altoncustomtech

Wow. Things have came a long way since I made the last post here. At that point the entire install was to be as close to a stealth install as possible. The tweeters were going to go in the factory locations and the midranges were going to go into the sail panels. What was worse was the woofers were going to go into the factory location, albeit with their own strong baffles, but still a tired and old way of doing things sticking them wherever was convenient or easy. Right after this things started to get a little crazy in my life. I couldn't get any work done on anything and it didn't let up through the winter. Eventually early this spring the shit hit the proverbial fan and I had to make some big changes. Plans changed on the Traverse around that time as well. My wife got tired of waiting for it to get done so we had a good long talk about the plans for it and what the plans entailed. We opted to go a little different route on the doors than the semi-stealth install that was originally settled upon. As a matter of fact, what we decided to do couldn't hardly have been more the opposite of stealth. Custom fiberglass work, custom aiming and mounting locations, real ported enclosures for the woofers and all that jazz is what was decided. As you can see in the pictures below the custom locations are still on the doors. And so the plan was born... I wanted the speakers close enough that they all played well together and high enough to keep the stage up on the dash. I also wanted the best midbass output I could get from the woofers and after modeling them I found that a .5 cuft ported enclosure tuned to 65hz with a 2" port and with a 50hz @ 24dB slope gave the best response and kept the driver under the best control, the least amount of port noise and the most output under those circumstances. Finding even just .5 cuft of space on these doors was quite a challenge and everything about it took me right out of my comfort zone. I did more testing, test fitting, and rethinking than I have on any other build I've done. To make room for the enclosure the entire bottom of the door card had to be cut out/off. The top corner of the door card was cut out to make room for midrange and tweeter mounting.

This is accurate, however that's not saying the LOAD itself is changing, just how the amplifier is seeing the load. 2 ohms is still 2 ohms, 1 ohm is still 1 ohm, but that's why a stereo amp is 2 ohm stable in stereo and 4 ohm stable bridged because when it's bridged each rail is essentially only seeing half the load. The actual load doesn't change, only the way the amp perceives the load.

The wheels look fantastic!

Nothing wrong with wanting to try something new, but I think you'd be thoroughly surprised at the difference in output from those subs in a good ported enclosure.

Looking good! It's definitely hard to get much done during spring break. The kids definitely eat up a lot of time, but it's worth every second!

to the forums! What type of enclosure are the ICONS in? There's a possibility that a change in enclosures could help out without spending the cash on a new setup.

An edge on MLV??? It's just a thin soft rubber mat, I don't understand how someone could get cut on it.

Happy Birthday!

Unhook the sub from the amp and remeasure the resistance of the sub. If the individual coils are 2.4 before you install it, then at the wires that hook up at the amp the resistance should be around 1.2 ohms wired in parallel. I know, it's really close to what you were measuring, but to KNOW for sure it's right you need to have the wires loose from the amp. Once you've done that and verified nothing is hokey with any wiring then do as the others suggested and put the old sub in. Do more checks. Don't worry with plotting impedance just yet, a good clamp meter will probably be more money than you're willing to spend on a piece of test equipment right now.

Nope. Even when the amp is off the output terminals are connected to circuitry inside the amp. That circuitry has it's own resistance/impedance (depending on the amp) and therefore affects any resistance measurement taken when it's connected to what you want the real measurement of. Think of it like a third coil connected to the dual coils on your sub all wired in parallel. You don't want to include it in the measurement because it's not a true representation of the sub itself.

Car on or off doesn't matter. The sub cannot be connected to the amp and expect an accurate measurement.

You can't measure it like that. If you measure resistance while it's hooked up at the amp you're measuring the resistance of the sub and the internal circuitry of the amp together. You have to disconnect the sub from the amp to measure the resistance of the sub at that point. You have to put the meter in series with the wiring to measure current. I thought you mentioned having a clamp on meter? Use that to measure current and the probes to measure voltage. If I misread about the clamp meter, sorry, I didn't catch it right.

When you say you've checked the resistance at the output terminals, are you saying you're checking the sub's resistance at the terminals of the amp? Also, since it looks like you have all the tools at your disposal to do it, play tones from 20hz up to where you have your LPF set and measure the voltage and current. Then use Ohm's law to find resistance and plot the impedance curve to see if anything about that looks funny.

So purdy.... Linear actuator love!

Happy Birthday!!

Exactly. The picture I showed you above is in the door of a 2001 GMC Jimmy. The door panel is made in such a way that integration is a snap. Not all vehicles make it that easy, but just about anything you can do is better than the flimsy factory setup. Here's the backside of the door panel on that truck. Here's the panel after the modification. Here's the finished product.

It won't hurt. Also, what are your mids mounted to? If they're just screwed down to the factory locations that's also not quite good enough. Solid mounting baffles are required, not just for this set but for any other speaker you install in your doors. I also don't consider one little MDF/wood ring a SOLID baffle either. IMHO, I would call this example a MINIMUM requirement for a solid mounting baffle. More could have been done to this.

The small gain in power isn't worth the stress it's going to cause everything, and definitely not for a daily setup. Stick to 1 ohm per amp, you'll never be able to hear a difference and all your equipment will be much happier and last longer.

to the forum!

Got some free time to chat..... anyone interested?

Perhaps you would be a good candidate for a dedicated midbass and full range setup? Utilizing a good 8" woofer as a midbass driver and a 3" full range could possibly suit your needs. I'm currently working on my wife's vehicle so I've not had a chance to install mine yet, but I have been using a Mach5 MLI65 6.5" woofer and a Fountek FR88EX 3" full range for the highs. It does quite well and sounds phenomenal. Ultimately I'll be installing Peerless SLS 8" woofers as the midbass drivers in enclosures in the doors and going to the Fountek FR89EX 3" drivers. The only real catch is that the full range drivers HAVE to be directly on axis to the listener along with the proper processing for all the drivers to work.

For the purpose of setting the SSF it sure doesn't hurt to find out the exact tuning frequency AND it's simple to do. The process requires only a set of test tones and about five to ten minutes of your time. First off turn your SSF all the way down then set yourself up to play the tones, start at about 40 to 45hz and turn the volume up until the sub is moving enough to easily see. Then change tracks going down one frequency at a time watching the cone's movement closely as you go down. You're looking for the cone to be moving the LEAST amount and when you see it start moving more again you've gone below the tuning frequency. Back up one track at a time until it goes from moving the least to moving more again and keep that up until you've zoned in on the frequency it's moving the least and THAT is your real tuning frequency. Now, for example lets say it is 34hz as you so adamantly claim, then choose a frequency that's three to five hertz lower than the tuning frequency (i.e. 31-29hz). Now turn the SSF up until the movement of the cone is half of what it was when you started. Your SSF is now properly set. No one is trying to be demeaning by what they're saying about your enclosure and whoever built it. They're just trying to help you understand that it may not be as perfect as you first assume.

Happy Birthday!

You might check the connections where the tinsels hook up to the push terminals and verify they're solid and clean. Otherwise something has happened to damage a coil, clipping would be the first suspect.

The only thing you can do is contact Fi through the email address on the website. Out of idle curiosity, in case you don't get a hold of them in time, what did you order? There's a good chance you could turn around and sell it easily enough and get all your money back.