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Why even buy subs? Rant inside: Tech related.

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Regardless of any speaker..period..they are ALL going to get warm.

 

Any and all speakers from a mechanical energy standpoint are horridly inefficient. They basically work like a hair dryer. The coil in a hair dryer isn't that much diferent than a coil in a speaker, the fan motor in the back of the hair dryer blows air over top of the coil that is wound to induce heat. The coil in a speaker moves converting electrical energy into acoustical output that you hear with your ears. The only problem is that well over 95% of the energy that is put into the coil is not used and is lost in the transfer process and is burned off as nothing more than wasted heat energy.

 

The amplifier applies power to the coil..in which it heats up.

 

The whole point is to a) don't get a bullshit amp that cheaps out on parts that causes inductive heating and b) when you smell the coil glue turn it down.

 

I've done that for years..with no scope..no dd-1..not a damn thing and have yet to blow a speaker or burn anything up.

 

Of course, this was before the days of full retard "BASS BOOSTED" music when things were actually recorded..decently. Some of the shit music that is out there today is most definitely the problem behind people burning everything up.

 

It's not rocket surgery..it's brain science.

 

I think the main problem is people expect a tony romas meal out of a micky d's menu.

 

Many people think a $100 sub/amp/wire deal will shake their doors and mirrors and boom, they buy it and turn it aaaaaall the way up and shit happens.

 

Or maybe bass +1 made it louder, why not try +8? not noticing that after +3 there is absolutely ZERO GAIN IN TERMS OF LOUDNESS and shit happens.

 

Some people will never understand how to properly use music equipment.

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well.. try not to listen to your nose, it may sound smelly.

And overheated drivers smell like shit.

The morale is don't listen to shit and that works on MANY levels.

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when i first got into music it was home audio. i had (and still have) sony dual 8" floor standing speakers. they would smell like you wouldn't believe but they never blew. i read online and had friends say that all speakers smell like this, its there break in period and its how you know you are using your speaker to its fullest potential. of course i was 15 at the time and believed this. i would turn the speakers up loud enough to hear the coils smacking into the magnet, sounded like a hammer on a rail road tie. still i never blew the sonys. move onto car audio and i started off wanting to recreate this... with disastrous results. when my SP4 burnt up i couldnt understand how a kicker 2500.1 could set fire to such a powerful sub and after i had it oscoped at that.

 

live and learn is all any of us can do.

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The only thing shocking to me is how often this topic pops back up. If you at all spent even 30 seconds searching this site you'd have never bought the DD-1.

Proven over and over and over again. There is only ONE purpose the DD-1 serves. And that purpose is to put money in SMD's pocket.

Right. Unfortunately, I found this site 2 years after my DD-1 purchase. The good news is, plenty of people on that forum will buy it from me. No, I don't want the world to hear my music, I just want to see what this thing will do. I'm pretty sure I have great hardware, with the exception being a Rockford amp, I just took the get what you pay for route. Plenty of 1500W amps at half the cost of my Rockford and I didn't want to power my new sub with an amp I tried to save some money on.

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The only thing shocking to me is how often this topic pops back up. If you at all spent even 30 seconds searching this site you'd have never bought the DD-1.

Proven over and over and over again. There is only ONE purpose the DD-1 serves. And that purpose is to put money in SMD's pocket.

Right. Unfortunately, I found this site 2 years after my DD-1 purchase. The good news is, plenty of people on that forum will buy it from me. No, I don't want the world to hear my music, I just want to see what this thing will do. I'm pretty sure I have great hardware, with the exception being a Rockford amp, I just took the get what you pay for route. Plenty of 1500W amps at half the cost of my Rockford and I didn't want to power my new sub with an amp I tried to save some money on.

I'd pay for a rockford monoblock before I'd pay for just about any other amp on the market.

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Right. Unfortunately, I found this site 2 years after my DD-1 purchase.

Bummer, you have to be confused completely. That site is full of bullshit. Sorry sad.png

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Right. Unfortunately, I found this site 2 years after my DD-1 purchase.

Bummer, you have to be confused completely. That site is full of bullshit. Sorry sad.png

Rofl. I see what you did there. Actually, I'm learning quite a bit and I honestly appreciate it. I don't plan on running any competitions or having a big dick contest, I just find value in promoting a brand such as Fi, regardless of the made in America part. I still enjoy the market and I think more people can benefit from the knowledge on this forum and from the workers at Fi like Nick, who takes the time to respond to customer inquires, no matter how juvenile the question.

I moved my amp today, drilled it into the back of my fold down back seat so I can easily adjust the gain and monitor it's temps. It was hot, but not hot enough to burn me or make me pull my hand away. I need to get familiar with my equipment so I know what is acceptable heat wise. It should get better ambient cooling being in the cabin now as well.

I have not yet adjusted the gain. I think I'm going to play my deepest bass song, adjust at my preferred listening volume and monitor temps over a few hours to see where I'm at. I've used this method on tens of subs before the DD-1 and only ever blew a pair of Visonik's back when I was 15.

My last question, my head unit has 2 subwoofer options. One appears to be the general subwoofer level, which is +6. And then there's another subwoofer option in another setting where I have it at +6 as well. Should I just make both of these 0 and adjust gain only? Does the EQ crossover options such as vocal or xplod affect the woofer? One of the frequencies in the curve is 65Hz or so, but is that only for the mids/highs? Thanks again everyone.

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The only thing shocking to me is how often this topic pops back up. If you at all spent even 30 seconds searching this site you'd have never bought the DD-1.

Proven over and over and over again. There is only ONE purpose the DD-1 serves. And that purpose is to put money in SMD's pocket.

