altoncustomtech

Double boxed to help ensure the little monsters arrive safe and sound.

Got my two in today. For such little subs they sure make you go “WHOA!” when you pick one up. 20lbs for an 8” sub is definitely not typical, lol. While it’s still strange to me to see “Made in China” on the side of a box with the SSA logo right above it, the little beasties seem to have the build quality, fit and finish one expects to see where the SSA brand is involved. I know in my heart they never would have been approved for and financed into production if they didn’t. The T/S parameters are pretty nice across the board and in a few aspects a notable difference over comparable offerings from other manufacturers. They also enter well in WinISD with everything checking out through the auto calculations very very close to published specs. With an EBP of 120 they are DEFINITELY only meant to be used in a ported alignment, they’re never gonna work in a sealed enclosure. That’s probably the only oddity I myself notice in the parameters and probably only because I have never seen an EBP that high before. I’m currently trying to kick off the build in my 2007 Grand Prix and I plan to build a modular interface at the trunk opening where the seats fold down so that I can build enclosures for the F8L’s, my soon to be revived 10” DCON’s and a pair of NVX XQW 12’s so that I can slide each enclosure in and out for testing. I am going to build a sealing system and a locking mechanism into it so that each of those and any other enclosure I build for whatever testing purposes will have the same great seal into the cabin of the car. Well, enough of that jazz how about a little box opening porn?? Well as soon as I get the pictures to upload... damn slow rural internet connection...

Looks absolutely awesome!! Are you going to use the amp’s built in crossovers, the HU, or another piece of equipment like a DSP for signal processing??

I just ordered a pair myself. I’ll have to model and design an enclosure for mine, if you know what your maximum dimensions are and other pertinent information such as desired tuning frequency and sub/port orientation, I could help you with a design if you like.

What sub is in the sealed enclosure that you’re referencing? I’m not sure about this version of the E series but the lack of upper range is a common complaint with several the other Sundown lines as Manzkea mentioned. Your thoughts on cabin gain could also be part of the problem although all vehicles have cabin gain. It could be a combination of what you’re used to hearing from the sealed setup, weaker upper response from the sub and the enclosure tuning/cabin gain adding to the effect. Have you tried using the EQ to lower the bottom end output to help even out the response?

Bump for more thoughts and opinions...

Don’t be too bummed, I got a couple of the SoundStream Harmony units. They’re better than nothing but they have a number of limitations and bugs that make them a real pain in the ass.

Thank you sir. I’ve read through it a few times and I think it’s great info for getting started tuning an active system with a DSP. As is stated in the tutorial there’s more to do after finishing these steps but this seems to lay a very solid foundation to work from.

I saw that!!! I was gonna send you a pm and let you know if you didn’t already!! Wooohooo!!!!!!

I have a pair, have yet to put power to them though. I jumped on the sale with the idea they’ll be my contingency plan in the event I cannot get the 2nd recone for my DCON’s.

I agree with Jared. What are your enclosure limitations?? Do you have room for a 15” or a pair of 12’s? Sonicelectronix still has a BOGO sale on the NVX XQW 12” subs, you can grab a pair for $200. They’re built by SB Acoustics, a very SQ oriented company, for NVX. Just throwing that out there. Don’t get hung up so much on the numbers, such as power handling. It doesn’t determine how loud a driver gets or how good it sounds or anything else of the sort. The enclosure design is the determining factor for a subwoofers performance.

This is SO awesome to read! I can’t wait to get to playing with mine!

After the epic midbass build its probably tough to find anything that can scratch that itch quite the same way, lol.

I truly enjoy the ported enclosures I built for the Bravox woofers in the 3 way components I installed in my Traverse. They only need a sub for tracks with lots of emphasis <=45hz. That’s with a .5cuft enclosure tuned to 65hz. Youre really gonna love this testing, it’s a blast!! Just for reference this is how big the .5cuft enclosures ended up.

Not without looking hard elsewhere online. The SQ communities are fairly small and hard to find. I swore I’d never recommend going to Facebook instead of this forum but I don’t know of a larger community of SQ folks than the SSQ (Strictly Sound Quality) group. Asking there would probably be a best first shot after the forum here.

