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Fi Car Audio

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Posts posted by Fi Car Audio

  2. Posted

    Yes, that was designed by me at RE many years ago. Only one exists and I how it is where it is I don't know. It was a proto made for AA and was a solid design. Specs and parts wise as doable for the intended market but seemed to be at a time when AA was going in a different direction and the sub was scrapped. Realistically not too far off from the current Fi Q, although 6-7 years down the line and things are much more refined than that...

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  3. Posted

    Been working more with these and are rather happy with the results. We are extrapolating the design out further and will do more testing with things in the next couple of weeks. Looks like these will end up seeing production given the interest we have had.

    In order to keep costs lower, we have revised the amount of machine time the parts are seeing vs the original here. As always trying to keep the cost realistic and more than competitive for anything close to it. As you can imagine its tough to compete with all of the imported motors and pricing vs. doing all of the machining in house.

    We will keep you posted.

    Thanks,

    Scott

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  6. Posted

    With a ported enclosure you have well... a port. That is basically an open hole of known surface area and length which tunes a box of known volume to a specific frequency.

    The resistance of the tuned port is very high above tuning and near/at tuning it resonates increases the amplitude at those frequencies.

    Below the tuning it unloads and simply becomes a "hole" in the box. This is a problem as the speaker is now essentially functioning in free air. Not a problem when its below its max limits, but still not yielding appreciable output vs its excursion levels... so why run things so hard for so little output. At the same time, people are often beating on their system HARD when this occurs and when they end up playing a track below tuning things REALLY go wild and unload. This will mechanically damage the speaker due to over excursion. Ripped/torn parts, fatiguing the lead wire... all sorts of bad.

    So, we place a sticker on the front of the box telling useful tips on setting up your system... and to me one of the biggest ones (if not the biggest) is to set the subsonic filter properly for ported systems.

    This is true of all subs. Not just ours. Now if you have a decent mechanical excursion sub with relatively no Xmax, it isnt as much of a problem simply due to the fact it has little linearity vs the high mechanical excursion. But on most modern subs where Xmax is closer to 75% of mechanical limits... you can power it linear right up to the point where it wants to break itself.

    Do yourself and the sub a big favor and set the filter a couple of Hz below tuning. If you are unsure of where that is, err on the side of caution and set it higher than needed. You can eventually back down when things break in and you "know" the system a little better. Learning curves are our friends.

    Thanks,

    Scott

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  7. Posted

    People will be receiving calls today. We have the first 50 back orders out based off of the 200 magnets received on the container... but the other container was held up for physical exam. When they do that it is simply hurry up and wait. We have absolutely no control over it.

    I was figuring that they would split the shipment 1000 and 1000 for magnets and not 200 and 1800... and of course the 1800 got stuck.

    I wait everyday for my 4pm call to see if things have cleared.

    I see no reason why we wont have your subs to you well before then. About the longest anything has ever been in customs was a little over a month. And that is an absolute rarity. Normally its 3-10 business days before it gets pulled apart and shoved back in. I would say that we should have it no later than the 16th if they really are being lax about checking them.

    Sorry for the delays...

    Scott

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  9. Posted

    Seat back and small volume are definitely changing the curves. You are somewhat running a reverse aperiodic chambered enclosure. This will not model as a true IB due to the front loading of the sub. Remove the seat and things will change.

    DCR should be 3.8-4.0 Ohms on a meter than reads 0 when crossed out. We are slightly higher on the DCR with these as they are normally in true IB applications in home audio 99% of the time vs car. If there is no way of working around the seat loading... we might need to look at a recone with a custom coil that knocks the DCR down lower and gets things a little closer to 4Ohms at the mins of the curve.

    Thanks,

    Scott

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  10. Posted

    Time for a change with the look vs the old. We have moved the SSD and Q over to the "look" of the BTL... same so with the X. Not any specific advantage, just keeping it in the BTL family.

    BP would help with that kind of power to it. 2 cuft tuned to 33Hz makes for a solid lower powered setup. Does that amp have any provision for a subsonic filter? An adjustable filter is a must on ported applications. Otherwise sub goes into over excursion below tuning and can ruin itself mechanically...

    Thanks,

    Scott

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  11. Posted

    Rizzo30... Qs are the only way to go for sealed (in comparison to the BL). Good choice there.

    Im Hung N ur Not... that does about sum things up. Qs need a little more attention to setup given the softer suspension and higher Xmax. It is easier to damage them if not dialed in than a BL. BLs have a little more of a buffer/tolerance to being setup incorrectly.

    I like the T2500BDs but you WILL need additional subsonic filtering from some other source. The filter on the amp is set to 28Hz and a shallow 12dB per octave. Unless you are tuned to 30, its not going to really do a ton of good for reducing output below tuning and keeping the sub under control.

    Thanks,

    Scott

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  13. Posted

    28 Deep X 40 Wide X 17 Tall. With subs up and port back. Single port on the 17X40 side that is internally 5" Wide X 15.5" tall and 16" Deep. Yields 8 cuft after port and driver tuned to 32Hz. Set the amps subsonic filter 29Hz... no bass boost on headunit or amp and set the gains according to the headunits output voltage.

    Should be good to go with that.

    Thanks,

    Scott

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  15. Posted

    While people use more than the rated power, its not something as a manufacturer that we recommend. The more power used, the less room for error there is in setup. Normal blabbering.... no bass boost on headunit or amp, set gains correctly with respect to headunit output voltage, set subsonic filter 3-4 Hz below tuning for 18-24db/oct filters and 2-3 for 12dB....

