altoncustomtech

Hi there guys. I'm working on deciding what I want to buy for two door 2001 Jimmy. I have a Kenwood KDC-X492 headunit installed already, along with Phoenix Gold RSD 6.5" components in the doors. My goals for the system is to have a setup that will get plenty loud while maintaining good musical balance. Now, I'm no noob to the car audio game, this truck will be getting the full treatment of sound deadening, HO alt, 2-3 batteries and more so it will handle about anything I want do with it much like I did my van. My questions are for those with experience with both the 10" SSD and 12" BTL series subwoofers from Fi. My original design for the truck was to use two 10" SSD's in a 2.4 cuft enclosure (after displacements) tuned to 33Hz per Fi's recommendation, this is as big as I want to go with the enclosure since I do use the rear of the truck for hauling and stuff. However, for almost the same amount of money I can get a single 12" BTL which will run in the same size enclosure and tuning. I planned on running the same 2000-2500 watt amp on either choice. So what I'm wanting to know is which choice in this setup will be loudest WHILE maintaining a good musical balance, the pair of SSD's with the edge on surface area or the BTL with the higher sensitivity and excursion capabilities. Keep in mind that while it will be no SQ system I'm still looking to notice note shifts and transients in the music, not have a one note wonder. I just have no idea if the BTL is designed to be that musical and me and my brother are the only ones in at least a 50 mile radius that I know of who is even running Fi equipment so there's no one around to go and listen to a BTL personally. My other question is in regards to the rear speakers. This truck has 6x9's on each side of the rear seat. I am more of an SQ oriented listener than this thread gives the impression of, so I'll explain the point of this question. I plan on putting a 100x4 amp on the highs, however, when listening by myself I have the fader turned all the way forward and listen to only the components, even now. I would like to get a fairly nice set of 6x9's to keep up with the substage when demoing the vehicle ONLY. I wanted to buy the PG RSD 6x9's originally but it seems that no one has them anymore and I was thinking of just getting some of the Tang Band 6x9 subwoofers and letting them help reinforce the midbass. I'm open to any suggestions on 6x9's that will do well on 100+ RMS without breaking the $100-$120 barrier since they'll only be used when demoing otherwise the components are all I need. Thanks in advance for the suggestions guys, I know that rear speakers aren't needed and I don't listen to them regularly, so no need for that bashing. If possible I'd prefer suggestions on the subs from those of you who have real personal experience with both. Again, thanks guys for the help, my mind is starting to turn into jello from reading all about these things and I keep going in circles on the info I find.

Thanks for the recommendation, I hear alot of comments from people who like Fi saying the BTL is musical, then comments from people who like other companies (AQ, DD, DC, etc.) saying the BTL isn't musical at all it's quite frustrating and difficult to discern who's more correct.... which is why I'm asking on here as I can hopefully get some input from fella's who've used them both.... I have spaces to fill there, and like I said they'll only be played when demoing the vehicle but it would still be nice if they sounded fairly good when they did play. If I went with the Tang Band's I was going to simply pass band them from 60-350hz to help reinforce that range of midbass since their given response is 35-350hz. But that was just one idea and I wasn't crazy with it to start with. I was trying to think of a solution that may work without pulling the sound stage rearward too far even if it was only for demoing...

lol..... damn them loose nuts.... although when it comes to high powered car audio i think just about every one of them has nut that's at least slightly loose.... lol @ 4 ohms on that 1000/1 using test tones you'll be looking for around 63 volts with the DMM.... make sure its a True RMS meter too...

most likely the enclosure is just fine, it's tuned to the Fi recommended specs..... you should set your gains and subsonic with 0db reference test tones and a DMM to get the settings much closer.... and don't use the BASS BOOST on the head unit or the amp.... those are settings befit for failure..... what was your sub wired to? 4, 2, or 1 ohms??

if you're confident of the specs on that enclosure then you need to take a DMM and check the coils on the sub.....

