onebadmonte

My guess is the woofer is super stiff, the spiders still need breaking in. I did run the DATS on the woofer before I got in a box. This is what I got. Note this was before the sub got any use, pretty much straight out of the box.

My first suggestion was going to be to pull it out of the car and remeasure. I did measure with the box on floor, with the woofer cone pointing up. The impedance curve was almost identical. This is what I got.

Is it maxed out or is there more to be had?

The new box sounds great, I like it. I did hook up the ol' DATS to the box in vehicle and this is what I got: :/ From what I understand, an impedance curve like this represents a sealed box with a leak. Looks like I'm back to the drawing board looking for more port area to realize my theoretical 3dBs by going ported. I'm bummed that my Hornresp predicted impedance curve didn't match up to my DATS measured impedance curve. Anybody got any thoughts regarding that? On a side note the modeled tuning nearly match the measured tuning. I did give the new box a run on the SPL Labs LCD Bass Meter. This is what I got: Not bad for a single ten under 1000watts in a trunk car, but if there is more to be had, I want it.

Thanks. As for box position, I figure I'd just drop the silly thing in and take my chance with hitting a home run right out of the chute. Most likely that isn't gonna happen. The pis make the port look close both there is a good four inches of clearance. The DATS will tell the truth though. The ib baffle stayed in jus because Im lazy. : D Awe, don't tell me about that Monte Carlo. It's a love hate relationship with that damn car. I tell you it gonna be the end of me if I ever finish it.

Yay! Day off updates! So here are some pics of the last iteration of the system in my little Olds. A.K.A. "The Creampuff" What a mess. And what was hiding behind the rear seat. With everything out I positioned the box in place and decided on using an angle iron to secure the box to the car. I started off by installing some 1/4-20 rivenuts in the trunk floor. Here is the angle iron bolted down. Looking through the old baffle I transferred the hole locations from the angle iron on to the box. I followed up by installing threaded wood insert into the box allowing me to bolt the box onto the angle iron with three 1/4-20 x 1" bolts. Here is some shots of the box bolted to the angle iron. Lastly here is a pic of the final install. The final system layout consist of: Headunit: JVC KD-HDW10 Processor: JBL MS-8 Front Stage: PowerBass S-352 3-1/2" Co-Ax in stock location powered by MS-8 hi-passed at 200Hz 24dB/oct Peerless OEM 8" powered by US Acoustics USB-4080 (bridged) band-passed 200Hz 24dB/oct & 80Hz 12dB/oct Sub Stage: Fi Q 10 powered by Bazooka MGA11000H lo-passed at 80Hz 12dB/oct sub-sonic at 30Hz 24dB/oct Test and impressions on the way.

Sounds like someone needs a hug.

I like it. It's got less voids in it than the oak/wanna be birch ply they sell at homedepot. It's lighter than MDF. Most importantly, when I cut it I get the feeling that I'm breathing in real wood not all sorts of carcinogens like when cutting mdf. Makes me feel like a lumberjack.

Thanks Jon. Maybe this time the little Olds will break a 140.

Here are various shots of my box build. I had been hearing many things about "Arauco" plywood so I decided to give it a shot. A bit shout out to the fellas at the Home Depot around the corner from my house. Those guys have always been cool about trimming the wood down to manageable sizes with their awesome panel saw. The goods: Another change up for me is using a nail gun instead of wood screws. This made it so much easier and quicker when being an army of one. The box coming together: Under this stack is the baffle being glued together. On a side note all that wood is for a project I said was going to be a quick one. Joke is on me, that wood has been sitting in the garage for a year. :\ Here is a shot of the baffle ready to go on the box. I though I'd give the box edges a little round over. Assembled box pics. A little shot of the terminal cups I made up for the box. Sub, meet box. Box, meet sub. Woot, woot! Box finished. This is officially my fastest box build. It took me a week of afternoons to pull this off. Hooray for me.

Good to know, thanks.

Your not kidding about Hornresp being a mess. Members of some of the many home theater forums have written up pretty good how to instructions for the various alignments/box types. (Hope I worded that right. ) Hopefully I followed them to the "T". The DATS is pretty cool. How "spot on" it is, is up in the air though as I have no real reference other than what manufactures post and what I model up. I'm just trying to learn and have a little fun on the way. The build is well on it's way. I just need to catch up and post up the pics.

No, it's not bolted down or anything. It's resting on three legs with speaker spikes just above the MS-8. Hard to see in pics. This is a temporary install for listening and review purposes. I've parked this car for a while as I drive my suburban around.

Here we go, as I give the Sundown Audio SD-2 8" subwoofer the once over. This will be a three part series starting with pics and notes regarding shipping and construction. Secondly will be an install overview with pics. Lastly, I'll wrap things up with a listening review. Lets start off with some pics: How they arrive. Out of the box, and striking a pose. A little shout out. And lastly some interesting angles. Each sub come in double boxed in an exceptional styrofoam container. The sub is well supported and ready for the worst of shipping mishandling. A+ The woofer is well build. All glue joints are strong with a proper and complete bond. I took a closer look at the surround to basket bond. The surround has mounting hole clearance cuts in the surround leaving a narrow land to bond with the basket. At all these points the bond is complete and as strong as the rest of the surround. No worries of box pressure blowing out and weakening the surround at these points. Spider to basket joint is good, neck joint looked good as well. No signs of glue whitening on any glue joints. A+

Dang! Monster of a sub. I want.

