blowthemup
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Posts posted by blowthemup
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To start off I would like to say I have had a love hate relationship with my 12" zcon from day one and also noticed from day one that the surround had a soft spot in it but never questioned it cause it seemed to play just fine. It sounds fantastic on a handful of songs but lacks to play a variety of music very well which they claim this woofer to not be a "one note wonder". I know your enclosure has a lot to do with things so I thought maybe the zcon needed a better home so I moved it from 3 cubes @ 30hz to 2.5 cubes @ 32hz. The new box made a big difference but after having it in its new home for a while I still had a love hate relationship and found it lacking on a lot of music.
I have recently pulled the system out of my car cause I just wasn't happy with it and decided I needed a change. Threw my amp up for sale and the box and woofer have just been sitting here in my room collecting dust the past few weeks. I then decided I was gonna keep my amp and closed the sale down on it literally today. I got tired of looking at my equipment collecting dust so I pulled the zcon from the box today to check everything out.
Lets say I was not happy with what I found...
Soft spot in surround is actually a crack on the underside of it and I found many other small cracks that you couldn't feel or notice from the top side. It looks as if some kind of glue was smeared on the underside of the surround which I assume once dried became stiff. Imagine what would happen if you smeared super glue on some cloth and tried flexing it, its probably not gonna work too well. The coil looks black all around, particularly like it had an internal short from the pictures I googled. I don't recall what it was looking like when I first bought it new but I know it should be shiny copper and not black.
Both coils measure out at 2 ohms like they always have, I don't abuse my equipment and everything was setup right as far as i'm concerned. I'm not trying to bash SSA but I feel like this thing wasn't right from day one or my amp isn't putting out clean power and this thing got toasted before she even got broken in. I'm not gonna blame anyone or hold anyone responsible but I am gonna have my amp checked out for safe measures.
Ill most likely send the zcon back to SSA for a recone but i'm unsure if ill run the zcon afterwards do to what I have seen and experienced. I have heard nothing but good about them and I feel like either I got a bunk woofer or my SAZ-2500D that I bought second hand that was suppose to be new which it sure as hell was flawless when I got it is putting out some dirty power. Maybe I got ripped on the amp but that still doesn't explain the surround being the way it is. Hopefully the amp will check out fine and I can find a new woofer or maybe give the zcon another try.
This is not a bash thread, i'm just shearing my experience with everyone and looking to see what others have to say or think. Sorry for the long post, just wanted to be detailed about my situation and seek advice from the fellow bass heads.
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10 minutes ago, Thumpper said:I have a buddy that ad the same problem.... the diodes in the regulator failed causing feed back in the alt
the alternator made a sizzling / buzzing sound when the car was shut off
we had it repaired and the tech who fixed it says it was getting too hot
QuoteThanks, yeah sounds like some bad diodes for sure and maybe my voltage regulator. Singer finally contacted me and said to send it in and he will check it out. Feel bad kinda bashing on him with this post now but he took a week to respond and already tried to blame the problem on other things.
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Well my 2 year old Singer alternator started acting up so I swapped my stock one back in and everything is fine. Contacted Singer and he has blamed my Civic for having accessory power after the car is off and that's whats causing my alternator to buzz/humm when cars off. Also blamed my batteries for the voltage jumping around when driving, this is with all accessories off while driving. He quit responding to my emails so I consider that he is not wanting to help me and trying to blame other things.
If you are on the market for a high output alternator I strongly advise to look elsewhere, Singer does not have the reputation or customer service you hear people talk about. He will leave you with an expensive paper weight if you ever have problems.
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Any recent progress or updates?
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Thanks everyone on steering me in the right direction
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Guess im gonna need some advice on building the box in the trunk. I would think it would be best to have all the pieces cut and test assemble the box before putting it together inside the trunk. Any ideas on the best way to fasten it together besides glue and clamps? Gonna be hard to screw much if any of the box from the exterior of it. Feel like clamps will be impossible and hard in some spots as well.
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Ok.......you ain't gotta twist my arm on it anymore. I just need to get a bigger vehicle with more room.
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Keeping port width the same, port area drops to 77.63in2 @ 30" in length, net volume drops to 5.31ft3 and tuning rises to 31.32hz.
Thats about the size I would be looking at for two twelves, aint getting in there unless i do what basshead did or build it in there though. I really think i would be fine removing a litte sheet metal, i'm not even cutting into the main upper portion like basshead did.
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Hey Jason what happens to the net size if you dropped the height down to 15?
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I cut all that out of my current civic and my last accord too
Do you feel like if affected the car at all, i wouldn't even be taking out as much as you did?
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Do you know anyone that can weld well? It would be no different than mocking up a roll cage for an autocross car, on much smaller stage. Once the outer frame was intact, you could build the inner angled struts to be removable. I would be happy to help you mock up all the tube stock needed to make this work. A good friend is an engineer with a badass Miller mig/tig welder. I'll ask if this is something he would be interested in.
If not, I too think you may need to build this sucker inside the trunk.
I think you have pretty good height IIRC. Ball park, what dimensions do you have to work with?
I dont know about taking it that far, just settling with the idea of removing sheet metal was hard. I remember when I first got the car I wanted to cry when I started drilling holes in the trunk to mount stuff. Think I need to focus more on building in the trunk, theres plenty of room for two twelves.
Building in there I bet I could go from 29" wide to almost 36", take my spare out and i can go from 24" deep to 30" or so, could go up an inch or two from 14.5" but would make the last top panel harder to get on building in the trunk.
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Something like what this guy did might work for me.