This brings into light the questions..... what size of enclosure is it in? what is it tuned to? what kind of power are you giving it? with answers to these questions we can give you a better idea of may have happened..... like Nick said though, if your coils are burnt then the problem was the power it was recieving not the woofer unloading... it sounds to me more like a burnt coil problem giving the fading in and out problem..... but no matter what happened to it, there should be no problem with putting in a recone and getting back up and going again.... just make sure that you make the appropriate changes to keep it from happening again....

unloading is what happens when the woofer (in a ported enclosure) plays below the tuning frequency.......... above the tuning frequency the air inside the box is "loading" the cone of the woofer and controlling it's movement much the same as it would in a sealed enclosure..... but when the frequency falls below the tuning frequency of the port the air exchanges at a much more turbulent rate through the port and is no longer controlling the movement of the cone...... This can cause overexcursion where the cone of the woofer can move farther and it's designed to do.... this can lead to ripped spiders and/or surrounds and on some woofers the voice coil itself can smack into the back plate of the motor causing physical damage to the voice coil former..... all in all its not a good thing to do to any speaker...

if you're building a box with a 4cuft target size multiply the 4 by anything in the range from 12-16 for the total port area you need to calculate with..... 4 x 16 = 64......

here's a formula for use with multiple ports: Lv=(((2.35625*10^4*Dv^2*#v)/(Vb*Tb^2))-(0.614*Dv)) where: Lv = Length of port Dv = Vent Diameter #v = Number of ports Vb = Volume of box Tb = Tuning Frequency only problem I've found with this formula is it came out of "The Loudspeaker Cookbook" and I'm not sure the numbers come out right unless the measurements are metric which means all the inches need multiplied by 2.54 for centimeters and the volume needs multiplied by 28.316846592 to convert it to liters.... then the resulting Lv needs multiplied by 0.3937007874 i hate the metric conversion but Lance's formula is the only one I know of that works for figuring multiple ports.....

that amount of space is just too small for the 12 Q ported.... no matter how you do it its below the recommended ported enclosure size..... unless you can sacrifice some more room you'll have to run it sealed....

sure, it should work well...... the calculations i'm seeing puts the 36x18x18 at a little less than 4.7cuft though, right around 4.4 after all displacements..... that won't hurt anything though as it's still well inside the range.... I should add that this is if you're using a slot port @ 12sqin of port per cuft.... if you're going with a 6" aero then its just right..........

yeah some cars lend themselves to certain configurations better than others...... your original dimensions could work as DC does show 5cu.ft. being acceptable.... and according to my calculations, you could yield around 5.5cuft after displacements tuned to 33hz with 85sq.in. of port area..... not too shabby methinx.....

yeah the guy does a hell of a job with it....... wait til you see the flex vids.... like i said before the fiberglass beauty panels aren't for everyone.... but I've done that type of install in over a dozen cars with seats that DON'T fold down and the results were fantastic, i swear its louder, cleaner and cheaper in the long run as you don't have to sound deaden the trunk since all the movement is in the cabin..... but, to each his own.... and there's a chance that it simply wouldn't work in your car but i figured I'd throw it on the table....

he has all the pics for it..... but i have a link to a build log that should give a good idea.... here's the link: FBI90909's Build Log Now he built a fiberglass beauty panel to seal the sub into the cabin of the car, we simply built the box to mate up perfectly with the back of his seat where it folds down.... had to use a hole saw drill bit to put some holes in the solid plastic panels that make of the back of the seat so allow the sound to easily radiate into the cabin, but it was all worth it.... took 2 weeks to build that damn enclosure in there.... Car Audio and Electronics had an article doing the same thing in a Mustang some time back.... i'll have to see if I can dig that up....

have you done a BIG 3 upgrade yet?? That's a must do, period. Whether you have or not, sounds like a grounding issue... are all your amps grounded to the same point? is your second battery in the rear? make sure everything in the back is grounded at the same point, make sure that ground is good, check all connections at the battery's, chassis, amps, etc.... I'm pretty sure it's just some bad connections/grounds causing the problems.... Also, the Kinetic isn't a cap or anything like one.... it's a battery with a very low internal resistance which allows it to deliver large amounts of current very quickly....

