altoncustomtech

Aaron I'd be all over those developers, they released some really buggy software and sold it to you guys. I've had issues with opening my own profile let alone others, searching members names, still have issues with changing the theme, double posts and/or PM's, opening the link to view recent/unread topics, searching some topics, and it seems like another issue or two that I can't think of at the moment. Previous versions never had these kinds of issues, it's gotta be aggravating to you guys.

I'm using two of the Soundstream Harmony DSP's which are the exact same unit but with the Soundstream badge on them. I personally love them. Though they lack a few features found in more powerful DSP's such as the miniDSP, but they're super user friendly, noise free and are a great first step into the realm of digital signal processors IMHO.

Thank you. A fair amount of work went into all of that, especially the build with the enclosures. Definitely at the bare minimum mount the speakers with baffles but since the typical factory location sucks for imaging the ones that showed the angled baffles might be an option for you. My brother in law and I built those for his 1994 Dodge Stealth and the sound stage and image are superb. As several others have stated, the installation is the most important aspect. The better the installation is the better the results are no matter what speakers you end up using. Also the clay he spoke of is non hardening modeling clay. It's used to add mass (weight) to the door panel around where the baffles mount to the door. Thanks man, I decided to pull out all the stops I could with them. I still have a lot of work to finish doing to them but they are up and playing and YES, the results are worth every drop of sweat, blood and every dime spent to get it done.

Or if you really want killer response building an enclosure will really do the trick. This is a .5cuft ported enclosure tuned to 65hz.

Here's some examples of baffles. Both examples exceeded the depth behind the door card which required modifying it.

I don't see ever being able to offer them regularly but having the capability of doing it for the occasional odd ball is great. I still thank you guys all the time when I am listening to it and showing them off.

I don't know, my pm's are doubling up too. I have a 10" XCON with a pair of 10" matching PRs that I too absolutely love. They're not as efficient/loud as a good ported enclosure but the smaller size and low end response is well worth the compromise. The SSA build house built my PRs for me to match my XCON, I thought they were very reasonably priced to get something that looks identical to the sub. I'm sure they could do it again if you really wanted to go that route.

You may have fell pray to bad spam bot timing. They're notorious for posting in old threads, but then someone like yourself sees the new post and makes a reply right about the same time the spam post is deleted by the admins and this is the result.

There's no way any existing issues would cause problems with a brand new system install. There's also NO WAY any shop worth anything at all would ever give a vehicle back to the customer knowing that had any sort issue they caused because of the work they were doing and charged anything at all let alone full price. This kind of bullcrap right here is how I made a fair bit of extra money back in the late 90's, early 2000's, fixing the crap that shops in our area screwed up. Personally I wouldn't give that shop another millisecond of my time and they sure as hell would never get another dime from me. I would find another shop or an individual who had a great reputation for doing this kind of work and take it there since doing this kind of stuff is still outside your skill set. I would also forget about trying to get any sort of refund or having them try to fix their mistakes. They'll bullshit their way out of any of this being their fault and if they weren't capable of doing the work right the first time they are sure as hell not even close to being able to fix it. Write it off as a lesson learned and move on. The one thing I would definitely do is make sure that everyone knows the quality of the work they did if it ever comes up in a conversation so that no one else falls victim to their inadequate and sub par joke for a "professional shop".

That could very well be the problem. Most remote power outputs are only good for a couple of tenths of an amp of current draw. Too many devices can definitely exceed that limitation. You could install a relay that is turned on by the remote output and have it switch a higher capacity power supply such as the memory power at the HU or the amp power if you add it in the rear.