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Another option is an IB substage like im plannin on doind in a super charged grand prix
Cant hate on ya but I really don't like the idea of a IB setup, not even remotely interested in going that route but thanks for the idea
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That will weaken the car BIG TIME
I really wanna think that it would not hurt it much, being it is a performance oriented car I would hate to cripple it though. As of now i'm leaning towards not hacking the trunk and building in it or doing something smaller.
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If you aren't planning on taking the box out for a long time I'd suggest building the box inside the trunk
Thats not an issue leaving it in. I did have the idea of building a box in the trunk but figured finishing it would be hard and messy inside the vehicle. Not sure how well Im capable of building a solid box in the trunk, out of the trunk is no problem for me lol.
I suppose you could come up with some kind of tab system to screw the box together from the inside. Or can it be done strictly with just glue and clamps? Having a hard time picturing long clamps holding panels together within the trunk. Seems like the clamps would require a lot of additional room.
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Trying to make room for a larger box to fit in from the front of the trunk/rear seat. You can see there is some sheet metal in the way that would need removing. Think this would hurt the structural integrity of the car? Lazy half azz drawings...sry
The pieces outlined in yellow triangles will bolt out. I would have to cut my rear deck trim panel up to the red line. The orange rectangle is a slight hump that may limit my height of the box getting through, its probably removable but will not be able to be put back after without welding lol. It may not interfere after cutting the top of the opening.
I marked a red line on the back about egual to the red line on the front to show where I would probably cut.
Here on the back side you can see the bolts holding the bottom side triangle pieces in. Also the hump that may pose a problem to the height in and out of the opening.
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I can probably squeeze two twelves its just gonna involve more work and a larger budget. Was my original plan but I started to try and cut my costs.
It's your money I think one 15 would be enough. If money is the main factor then the 15 with a bc3500d is the way to go. I don't think you will gain that much by going to two 12's.
X2....
If I do go two twelves they will be firing forward as well as the port. Slight possibility it will get sealed off from the trunk if thats the case. Just kicking around ideas, but I like the idea of upgrading from a twelve to a fifteen and upgrading to a larger amp. Overall it will be slightly cheaper, less work I have to do on electrical, and lighter/smaller...not trying to make my civic any slower than it already is lol.
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I can probably squeeze two twelves its just gonna involve more work and a larger budget. Was my original plan but I started to try and cut my costs.
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My electrical runs the 2500 just fine. 280a Singer alternator, xs 5100 under hood, 3400 in the back. Plan to add a second 3400 in the back and ditch the 5100 under the hood cause its in the way of a cold air intake waiting to go in. I think the two xs power 3400 will be enough for the crescendo 3500.
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I would be going from 3 cubes @ 30hz to 3.8 cubes @ 33hz for the 15" if i can fit the bigger box. The 12" is currently port and sub foward and the 15 would be sub up and port forward or back.
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Would sell my sundown saz2500d and probably get a crescendo bc3500 or 5500. Leaning towards the bc5500 to accommodate impedance rise and have a little head room maybe.
You doing one sub? I would go with the 3500 and make sure you set the gain and others amp settings properly.
Yeah just one sub, I would like to do two but space is tight in my little civic.
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Would sell my sundown saz2500d and probably get a crescendo bc3500 or 5500. Leaning towards the bc5500 to accommodate impedance rise and have a little head room maybe.
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Can you recone a 12" to a 15" if you get a larger basket?
Sure you can. What do you want to recone?
Awesome, thinking of having my 12" zcon reconed to a 15" and stepping up the power a little more.
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Can you recone a 12" to a 15" if you get a larger basket?
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my zcon is done
in Subwoofers / Speakers
Posted · Edited by blowthemup
This thread blew up over on caraudio.com and I forgot to even check back here.
The subwoofer still plays just like it has for the past two years unless somewhere along the line something happened to it and it was still beast enough to chug along and make some bass but not at its full potential. It would be sad on my end if this zcon has only been limping along but still peasing me here and there. Ive had so many comments the past couple days over at caraudio.com that I don't really know what to think.
One thing I do know is it that it has always had a soft spot in the surround, noticed it the first couple times playing it but I didn't think anything of it cause it sounded decent and was doing the job of making bass. Took two years of listening and tried a different enclosure here recently to finally decide that something possibly wasn't right with it. Its always lacked the wow factor that one would expect from a zcon.
Maybe the damage occurred very early in its life and I never noticed the difference for some odd reason. If curiosity wouldn't have gotten the best of me then the system would still be in my car. I just had to question its capabilities do to what I have heard and seen in person which is hard to describe on these forums. Maybe I need to experiment with box size and tuning more to find the sweet spot, but at a minimum the surrounds condition isn't good and in need of replacement.
I tend to be on the perfectionist side of things and just because its still playing doesn't mean its ok to have a funky cracked up surround. I cant prove it was like this from its beginning days which is when the issue should have been addressed but you also have to question that subwoofers have a lot of variables subject to error. I'm not blaming myself or SSA, i'm taking into consideration the nature of car audio and also know that if this was my fault then it had to have occurred in its very beginning days cause the surround has been like this for a long time.
With all that being said, all I can do now is have it reconed or maybe do it myself and part ways in fear the zcon doesnt offer the sound i'm after. Or give it another run and hope for some better results with the ideal that this thing wasn't right from day one or damaged very early on in its life. From my understanding this should be a very pleasing subwoofer and be able to play a variety of music very well which right now I feel its not doing.
I plan on getting in touch with SSA very soon to see what they have to say. I believe do to the nature of car audio that theres not much they will do but i'm sure they will be more than happy to fix it up and get it back to me freshened up. I feel with a nice fresh subwoofer I should do everything possible to make sure she doesn't get damaged. I have considered sending my amp out to be tested just for safe measures but others think that is ridiculous.