splblazer98

This sub was tested in my 05 four runner. DbDrag style seald on the dash. This is only the 3rd time testing in this vehicle, but it works well because as an suv it has a large cargo area and doesnt have some rediculous peak like my old crx had. I ran into some heat issues throughout the day and this is only 2/3s of what I planned to test. Look for frequency plots in a few days. SPL results From the beginning of throwing the sub in the box i realized I had a decent spl sub on my hands. I started testing with very minimal power, 10.4 watts , just to show the effeciency of this sub and the fact that you do not need to drop 2000 watts on a driver for it to be loud. After throwing in a MD napalm to get a peak score for todays testing of 142.5 @ 48hz on 2453 watts to get a benchmark to base my results on I began upping the power. Here is the chart of my testing @ 48hz which was determinded to be peak frequency on lower power. I reached a peak of 143.3 there and proceded to test at 49hz for higher power levels as peak frequency often shifts at higher dB levels. Sure enough 49hz was louder over 1000 watts. Here is the testing of 49 hz with a peak at 143.5 on 1700.16 watts. After doing that testing I decided to try upping the frequency once again to 50hz at an even higher power level, from 1300watts up the 50hz was again louder than 48hz. 50hz was determined to be the peak frequency at the maximum power i tested at today. Testing at 51hz yeilded similar results to 49hz hence those are not charted. here is my complete spread sheet with all my current test values for spl and power. As you can see i paused testing for 5 minutes to give the woofer a rest at 2000watts after i had been beating on it for over an hour with tones. A note on the power this subwoofer can actually take. For SPL I would say around 2500-2700 watts for a burp is about the thermal limit for this sub. Mechanically this driver can take a little bit more, but in all reality you shouldnt need to push much more power through this driver. In conclusion to compare this subwoofer to many other subs tested in this exact same box during the test session in a different vehicle it is among the top 5 loudest subs tested and for the power pushed to it its amazing how loud it actually was. I will be doing this same testing with an sx in a couple days to do a better head to head comparasion, but i believe the results show clearly how loud this sub can potentially get. Daily listening results To finish up the day I through the sub in a 1.8 cube box with a single 4" aero tuned around 35 hz to do some quick listening results before all daylight was gone. With my limited amount of power and time listening to the driver I would compare it mostly to a SX w/ improved sound. It produced music much more accurately than my sx's i had in the past in similar boxes. It still is not a Si mag, but for a daily driving sub for the average listener it will definately satisfy ones bass needs. No pictures or videos of it installed in the daily install because of night time catching up with my testing, but i hope to have pics/vids of that up in the coming days. Edit One note on playing this subwoofer daily. When it comes from the buildhouse the suspension on this subwoofer is rather stiff. I through this sub into the daily listener before doing the spl portion of testing, and to be honest thought the sub sounded like an SX. After putting it through the spl testing and some time on 20hz tone and then back into the daily it sounded much better. Break in is a must for this driver, as the sound difference is night and day between the two. To summarize all the results I would definatly recommend this sub to someone looking for a nice subwoofer to "ground pound" with. The everyday listener will enjoy the subs loud and decent sounding aspects. And for the pricing offered currently in the group buy over at Steve meades forum and SSA I would expect these subs to sell out quickly A+ to DC Sound Lab for this subwoofer.

There would be a spark if the amp was tested before hand. Jake tests alot of his amps personally before shipping them out, what the spark probably was the residual energy stored in the caps on board the amp, and when you grounded the terminal you got a spark.