For example, I'd put an SSA DCON(s) in a good custom built enclosure up against any prepackaged sub/box combo and bet on the DCON's being the overall winner in every situation. I'm that confident in their ability to sound great and give great output. Confident enough that I've used the DCON on three different personal builds in the last few years and depending on their status when the time comes up I'll probably use them in a fourth build in my daughters car. Thats just the DCON and baby brother of the lineup SSA offers. I've also used the ICON and XCON subs as well with outstanding results. My single 10" XCON on a 1500 watt amp constantly has people doing a double take when I show them what just blurred their vision and sounded amazing doing it. Eliciting responses like "I didn't know a 10 could play that low" or "I could've sworn you had a pair of 12's back there" and "How in the world can that sound that good on everything you just played, it didn't matter if it was a double bass or a huge bass line it did it all perfectly". The sub in that Rockford package could probably sound better than it does in a better enclosure but it still wouldn't compare to a better sub in an enclosure just as well designed and built as you would have to do to get the best performance from that cheap little prepackaged sub.

That's how it's supposed to be done, however manufacturers, especially when it comes to lower end equipment, design that kind of stuff to simply get as loud as it can get. The reason you ask? Because to 99% of the people listening to it at the store displays (and all too often even to the people selling it) the louder it is the better it sounds. Because the volume of sales drive the decisions of the bean counters at these companies they make sure to capitalize on that at every opportunity knowing that the 1% of people who really cares about response accuracy are not the people who will be shopping in those price brackets to begin with, or as in the case of companies like Power Acoustic, Boss, Pyramid, Pyle and the like they don't even try to cater to the few who care. Unfortunately over the years the latter situation has happened to and keeps happening to major name brands that were always known for their quality. Companies like MB Quart, Zapco, US Amps and Pheonix Gold to name a few examples of brands that cheaped out or were bought out to keep sales going. That's why Fi, Ascendant Audio, SSA and a few others are basically the only brands I recommend for subs. Because they aren't corporately driven to put profits before product quality. Of course none of those products are that inexpensively priced either so it's harder to make direct comparisons, but the old adage of "you get what you pay for" follows suit in most cases.

Same here. The actual connection is where the terminal touches the surface of the body/frame/etc.

It sounds like they probably used cheap wire, possibly even CCA wire. Not a huge deal unless it's so bad that it starts breaking in the middle of the wire run, then it will definitely need to be replaced. Copper alone is a soft metal with little tolerance for abuse or fatiguing actions like repeated sharp bends or being squished under a turning set screw. That kind of stuff simply does a given amount damage and over time will wear it out. The quality of the wire will make a difference in how long that period of time is. In general it's not an issue but I've seen some super cheap wire over the years that was super easy to break and consequently wasn't even worth using.

When I modeled the Evil MB against the Mach5 MLI65 the Evil only lost to the Mach5 below 100hz, above 100hz the Evil pulled ahead on output and by 200hz it levels out to around +5dB from there and up.

I'll have to pull my laptop out to see what WinISD said, but the slope is very shallow and coupled with the transfer function inside the vehicle it's really pretty average results from what I've seen from other drivers I've modeled in IB.

The correct Sd is 147.4 cm2 or 1474 mm2. If your using WinISD it'll calculate the Vas on its own with the Sd right. Or .01474 M2 if you want to work it that route, lol.

Yeah, I looked over the comment he made about the power handling, but that's the only information I see posted about them, lol.

1. Yes, all the SSA subs are designed for sounding good primarily and getting loud is right behind that. 2. It will sound great in a sealed enclosure! You will get more output from it in a ported enclosure at the cost of the additional space requirements, no real loss of sound quality in a properly designed and built ported enclosure. 3. It has a large range of 2.75cuft to 5.0cuft. The best way to know the optimal size in that range is to model the response in some software and pick the size that gives you the response you prefer. 4. No, the .18cuft of subwoofer displacement is additional to the enclosure size. 5. There's no real "best" when it comes to enclosure dimensions. I read about a thing called a "Golden Ratio" several years ago but in most vehicles it's pretty much impossible to keep the ratio perfect, besides the difference would only be measurable not audible. 6. I am certain the amp is only 4 ohm stable bridged, which means that the power output would be 720x1 at 4 ohms. Wired just like the diagram shows your amp, the sub and yourself will be very happy!

Aaron claimed he posted info on Facebook but I tried like hell to find it and couldn't. So I tried to give them time to post about it on the forums themselves but I couldn't wait any longer, lol!

