Jimi77

I suspect it'll handle more than 10wrms if you cross in the ~4-500hz range. Sensitivity may be an issue. Looks like a good option to the 2" Aura driver.

Wow, Adire is back. I have a 10" Brahma Mk1 sitting in my basement - best sounding subwoofer I ever heard and amazing output for its size. Is Dan Wiggins involved or is somebody else running the show? Glad to see Adire is back. I was looking for some lower powered 15s (~200wrms), but that Tempest is really tempting. If it was dual 8 ohm, I'd probably pull the trigger right now.

I've seen them take 750wrms. It's amazing how well the coil did. Given the condition of the coil, if those were in ported box, they still might be alive kicking.

LOL - a variation on Hoffman's Iron law. I'd say the sub is just delivering what I would expect from that enclosure. It's peaking around ~40hz and dropping off on the top end and you're probably losing cabin gain too, so the drop off isn't unexpected. Try placing the sub toward the rear bumper and facing to the rear to eliminate any cancellation. See Eddie Runner's tutorial below. http://www.installer.com/tech/index.php?page=aiming The Dcon is a pretty darn good sub for the money. After hearing a couple set ups with Dcons, I knew SSA was for real.

As the others said it's really dependent on the enclosure. Assuming you build an optimal enclosure for whatever subs you're using, then cone area usually wins out in sealed enclosures and power handling in ported enclosures, but that's painting with a really broad brush. When you're talking hitting ridiculous SPL numbers, those guys are testing multiple boxes, controlling panel flex and just moving the microphone around slightly will can have a huge effect. If you're just looking for a unreasonably loud ground pounder, then I'd build a ported enclosure on the large side of the manufacture's recommendations (maybe larger) and tune somewhere between ~32-42hz depending on how loud you want to get and how much low end you're willing sacrifice to get there. As you tune higher, it'll get louder, but the tuning frequency becomes more and more dominate.

I'm not sure what they're doing. I guess it could alter the impedance curve slightly which could slightly increase power handling. In the end the thermal/RMS rating is determined by how the coil was constructed (and to a smaller degree the basket, pole vent and other construction considerations). There is nothing that you can really do to make that coil take more power.

Thermal is the RMS rating. The mechanical is Xmech which isn't often disclosed. Mechanical is when you bottom out or otherwise exceed the mechanical limits of the sub (tinsel lead slap would be another common one). You cannot "increase" the RMS rating by putting the sub in a smaller enclosure. You can make it less likely that you'll reach the sub's mechanical limits by putting in a smaller enclosure.

Subs have a thermal rating, if you exceed that for an extended period of time, you'll toast the coil. That thermal rating is independent of the enclosure. The smaller enclosure will act as a "heavier" air spring, which can increase mechanical power handling, but won't increase thermal power handling.

The aiming doesn't look bad to me, but it's hard to say without actually sitting in the vehicle. Where are you crossing and what midbass driver are you using? What amp? Based on your post, I'm guessing you fried those tweeters by pushing them too hard to overcome road noise. A higher crossover point can help with power handling. If you need more volume from the tweeter, you may have look at other options. One option would be use multiple tweeters, kinda like a line array. IIRC, with a dual tweeter set-up you want to LP one of the tweeters at ~8khz to avoid comb filtering. Maybe a large format tweeter that can handle more power.

Yeah, I was misusing the term. Tweeters truly on-axis is pretty rare in car audio.

Depends. With heavy metal, on-axis can be problematic, especially with the driver's side tweeter. I guess by on-axis, what I really mean is aimed toward the imagery listening position between the where the driver and passenger sit. Semi-on-axis I guess.....

The midbass is going in the door. The tweeter will go in the a-pillar, it may be on or off axis depending on how testing works when I get the actual tweeter in hand. I suspect I'll end up on-axis, especially if I go with the NVX ring radiator tweeter; the Alpine & Vifa Xt's definitely sounded better on-axis. I've done enough installs to know that a lower crossover point will prevent rainbowing and the stage pulling to the passenger side. Ideally, I'd cross at ~300hz, but I do want to keep the car looking stock and running multiple drivers in the a-pillar location presents some fabrication challenges, drives up the cost, etc. A few years ago I wouldn't hesitate to take on the project, but now that I have kids, I have less time and money to dedicate to car audio. At least I still have my Pioneer p9 combo so I have pretty significant processing power.

Thanks a bunch.

The crossover point in that set's passive crossover is 4khz, so I'd try and stick close to that for the sake of the tweeter. If you're having some sort response problem, then I'd start with a phase and intensity alignment. http://www.caraudioforum.com/showthread.php?p=2162489#post2162489

It may be a biased vote, but at least it's a knowledgeable one.