Alright, well, thanks to all who have commented so far. Not much happening just yet. I had to mow the lawn today. :/ Good thing, is that a cold front rolled in, so it was nice and cool outside. Now the good stuff. I broke out with the old tape measure and took some measurements of available space. Scratched my head and stared aimlessly at the Hornresp Input Parameters screen. Then I came up with this: Box volume 1.5cuft (42.47L). Port specs: 4" aero port (81.03cm^2), length 17" (43.18cm). Tuning: 33.62Hz Hornresp Input Parameters screen. SPL Response, 1w@1m, I think. Eeek! look at that peak. O_o Impedance Curve. :/ Looks right to me. Group Delay. I have no idea. Here is a sketch I made of what I'm gonna build. Excuse the mess, I'm left handed. That's it from me. Now your its your turn. Share your thoughts, suggestions, and predictions.

What are you guys talking about? Typhoons and Syclones are such turds. The 4.3 is such a crap of a v6 I couldn't believe the "general" though it was a good idea to turbo charge it. :\ I figure this is a perfect use of one, build a burp vehicle. And on that note, zero f*cks given for burp cars. Long live the Buick Grand National.

Congrats on making it around the sun one more time. Make this next trip an even better one than last.

Wait, what ? Really????!!! This thread is gonna look nice on the fridge.

O_o LOL!

If that's the case why not call the team sub some derivative of the BTL name? Like ultra BTL.

Any truth to this, or just wishful thinking? Enquiring minds want to know.

Thanks BigJon, I'm glad you enjoyed the review. Soon enough the creampuff will make it's rounds in the lanes and in the SQ circles.

Here is a little vid of the subs in action. http://youtu.be/tIsBgOBCfxQ

Before I get into how the subs did, allow me share what it took to get there. The test vehicle is a 1994 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra. A trunk car, notorious for swallowing bass. To give the SD-2s a fighting chance I removed the rear seat back. On top of that. I opted to fire the subs towards the rear after a few listening test. These are the tracks that I used to evaluate the SD-2 8 performance. Focal Demo Disk 1 "Sweet Sixteen" by Junior Wells "Wishing Well" by Michael Ruff "Improvisation" by Ron Tutt "Spanish Harlem" by Rebecca Pidgeon "Grandma's Hands" by Livingston Taylor These tracks have good kick drum bottom end and/or defined bass guitar strums. The subs were able to blend well and provide the bottom end presence to complete the listening experience. In "Sweet Sixteen" both kick drum and bass guitar are well reproduced. The attack in "Improvisation" when the snare and kick are hit simultaneously was precise and tactile. No excess bloat. Up next. IASCA SQ Reference CD "I Will Find You There" by Michael Ruff "Too Close" by Clair Marlo This is another pair of tracks suited to the subwoofer's expertise, tight kicks and smooth bass guitar beats. The subs had no problem delievering the low end of the kick drum while the bass guitar played in "I Will Find You There". I enjoyed singling out the bass guitar in "Too Close". Again, clean clear bass. And now for something a little different. Tracy Chapman album New Beginnings This was a fun album to listen to. The kicks are more about the low end in this album. The bass guitar is also more pronounced. I find the low end to contrast the highs of this album, making it a good canidate for evaluating performance. The subs kept up with the music never drawing attention to themselves. It was a real treat to enjoy the music through these subs. Notable tracks, the beginning of "Heaven's Here On Earth" The steady kick drums are reproduced with fullness and volume without having to crank up the volume. Now I take the subs out of their element and see how they do out in the street. Kendrick Lamar album Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City "m.A.A.d City" "Swimming Pools (Drank)" "m.A.A.d City" is the track I used to demo the SPL capabilities of my Suburban, read 149db on the Termlab. It starts off with about 20 sec voice intro recorded out of phase, building suspense before the bass note comes in. A single tone in the 30-40hz for 10 seconds. It's quite the experience in my suburban. How did the eights fair? They held it together. The cones were a wanging. It's asking alot for a pair of eights to hammer out the lows, even more so for a pair of eights in a sealed box. They put out clean clear bass. "Swimming Pools" doesnt come on as strong as "m.A.A.d City", it does have a good combination of high frequency mid-bass punches with mixed in low bass beats. The subs had no problem keeping up. The bass was defined and transitioned with frequency changes seamlessly. Listening levels were moderate to slightly elevated for all the tracks. Once levels reached significantly elevated levels performance was compromised noted by distinct chance in tone. The distortion level of this sub is eerily low. I found myself cutting out the sub level to verify they were playing at times. Listening to the Kendrick Lamar album was eerie as well. At one point I was watching the cones wanging like no other, feeling the bass, but only hearing a rear body panel rattle. Talk about low distortion. This is a fun little sub to play with. For a pair I would recommend hatchback and small suv installs. Trunk cars would require a more elaborate rear deck install. For my personal install I'd opt for a quartet of these subs. Clean and clear bass like this is hard to come by. A+ for the Sundown Audio SD-2 eight.