ulrisa

If you need something cheap try looking for some used amps. 30 watts is a little better, but I'm sure if you look around you could get a pretty decent amp for <$100. I like this one http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_17518_Power+Acoustik+OVN2-600.html But never had experience with Power Acoustik, I think they are overrated right? My components are 80rms and I would still run them with the crossover just to be safe. And for this, 8 gauge should be MORE than enough right? I think that would be fine. 8 awg is plenty for such a small amp.

If you need something cheap try looking for some used amps. 30 watts is a little better, but I'm sure if you look around you could get a pretty decent amp for <$100.

While the sealed doors really help, my speakers were being run active the whole time. Deadening will help a lot, but the amp is definitely something you want to get first. You could probably pick up a pretty cheap amp for just 80 watts rms x 2, then get some deadening when you have the money. You really need both an amp and deadening to get the max amount of midbass out of those speakers. Once you do that, those 6x8's are going to be a distant memory because your new speakers should blow them out of the water. Good luck, and I'm happy my build log helped you .

You could use something like this http://store.solar-electric.com/hacrtoforlal.html or you could just use a vice. I've used both methods, the special crimper works well but the vice isn't too bad if you don't have the money or a lot of connections to crimp.

Hi! I am rebuilding my whole system this summer. This build is going to be slow because I will be getting things as I get the money for them. My goals are: Loud, great sounding bass and mids/highs. Basically I want to have the ability to get loud when I want it, but I want it to sound good so when I'm just on my way to work the sound quality is still amazing. Trunk space doesn't really matter, but backseats do. I also want to upgrade my electrical system at some point. What kind of electrical engineer student would I be without a strong electrical lol. The plan so far is: AA Carbon Fiber Mids w/ Havoc ST010 tweeters (2 way active) 2 Xcon 15"'s or Death Penalty 15"'s Sundown SAZ-3500D and Rockford T-400-4 Redo Big 3 with Knukonceptz Fleks, HO alt (still not sure from who), possibly XS Power batteries Alright so it's time for some pictures! Sorry this is going to be a long first post, but I already got the doors deadened/sealed. This is what I got in the mail today! CLD tiles and extruded butyl rope from Don at SDS. Great stuff, I wouldn't buy anything else. Here is the door panel in question. Yes that is the speaker wire that is outside of the rubber boot. I tried to run it through the boot, but Volvo's seem to be specifically designed to make any audio modifications impossible lol. This doesn't look as good, but it's still safe. Door panel is off. I proceeded to take off the vapor barrier (plastic stuff), and clean the surfaces with brake pad cleaner. Very powerful stuff, but if your not careful I can take the paint! haha. Just showing the inner CLD tiles off. The beauty of these tiles is that you don't need to completely cover the surface for them to be effective. This is the finished door. I sealed off all possible holes. Here is the driver side before and after. That does it for now! Stay tuned. I'm going to deaden the roof next. I'm saving the butyl rope for later when I get my new speakers so I can properly seal them. Let me know if the pictures are too big! I just realized it and it's a little late now haha.

I actually sealed my doors with SDS CLD tiles and it is in my build log. Ulrisa's Build I would also recommend that you talk to Don, but there are some good pictures in there for reference. It's near the bottom of the first page. The best way to do it is to make panels that are removable out of fiberglass or something, in case you want to take it off later or a mechanic needs to get in there. In my case it didn't really matter because my dad is my mechanic and I don't plan on taking it off the doors lol.

Thanks Mark! That's awesome! Pretty sweet to see my ride on the internet haha.

Isn't the KnuKonceptz Fleks 99.9% copper?

They actually list the same RMS specs (if you look closer, it got me too), but the more expensive one has a subsonic filter which you would usually want for a ported enclosure.

It really depends on the car. I had dimming lights with under 1000 watts without a second battery. Voltage was always above 12 but lights are pretty sensitive. I'd say try it first and see if he actually needs upgrades.

I have mine crossed at 50 hz and 2500 hz with no problems. Very good speakers, well worth making a baffle for them.

If you are worried about SPL, then I would definitely suggest the BL. A Q can get loud, but its more designed for SQ. A BL is still going to sound way better than an L7. You might want to try getting a new box for the L7's, 1.25 ft^3 for a 12 ported is way too small. Also, prefabs tend to have tuning around 40 hz, you would want something in the 30's for it to sound good. Good luck on whatever you decide.

I use an aux cable to my pioneer 5900ib with my Zune HD 32gb. I can't stand listening to the same music all the time so it's nice to have 3,000 songs on shuffle (though I find the random algorithm can be a bit limited at times). Sound quality is great, can't really tell much of a difference between cd's and my zune, it has a very clean output.