woot woot im in

if it is a AP which i think it is, then it uses a 2.5" coil

lawl

Ok, badmouthing a company that I know manufactures good speakers I'm going to have to post. First of all, if your run a shop and have employees why are you focusing on installing Fi subs, who sell direct. That is the worst enemy of pretty much any B&M shop. You act as though you are some big businessman, but my guess is your some 22 year old kid who builds boxes in your garage. I also think your "employees" are your friends who help you throw boxes together in the garage. Also from the posts it appears you don't even design your own boxes for your "customers." You think because you put CEO in your signature and you claim you run a shop your going to get insider information? I speak with Nick on a daily basis and consider him a personal friend and I don't get any insider information from him. Why would you? What makes you special? Fi subs are much more than just hype, maybe you seen the video where we put 10kw on a single btl and the coil was pristine. If you are a 22 year old CEO of your own business I think you should go back to school and figure out how business works, and in case you haven't figured it out blowing off steam and badmouthing a company in a public forum isn't how it works.

truf.

on peak hold doesn't skew output results as much as some think..... it wouldnt suprise me to see 2700 out of a 1500d, we got 5kw out of a strapped pair pretty regularly

First easter I didn't go to church since i was a baby... kinda odd

hopefully they can host some more shows there and have a great competition scene

I had alot of fun at the show, I was amazed at the turnout for the meca portion

I know jake will not be bringing his vehicle there to compete...

Well in order to have these subs for a team member for the show Jake was nice enough to drop these off on his way through my neighborhood. So these aren't mine, but they will be getting installed tonight by me hopefully I believe these are the first of the subs to be delievered so me > j00 pics Awesome packing material

And is that 4 SAZ? yup

very conservatively rated at 1500wrms i believe 12's and 15's i believe are the sizes offered

You guys don't realize how much of a perfectionist nick is when it comes to this stuff, I'd wager he is more OCD than some ppl in mental institutions when it comes to the mag. Thats why when I heard him this excited about the driver it couldnt wait to give it a listen.

here is my proto test of the 12 Well guys yesterday was my last day to test before my truck left to go to it's new home. I had big plans of spending most of the day testing; however, that wasn't in the cards. To begin the day my charger had screwed up sometime in the past few days leaving my batteries partially drained. I apologize in advance for the inadequacy of these results, but from my limited testing I learned quite a bit about this driver. These numbers probably don't mean much to you so let me do some comparision for you. In that same enclosure in the same test vehicle at the same power, note this was on a much colder day, the Nightshade is about .4-.5db louder than the IA DP and at 20hz lower. However the DP really shined when more power was added, as I expect the same thing would happen with the Sundown Nightshade. I hope to get some more testing done on this driver in the coming week if I can locate adequate power to support it. Edit Also forgot to add one of the most important parts. When I first spoke with Jake about testing this driver he wanted to see a good rms figure and I came to the conclusion that a prolonged period on ~3-4kw would give a good estimate of how much power the coil could soak up and what the cooling would do. I threw 3.5kw on the driver for ~30 seconds @45hz and got a small amount of smell out of the driver ( nothing more than excess glue burn off ) and the dustcap was barely warm to the touch. Also testing the spl before and after that period yielded minimal difference, maybe .1-.2db. For that reason alone I think the driver could take 5-6kw for a burp without worry. I did spend a bit of time listening to this driver on ~1500 watts with music and was suprised with the sound of the speaker. It played lower music adequately and didn't strain to drop below 40hz. It was however begging for more power. Again I'm sorry I couldn't do the full work up as I hoped to, hopefully these minor testing results will show you the potential this subwoofer has.

4 1500ds t minus 2 hours til installation

pictures? http://www.caraudio.com/forum/showthread.p...d=1#post4383167 let me know if you need more they are sitting right in front of me

He's bringing the truck, dont think he'll compete because of the issues with rules in meca, last i heard amps will be in soon and it will be playing...

I agree, shoot im sure somebody could sell him a combo with the amp and save him a few $$ too. I probably would do a pair of 15s in the car, and invest the extra money into sound deadener, batteries, and wiring. Afterall the sundown need power to make power

It is my impression that the driver will not be recommended to be used in a ported alignment. Besides it was louder, sounded better, and played lower in the sealed box so please tell me why you would use the ported box unless you had like 200 watts on tap?