People are ALWAYS so worried about the rear passengers hearing the music and they don't understand that they can hear it from the front just fine. Not to mention, are you spending the time and money for people who aren't in those seats as often as you are in the drivers seat or are you doing all this for yourself?? I've only installed and used the front speakers in my vehicles for the last six years which includes a 1998 Chevy Venture minivan, a 2001 GMC Jimmy and a 2010 Chevy Traverse. Now the Jimmy is so small that most people wouldn't worry about it but the van and the Traverse with the third row seats I have people ask all the time why I didn't put speakers in the back. That is until they sit in the rear and understand just how well the sound travels and how good it sounds coming from the front. Rear speakers do nothing but skew sound stage and imaging, cause cancellation and destructive interaction with the front, and are simply a waste of time and money. When he mentioned spending the money on installation he wasn't just referring to sound deadener, the location of the speakers and how they're mounted are just as important. While changing the location from the factory one is often times more work than most people are willing to do don't assume for a second that it's the best location. Vehicle manufacturers think of audio as an afterthought, and typically just throw them in whatever location is the least amount of trouble and least expensive for them. A good solid wood baffle to replace the crappy, flimsy plastic one that the factory speakers mount to is a good way to help the installation of your new speakers if you're not going to relocate them. That's what he was referring to on improving the quality of the installation.

Specifically it's the DSP-Z8 that's using the miniDSP as the basis of the machine. I'm not sure what DSP system is being used in the amps but I don't believe it is based on the miniDSP.

No, he means forget about having speakers in the rear altogether. They will only hurt soundstage and imaging, they're detrimental to the overall response not helpful in any way. With the front stage done right you'll never miss those rear speakers, ever. You can take the budget you were going to spend on rear speakers and put it toward the installation on the front stage. As for which model of miniDSP you need, I probably wouldn't suggest tackling a 3 way setup for your first time going active. There's a great deal to learn about how to tune just a 2 way (tweeter, woofer) setup let alone to add another driver (tweeter, midrange, woofer) to the mix. A 2x4 miniDSP should be all you need to start with. Later on down the road another 2x4 can be added when you're ready to tackle a 3 way. There's not enough going on in the subwoofer realm to NEED to run its signal through the DSP.

J, This is the member I mentioned on the phone who recently switched from Focal to raw drivers. Notorious, You want to give him a run through of your experience with the switch so far? I believe you're using the Seas ER18RNX woofers, correct?

Welcome to the forum bro!! I'm echoing M5 on this, once you get the front stage mastered the substage becomes minuscule in comparison. Look ok at it like this, if you agree the average human can hear frequencies from 20hz to 20,000hz and let's say your sub can play from 20hz up to a crossover set and very popular frequency of 80hz, the sub is only playing about .3% (yes you read that right, point three percent) of the entire spectrum of frequencies you hear. In the grand scheme of things that just doesn't sound very important anymore does it? Now there's nothing wrong with having enough bass to get down, dirty and loud with when the mood strikes but it still doesn't change the fact that the sub's importance to overall response just doesn't measure up in comparison to the rest of the response from the system. I mentioned on the phone that the Zapco DSP is just the MiniDSP in a pretty case with Zapco logos in the software but I would still recommend just using the miniDSP. You'll save money and have more expandability. Check out Madisound as well, they offer brands Parts Express doesn't. The quality of the installation of the speakers will make or break the sound in the end. If you ever make it down to my neck of the woods I'll demo the Jimmy and the Traverse for you. It would make what we mean by this a little easier to understand. Be be sure to check out all the previous posts on this and similar subjects, the search function is your best friend when researching this kind of information. As always we're here to help with any questions you have along your journey. Also so everyone understands how serious he is about this being an SQ build, when I talked to him earlier today he was talking about dropping a huge needless coin on Focal components and Audison or Mosconi amps. I suggested he hit up the forum to read, learn and see what really makes a quality sounding system. It's not name brands and money, its good design with attention to detail and quality of the installation. Of course there's nothing wrong with name brands but you can buy expensive equipment and if it's poorly installed it can be outperformed by inexpensive equipment with a great installation.