So I heard there was an SPL competition on campus the other day and I decided to go. I was expecting a termlab setup, but some girl shows up with a scosche meter (max 130 db and not accurate). I was like, sweet this isn't going to measure anything lol. The Xcon's performed nicely, everyone was impressed. A guy with 4 15" rockford fosgate p3's ported in a truck in a box that was almost a wall (not sealed). It sounded nice and everything, but it was not as loud as my car and it barely moved air (I can do a hairtrick lol). He even admitted mine was better, yet he won the trophy. Not a big deal, I just don't see the point of having a competition that isn't properly set up. Maybe I'll help them next year. I do have to say though, I still had fun. I love giving people demos, and everyone was shocked with what the Xcon's can do. Hopefully some more people will be getting SSA subs now and XS batts lol (I don't have one, but they all thought optimas were the best). The best candidate was my physics TA, lol. Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb (Bass Version) actually popped my B pillar cover off with the lows. It's fun to show those people who just bump around campus with the windows down what a real system sounds like lol (sounds like I'm a dick about it but I'm not, I just point them in the right direction). I have some pictures of some of the modified cars, there were actually some cool ones. I'll post some if there is any interest.

Ok here are some pics. I didn't get many of the cars, because I did demo after demo for a lot of it lol. This was just a cool car. I've never seen anything like it. This car was just like the one from Dukes of Hazard Badass Rockford punch amps. Punch Classics. I really liked this car. I'm not usually a fan of Grand Am's, but this guy did a great job with the interior. This is the huge clip that the Xcon's somehow vibrated out of the b pillar lol. I can't remember if I posted a trunk pic or not. This is my full trunk haha. I wish I could organize it a little bit, but this actually works really well.

I actually will probably be buying one from you next summer. I plan on starting the car audio club and doing some real comps! Yeah I know lol. It was pretty stupid. Hopefully I can get this stuff organized up here lol. That's too bad! There aren't many in Maine, but even the crappy ones can be fun lol. I'll get some pics up soon, I need to get my camera. I didn't take videos because my car was the only one really bumping and I'll get some more vids of that later. One other funny thing that happened was this guy with a neon that thought he had the loudest setup on Earth. He said his Pioneer "Comp" amp (could've been) put out 4000 watts but he was putting out 14000 LOL. I tried SOOO hard not to laugh, I was just like "I really think you should hear my car". He said I was ONLY running 3500 watts, lol. He sat in my car for 10 seconds and bailed out lol, he said I should "turn it down" as advice for my set up. Great advice for SPL comps right? haha

The red cord actually goes into the right port. A is for Amps, V ohm etc is what you want for voltage. edit: Whoops, your left, not the pictures left lol. Disregard this if you put it in the right one.

I'd have to agree with Don, a new subsection without a brand name for sound deadening would be a great addition to this forum.

Equipment: 2 Xcon 12's (dual 1's) on a Incriminator Audio 40.1 at 1 ohm (3600 watts rms at 12v on stable electrical), pioneer 5900ib First off, I came home today and I decided to do a little testing on the Xcon's where I could actually see them. I noticed that the subwoofer farther away from the port has much more excursion (xmax) than the one close to the port. I feel like this might have something to do with a ported box where the port is on one side, but I'm not entirely sure. I also noticed that the one with more excursion is getting hot, (one close to the port is warm but not hot). This concerns me, I feel like it points to one being at a different resistance than the other. That doesn't make much sense though, because I checked it with a multimeter before I hooked up the amp and it reads one ohm at the box. Each sub's coils are wired in series (2 ohms) and then in parallel (2/2=1 ohm). The only other thing that comes to mind is signal level clipping. I have no bass boost set or anything, but I have everything set for volume 55 on the hu (out of 62). As far as I know pioneers don't put out a clipped signal even at max, and this is how I have always had it set without a problem (doesn't sound like it's clipping either). Gain was set with a multimeter, then adjusted by ear. The source of my problems seem to be stemming from this woofer that is getting too much excursion, any suggestions? Does it point towards this design of ported box, cooked coils, or clipping? Unfortunately the multimeter at my house is messed up so I'll have to measure the total ohm load again when I get back to school. Thanks for any advice and feel free to ask if I forgot to mention something.

Finally getting back to everyone on this, I'm actually pretty embarrassed of what it was. Apparently when you have a powerful amplifier even the littlest clipping can be quite destructive. I didn't get an o-scope yet, but I'm going to do that in a couple days. Using a multimeter, I determined the wattage from the ac voltage. It was supposed to be 59.17 volts for 3500 watts. It was playing at 80 volts on the loud songs! That's 6400 watts at 1 ohm! (I used both a song, and a -6db test tone to check this) Of course that assumes that clipping didn't change the resistance in the coils which would make the numbers higher of course (so probably wasn't really that much). Even still, I am amazed that the Xcon's survived the torture I gave them, and still didn't sound distorted (to the ear) even with clipping and overpowering. Needless to say, I'm pretty sure that was why one had greater excursion than the other (possibly resistance change, heat dissipation etc). If only I had my multimeter with me that day. I have the gain set correctly now, and they sound pretty much just as loud and and with even better SQ. Coils still read at 1.2 ohms, so I'd say they are fine. Mark and Aaron, this is one hell of a woofer. Hard to believe they took that much power for quite a long time and still work just fine. At least I have an even finer appreciation for the Xcon's as an outcome of this scare/embarrassment. Moral of the story is TRIPLE check the gain if you don't have an o-scope. All it took was like a micrometer change on the potentiometer for the gain, to go from 59 v, to anything varying from 67-80v. Thanks for the tips everyone, I will keep them in mind for future issues. I'll do some further testing, but I am pretty sure everything is all set now.

Wow man. Impressive how fast and efficient you work. I can't believe how much solid progress you've made in just a couple days.