design to pick up where the Imp drops off.. I think its excessive low, but looks like fun..
So far its not looking good enough to follow through with.