his is 36w x 19t x 32d...... tuned to 32hz.... the only way a "T" shaped enclosure could hurt the sound would be if you mounted the sub in the trunk, not sealed into the cabin like we did my brothers.... in that case if you've used up every sq.in. you can there's simply not enough air space for the sub to excite the air efficiently and that causes a loss in output.... otherwise if you were to do it like we did his, and like many other people have done many times over, and seal it to the cabin of the car you could effectively use the entire trunk and get the max space available with no worries about cancellation, air space around the box, etc.... usually when I do trunk cars this is the only way I'll do them....

we built the box for my lil bro's SSD 18 into the trunk of his Grand Prix sealed into the cabin.... works great, 8cuft into the trunk left no room for play though...... I always figured that a person is only limited by their imagination..........

lol.... welcome to life.... it doesn't get any easier from here on out.... oil ya say? that can't be good.... u sure u haven't been bangin' that thing around through the fields?? hehehe just kiddin'... I'm still in it for the finish, still real interested in what's wrong with it.... Good Luck Bud.... And yeah..... from indiana too, about an hour south of Terre Haute....

Basically, im looking for a powerful sq setup. My current box for my 12 ssd is ~2.5 cubes at 32 hz with 600rms, which is why im looking to just get a new 12" to take the new power. I just dont have enough experience with this kind of power to know if the q could take it without cooking. Im pleased with my current ssd's sq, so perhaps it wouldnt be a bad idea to get another ssd and build a new box around 4.5-5 cubes? only problem with that would be fitting it in my trunk (vw passat sedan). The current offer for the q with free bp power is very attractive, but how would the q compare to the 2 ssd option given i have enough room for them? And what is the approximate power handling of the q with bp power? The Q's are built to be low end SQ monsters... if you're going for a powerful SQ setup then the Q will do you very well, the Q with the BP option and that 1200D will get along very well together IMO... now, compared to 2 SSD's it probably wouldn't be as loud on the same power, as the 2 will have more cone surface area...... If you're currently pleased with the SQ of the SSD you have then two SSD's will most likely give you what you're looking for.... my lil bro is running his SSD 18 alone on a Sundown 1200 and isn't having any issues at all, very loud, linear and clear....

hmm..... what is it tuned to? just on initial figures the box seems like it may be a bit small too.... is it the same one the Rockford was in?

thanks guys.... every time I decide to look this thing up the online dealers can't get the info straight for nothin'...... it looks good but I still think I'm going to go with a SAZ 2000 or 3000 for my Q's, but this comparison sure does show that the cheaper products aren't doing bad in their own right....

Damn nice comparison..... sucks that screwed up on the Sundown though....... is that AP really mono? every time I find specs on them I cant decipher the stupid information, always sounds like it's 2 channel... anyways, nice work man!

what kind of enclosure is it in????? if you say the same as the rockfords well, that's your problem...... most likely its not hitting the higher notes because the enclosure is improperly tuned........ what's the size and tuning of the enclosure??? also what's your LPF set to... it may be set too low.... or you could have an air leak where the mounting surface is.... there's alot of good reasons for what you're experiencing....

get a BL it will gladly take 1400 watts that Q may take it but it proly wont like it very much I dunno, wouldn't do it daily but a fella on CA put 3540wrms to one without toasting it, said it even sounded pretty good doing it..... hit the mechanical limits before the thermals.... to the OP --- DON'T do that, the guy who did it was just doing it to be doing it, knew it was bad for it and didn't care.... if you order a Q with BP then set your gains correctly the little extra power from a sundown 1200 would probably not phase it much since it would only happen during peaks..... Now.... what are your goals in the system? SQ or SPL.... what kind of music do you listen to, etc..... need to know facts before we can accurately answer..... most likely the BL will be your sub of choice just my guess with the first questions....

it was $25 for each of my Q's and my lil bro's SSD to 47557.... dunno about to ur location