My review will follow the same format as Jim's for consistency sake. A big thanks for Nick for allowing a basshead like myself the opportunity to play with a driver so far from my normal exposure to the large SPL drivers that take a ton of power. The mag is certainly a unique driver. Jim and I auditioned this driver in his '94 E-150, under the exact same test conditions used for other listening sessions we've done. Power was provided by a PG Tantrum T1200.1, set to 800W @ 4 ohms. In use, the woofer needed nowhere near that level of power to reach its full potential, IMO. Enclosure used was 1 cubic foot, sealed. The woofer was lowpassed @ 63Hz, 24dB/oct. INITIAL THOUGHTS: When I first recieved this prototype I am used to seeing very "unique" ways of shipping. Items ranging from pool noodles and foam to packing peanuts are common to find. However with this proto the shipping was double boxed and I would guess to be very close to the packaging that will be used for production models. The build quality was excellent and to be honest I was a bit concerned to begin with when I realized how unique this driver would be. I was very surprised to see very clean glue joints and neatly soldered terminals. WHAT'S TO LIKE: I won't go into as much detail as Jim did for the sealed review, but honestly this driver was designed to be used in a sealed box and will only be recommend to be used in a sealed box. Ported drastically reduces the power handling due to the soft suspension used. After all this driver was designed to be a low cost, small mounting depth, small box driver. Nick aimed for a 1 cf sealed box for this driver and hit it dead on. I would think a smaller box would do ok and a slightly larger box wouldn't be horrible, but 1cf is where its at. Sealed this driver excelled and took all the amp wanted. I even found a Young Jeezy CD in Jim's cd case to throw at the mag and it sounded good, for the source used. It played as loud as the ported 12" driver Jim daily drives with. WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE: Well in case you haven't figured it out from the previous statements in this review, ported is not the enclosure for this driver. Now I know this will concern some of you, but you have to realize the way this driver was designed, you don't need the larger ported box to compensate for lack of output as it has plenty sealed. By using the recommended 1cf sealed box and 600-800 watts of power you will have one of the most impressive sounding subwoofer setups around, and still have respectable output. Now if you are only concerned with loudness this driver obviously isnt for you, but if you are looking for a nice sounding driver, especially if you have limited space, this is the driver for you. One other issue that I haven't had a chance to discuss with Nick and is a very very minor issue is the terminals. The basket is painted and I suspect that it is insulated so this probably isn't an issue, but I will state it now. The wire going through the terminals, because of the slim basket design, comes close to the basket if your not careful installing it. As I said this is a minor issue and if installed properly you wont have to worry about it, but it may be something to be addressed now that saves a few headaches for installers. The bottom line: When I first installed this driver and began listening to it with Jim I was very impressed with it. Something that comes to mind is Jim saying, " I am going to have a hard time recommending Vanadiums when the mag sounds this good, especially at is price point." I believe that sums up my opinion of the mag in one sentence. Low price, Small box, low power requirements, all with the quality of Si products, I'd say a match made in heaven.

T/S parameters: 12 inch 15 inch Re (coils in series) 3.5 3.5 Fs 30.2 22 Le 3.5 3.7 Qms 4.7 3.7 Qes 0.45 0.39 Qts 0.41 0.35 Cms 121 197 Mms (grams) 228 262 Vas (liters) 39.7 184 Sd (cm^2) 480 810 BL 18.35 18.35 SPL (1W/1M) 85.7 88.8 Power handling RMS 900 950 All Mag D2 subwooers are DUAL 2 OHM. Recommended enclosures: 12 inch 15 inch Sealed 1 to 1.3 ft^3 2.3 to 3 ft^3 Ported 2 ft^3 tuned to 32 Hz 3.5 ft^3 tuned to 30 Hz Cutout diameter for the Mag 12 is 11 1/16" and the Mag 15 is 14" Mounting depth on the Mag 12 is 6 3/4" and the Mag 15 is 8" from http://stereointegrity.com/oldmag.php