    Thanks,

    Scott

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  16. Posted

    Unbiased as I can be... not much of a comparison between the two and very overpriced for the 3500s... find another dealer if that is the route you want to go.

    9500 to BTL... a little closer. But BTL is designed for lower tuned daily (not SPL). It is right at home with the deep stuff and has more overall linearity than the 3500 or 9500.

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  17. Posted

    Did some thermal testing on Friday with it. Im happy with the results so far, but I just finished coding another sink for this one and will machine it tomorrow (if I can get time on one with BTL parts going...). Seems to cool exceedingly well and we had good long term thermal stability with the neos.

    Ill keep updating this one as we do more tests or make changes.

    Thanks,

    Scott

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  18. Posted

    Received 1st container on Friday with about 200 magnet sections stashed on a pallet of other magnets... this will get us rolling on the earliest back orders until the second container clears customs. Both were supposed to be in on the 29th... got one on 30th and other is being held for physical exam via our fine friends at US customs. That container has the other 1800 sections on it.

    When I told them to split the containers for the magnets, I figured they would do it 1000/1000... but at least we can get rolling with these. We are machining motors and should have what we can get from these out by Wednesday.

    All others will receive a call Mon/Tues with time line details. Need to see if we can get a date for the current exam from customs and go from there.

    Again, thanks to everyone on the back order for your patience.

    Scott

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  19. Posted

    Should be about right for the BP. BP helps thermal more than mechanical. In the right enclosure with the settings correct... should do great.

    Thanks,

    Scott

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  20. Posted

    Somewhat spur of the moment, this sub was made as a “what if”. We already have the magnets and magnetizing fixture for them, so we figured a way to integrate them into a car audio application that seemingly solves a good portion of the issues associated with neo. The TS params are somewhat inconsequential compared to thermal stability. We can always tweak soft parts, geometry, and magnet sizes/grades to get those.

    We ran some 3d FEA modeling of it and it came up as a little overkill for what we could flow through a standard core, but figured it would be a solid platform to test some different cooling techniques from. We are going to start running some long term thermal tests on it to make sure that the cooling is up to par to ensure long term thermal stability with a standard grade neo magnet. Issue is this… while there are higher thermal grades of magnets, the price seems to go up exponentially for similar strength. So… if we can keep a standard grade magnet cool and working below Tmax during a Las Vegas summer and at high power, it will help reduce the overall cost of something like this.

    Nick will spend some time next week adding some thermocouplers to another one we are machining and test it at various points, frequencies, excursion and power levels to see how effective things are at not just cooling the coil, but the thermal mass as well. Once we get a solid baseline with this one we can go from there.

    Point of posting pics was to gage interest in something that was a fair amount out of the ordinary. No sense in going down a path for a new product line if the target market isn’t the least bit interested in how it looks. For noise control/industrial applications aesthetics normally take a back seat to function. For autosound we have to find a balance as the flame baskets still do dominate the world of sales :)

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  21. Posted

    Keeping true to form at Fi we have an industrial application that uses these 4.500" NdFeB "pads" and felt that the trickle down to car audio might be in order for them.

    The first iteration uses 3 of them and simply has more Gauss than the 3" pole can handle.

    Coil has a very healthy inductance/heat ring with external fins for cooling and keeps the heat out of the magnets (which seems to be a problem with some other car audio designs).

    In playing with this proto it is definitely geared towards SPL, given the motor force.

    Let us know what you think. Im hoping its not too out of the ordinary to be marketable... as it truly performs.

    Thanks,

    Scott

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  22. Posted

    Have you tried to pop test the speaker with a battery? "pop" each coil to with respect to polarity (+ to + and - to -) to make sure that the sub moves in the same direction per coil... rewire series or parallel (however you need it wired) and pop again to make sure its in phase. This should rule out the sub.

    Thanks,

    Scott

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  23. Posted

    While we like to make sales, I'm the first to tell a customer not to pay for an upgrade or option if it truly isn't needed. In this case, I wouldn't do it. Only a ever so slight motor advantage with the new singles, and some soft parts upgrades (especially if you have a really old 3 stack). If your current sub gets too tired, a recone will make it like new.

    Thanks,

    Scott

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  24. Posted

    Many reasons why we took our sweet time with the X... none related to the sub or design. In fact we have had parts for the last 7-8 months, but much bigger fish to fry that dialing them in and making tools to put them together.

    With this latest BTL back order it freed up some extra machine time and we got things rolling.

    They are up, but possible will have one more option after I test a couple more things and do some coding for the CNC lathe.

    Thanks,

    Scott

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  25. Posted

    Just as different vehicles are designed for different applications, so are speakers. I offroad all the time, and Ferraris have 4 wheels and are great cars... so why wouldnt I go rock crawling in that? Doesnt mean that the Ferrari is a POS, just that offroading or towing a trailer isnt the best idea for them.

    TS params indicate what application a sub should be used in. In the case of the BTL, the high motor force, low Qts, and small Vas indicate a ported speaker. A low motor force, higher Qts, and huge Vas often indicates a huge sealed application or IB specific sub.

    BTLs will not explode into flames in sealed, but as mentioned so eloquently above, they will sound like poop.

    Thanks,

    Scott

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