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What the Heck is a Shiva??
Shiva has been the subwoofer on the
minds and drawing pads of thousands of DIY'ers for over a year now.
So what the heck is Shiva? Probably one of the best 12" drivers in
its class for DIY Audio. I started reading about Shiva when the
driver was still under production, early January of 1999. That's
actually around the time this web page came together. I wrote Dan
Wiggins, President of Adire Audio (formerly Avatar Audio) and said, Hey Dan, I want two of your
drivers! At the time I had just finished building a brand new pair
of 12" subwoofers for my home theater. The drivers I had originally
bought were made by Aura and cost me a mere 50 bucks a piece. Yet I
didn't let the cost of the driver deter me from building an awesome
enclosure for it. Cheap drivers in a good box can sound
remarkable. However, the vice-versa of that it true
also.
The Original Aura
Subwoofer
Using the specs for the Aura sub, which still flaunted 8 mm
of Xmax (which used to be considered pretty good), I designed two sub
enclosures for each. The design was basically a QB3 alignment tuned
to 28 Hz for a maximally flat response. The internal volume of the
box was targeted for 3.0 cubic feet (80 L). The 3 cubic feet also
came from the fact that it's the largest enclosure you can build two of out of a
single sheet of 4' x 8' MDF. I maximized every cut and every side so
that not a single piece of wood went to scrap. Even all the
little pieces I used to brace all the panels to reduce any and all
unwanted vibration.
The Results
After I finished the enclosures
and painted them in a piano black lacquer I dropped the drivers in and
gave the new system a whirl. I was totally blown away by these sub's
performance. I had never heard such powerful and deep amounts of
bass in my life. The subs were being driven with a Craver M1.5t
capable of pushing 600 watts RMS into each sub. I lived in a small
apartment complex at the time and the bass was so intense it physically
shook nearly all of the 24 surrounding apartments to the point that every
one would come barging out of their quiet dwellings to find out why their
flatware was falling out of the cupboards and shattering on the
floor. Yes, and most of these people lived all the way down the hall
from me. After that, I was hooked. Hooked on the power of
deep, teeth-shattering, mind-boggling bass. Using my Radio Shack SPL
meter, I was able to hit 120 dB almost anywhere in the room with various
rap artists and boom CD's.
Never Satisfied
That was when I
decided I needed more. I needed more power. I had an amp that
wanted to push these speakers too far. If I wasn't careful I could
get those subs to bottom out like mad. Very loud popping sounds
would protrude from the cone often times. It was a nightmare.
I knew the only way to combat the problem would be with a driver that
could handle more power and had more xmax. That's when I ran across
Shiva. A driver that would beat out my old Aura's by a
landslide. I drooled and drooled until 8 months later I had two
of them arrive on my doorstep. That's some patience I tell
you. I was very impressed with the looks of these drivers. I'd
never seen anything so big, massive, and just plain huge. Although I
do have some gripes with this driver now, that I've worked with it for
various projects, I still believe it to be a great driver and subwoofer
that will work awesome for many applications. And the price is
definitely right.
Moving on to Shiva
By the time my new
Shiva's had arrived, I had moved to a small condo with only 2 other condos
on either side of us, so the worry of bothering the neighbors was reduced
to a minimum. Well, as opposed to having a hundred people mad at me
there would only be a dozen or so. The Shivas frame was a smidgen on the
large side and didn't quite fit in my 11" cutout I'd made for the
Auras. It wasn't that the frame edge was too large, it was that the
frame edge was too deep. The cutout I had made with a jigsaw had the
slightest inward taper on the cutout, reducing it's interior dimension to
just under 11". So I took a file to it and 10 minutes later my new
Shivas were resting nicely in their new little homes. They looked
beautiful and beefy as could be. I wired the coils in a
semi-permanent 4 ohm load because I only had one binding post terminal on
the enclosure. There was no need for wiring it any other way, since
I'd planned on running a stereo amp into each sub at 4
ohms.
The First Few Runs
The first few test
runs were something impressive. By this time I had moved on from
just listening to music to watching movies on my DVD player with my brand
new Sony ES receiver. So I fired up some of my favorite movies and
watched and listened to my new Shiva subwoofers. I believe it was
The Mask of Zorro that impressed me most. The intro with the fast
tap dancing and Zorro walks out and cuts a Z in the
screen. The bass was so intense. It shook everything in the
house and completely blew me and my family who was watching totally out of
our seats. The bass seemed to envelope the entire listening
area. It crept in from all around and surrounded you. It shook
the floor, it shook the seats, it caused your hair to vibrate on your head
and your pants to shake on your legs. There was not a part of your
body that didn't hear and feel the extreme low frequencies that came out
of those subs. I also remember watching Last Man Standing with Bruce
Willis (no, I didn't actually watch the movie with Bruce) and
feeling the powerful impact of gunshots blasting through the room at
life-like levels. As anyone whose ever shot a .44 Magnum knows, when
you pull the trigger on that sucker, not only is it loud as all
hell, but the acoustical shock almost puts a whole through your
chest. I've felt it in real life, and I've re-lived it with these
speakers and this movie. Some other great movies that I enjoyed
thoroughly with my Shivas were The Mummy, The Rock, Terminator, Godzilla,
Backdraft, 5th Element, and the list goes on and on.
The Shiva Driver
For anyone who is
serious about subs and home theater, the Shiva gets 4 stars in my
book. Of the two enclosures I've used Shiva in, I'd say that these
performed the best in the smaller ported enclosure versus the larger EBS
passive radiator enclosure. They can
handle a lot of power, they're loud and play plenty deep, and the
enclosure doesn't take up half my living room. Each sub was cable of
delivering well up to 120 dB SPL within a few feet and both subs together
delivered an impressive 121 dB average SPL for overall in-room
response. Yes, they sounded great. Yet every great sub still
has its pitfalls. With Shiva, I'd have to say the few downsides were
only little things that Adire intentionally skimped on to make the driver
less expensive. Such as the paper cone, the stamped frame, the foam
surround, the flimsy spider and especially those dang, horrible tinsel
leads that would slap against the spider-riser-frame and make rather loud
and obnoxious noises. Other than that, this driver has set a new
standard for long throw subwoofer on the market today. Keep your
eyes peeled for the new Shiva Mark II Subwoofer which Avatar is developing
right now. Which may cost a little bit more, but if they've
re-engineered any of their previous designs, and don't skimp out on
anything, I'm sure for anyone who is serious about DIY will be happy to
pay the extra pennies to get a driver that's totally and completely top-of-the-line.
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The Making Of
Almost Done
Painted with
Auras
New Drivers...Shiva!
Measured Response
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