Definitely. I’m currently running 300wrms to each door of my Traverse with Bravox CS603CF components in it that are rated for 125wrms. Brad (impious) was running 600wrms to each side of his when running the same set. The difference it makes in handling those dynamic bursts is simply incredible. It’s so easy to get caught up in all the numbers and power ratings are numbers that people worry so much about but in reality they mean little to nothing as long as a person understands what they’re doing in such a situation.

That’s why I liked it when you mentioned it, of course there are better, but not many in that price range and I doubt any when they’re on sale.

I like the Dayton ND20 recommendation. I’m currently using a pair of them in my sons truck and they are incredible for the price.

Welcome to the forum! You’re definitely right about the amount of knowledge available here. Best forum there is and the SSA products are all truly great. I’ve used several of the subs and the mids and have had nothing but positive experiences with all them. They sell quite a number of other quality brands in the store as well. Your budget is a great place to start, though I would HIGHLY recommend leaving or making room for sound deadening treatment. The difference it makes is incomparable to any other upgrade you can perform. Read up on it at the best source for such information, www.sounddeadeningshowdown.com SDS has top notch products but even if you decide not to use his products the information he has available there is invaluable.

There’s no perfect right or wrong answer for the low pass filter. It should be set to compliment the transition from the highs to the subs. I typically just tell folks to adjust it to whatever sounds the best to them, blending the lows into the highs.

Here’s a great set of instructions for correctly setting your SSF that was originally posted right here on this forum! The best way to set your SSF correctly only takes a few minutes and all you need is test tones or a tone generator app to perform the procedure. First thing to do is turn your SSF all the way DOWN to ensure it doesn't interfere with the first step. Start off playing a tone/frequency about 10 to 15hz higher than the frequency your enclosure is supposed to be tuned to. Now turn up the volume enough to easily see the sub(s) moving. Now go change the frequency down 1hz at a time, each time watch the movement of the subs. As you go down in frequency you're looking for the sub(s) to be moving the LEAST amount. When you see it/them move the least then start moving more again you've passed the tuning frequency. You'll need to switch frequencies up and down until you're sure at which frequency you see the LEAST movement. Note that frequency as it is your ACTUAL tuning frequency. Now pick a frequency that is 3 to 5hz lower than the tuning frequency and turn it up again enough to see the movement of your sub(s) very easily. Turn the SSF up until you see the sub(s) moving right at half as much as as it/they were before you adjusted the SSF up. Your SSF is now properly adjusted. It takes a little bit of back and forth to get it right but this way you know with certainty it's done right.

I’ve played with several DSP’s now and if you decide to go that route I think that next to the smaller miniDSP offerings the best overall one I’ve used for the money is the JL TWK88. That’s just my opinion though.

Which 2 acoustic guitarists, I know a few acoustic duo groups.... Brother, my sampling of drivers is pretty small in comparison to the others commenting so I’ve been watching and reading but I think the logic in finding a ballsy low Fs tweeter sounds like a viable solution. I sure wish I could tell you about the Evil 1’s but I am unfortunately awaiting word on another aspect of my build before I can/will install the rest of it. They’ve got an awesome low Fs and it seems like everyone has really liked them so far.

I think you know from past conversations that if I could I’d be buying everything in the SSA brand, lol. I still recommend SSA to everyone I talk car audio with.

I ran a pair of 10” DCON’s on an Arc XDi2000 at one ohm, 2.5x their rated power in a bad sealed enclosure. Never hurt them thermally but did cause a little trouble mechanically. The prefab sealed enclosure started to come apart. I honestly feel that if the enclosure hadn’t started to leak they would probably have been just fine. Like I said I never hurt them thermally, the coils still look like new. As a result I started designing a ported enclosure around using them on my SAZ-2000 in my Grand Prix. According to the modeling, with 25hz tuning and an enclosure slightly larger than the maximum recommended size they should handle the power mechanically. By manipulating the enclosure size and tuning I managed to put the drivers’ peak impedance right where the xmax peaks allowing them to not exceed their rated xmax even on 2.5x rated power. Of course it’s all theory and modeling so real world results are going to vary to a point but I plan on trying it out at least. My point is that if everything is good with the voltage, clipping, distortion, etc. I wouldn’t be nearly as worried about thermal damage especially if you’re talking a single 8k on the two subs, you’re only 500 watts over with the ratings and that’s never going to even be noticeable.