Right. Unfortunately, I found this site 2 years after my DD-1 purchase. The good news is, plenty of people on that forum will buy it from me. No, I don't want the world to hear my music, I just want to see what this thing will do. I'm pretty sure I have great hardware, with the exception being a Rockford amp, I just took the get what you pay for route. Plenty of 1500W amps at half the cost of my Rockford and I didn't want to power my new sub with an amp I tried to save some money on.
I'd pay for a rockford monoblock before I'd pay for just about any other amp on the market.

This was sort of my feeling on the amp subject, and I settled on Rockford because of the very conservative amp ratings based on other users. I almost bought a Sundown or a Sounqubed but I saw too many woofers burning up while connected to those amps and none about Rockford. I kind of winged it, but I'm happy with my purchase.

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they arent conservative.  Just other users don't understand the meaning or RMS and the understanding of how they are rated.  There is a reason why the birth sheets are always higher than rated power.

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they arent conservative. Just other users don't understand the meaning or RMS and the understanding of how they are rated. There is a reason why the birth sheets are always higher than rated power.

Ah, I just assumed my 1000w rated at 1 ohm but a birth sheet showing 1640 @ 1ohm and 14.4V was conservative.

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yea but look at the hertz listed at where the rating was pulled from.  I'll bet my paycheck it was way over 100 hertz

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yea but look at the hertz listed at where the rating was pulled from. I'll bet my paycheck it was way over 100 hertz

At the bottom of the birth sheet, there's a graph. 20-200Hz and at 20 it's around 1500RMS and sweeps up to over 1700RMS at 200Hz.

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yea but look at the hertz listed at where the rating was pulled from. I'll bet my paycheck it was way over 100 hertz

Based on the graph, it looks like they pulled the middle score of 1640 from 80Hz, but still shows 1500W at 20Hz.

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my amps birth was 3272 at 95hz and my other amp was 1876 at 95hz. 2ohm load for both. 

 

i think why you see so many more people frying subs on the more expensive amps is that with all that power is just so much easier to do. you run a 200W amp with a stupid clipped signal to a good sub and ill bet you could go months before anything happened. you run 5000W with a horrid clipped signal and you might not make it all the way down the road before the flames are coming out of the cone, engulfing the surround and setting fire to the lining in your cab. then your running around trying to pull this huge ass box out of the truck but it wont fit out the door so you reach for the fire extinguisher only to realize you just covered it up by dragging the box towards the door. So then you have to run to the bed and pull the huge extinguisher out of the tool box and what do you end up with? a crap load of white powder all over your truck, seats, and speakers...

 

speaking from my own experience anyway, individual results may vary. 

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Right. Unfortunately, I found this site 2 years after my DD-1 purchase.

Bummer, you have to be confused completely. That site is full of bullshit. Sorry sad.png

Rofl. I see what you did there. Actually, I'm learning quite a bit and I honestly appreciate it. I don't plan on running any competitions or having a big dick contest, I just find value in promoting a brand such as Fi, regardless of the made in America part. I still enjoy the market and I think more people can benefit from the knowledge on this forum and from the workers at Fi like Nick, who takes the time to respond to customer inquires, no matter how juvenile the question.

I moved my amp today, drilled it into the back of my fold down back seat so I can easily adjust the gain and monitor it's temps. It was hot, but not hot enough to burn me or make me pull my hand away. I need to get familiar with my equipment so I know what is acceptable heat wise. It should get better ambient cooling being in the cabin now as well.

I have not yet adjusted the gain. I think I'm going to play my deepest bass song, adjust at my preferred listening volume and monitor temps over a few hours to see where I'm at. I've used this method on tens of subs before the DD-1 and only ever blew a pair of Visonik's back when I was 15.

My last question, my head unit has 2 subwoofer options. One appears to be the general subwoofer level, which is +6. And then there's another subwoofer option in another setting where I have it at +6 as well. Should I just make both of these 0 and adjust gain only? Does the EQ crossover options such as vocal or xplod affect the woofer? One of the frequencies in the curve is 65Hz or so, but is that only for the mids/highs? Thanks again everyone.

 

 

Zero everything. No bass boost, do not EQ to the + side, always attenuate (dial the EQ down).

 

You claimed you were clipping the HU at 47 out of 50 and you have the sub outs dialed to +6? Bullshit. Not bullshit on you, but it is proof that the DD1 is a complete pile of shit. Not only that, but there is no way in hell an Xplod unit is clean to 94% of it's total output at 0... no way in hell.

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Right. Unfortunately, I found this site 2 years after my DD-1 purchase.

Bummer, you have to be confused completely. That site is full of bullshit. Sorry sad.png
Rofl. I see what you did there. Actually, I'm learning quite a bit and I honestly appreciate it. I don't plan on running any competitions or having a big dick contest, I just find value in promoting a brand such as Fi, regardless of the made in America part. I still enjoy the market and I think more people can benefit from the knowledge on this forum and from the workers at Fi like Nick, who takes the time to respond to customer inquires, no matter how juvenile the question.

I moved my amp today, drilled it into the back of my fold down back seat so I can easily adjust the gain and monitor it's temps. It was hot, but not hot enough to burn me or make me pull my hand away. I need to get familiar with my equipment so I know what is acceptable heat wise. It should get better ambient cooling being in the cabin now as well.

I have not yet adjusted the gain. I think I'm going to play my deepest bass song, adjust at my preferred listening volume and monitor temps over a few hours to see where I'm at. I've used this method on tens of subs before the DD-1 and only ever blew a pair of Visonik's back when I was 15.

My last question, my head unit has 2 subwoofer options. One appears to be the general subwoofer level, which is +6. And then there's another subwoofer option in another setting where I have it at +6 as well. Should I just make both of these 0 and adjust gain only? Does the EQ crossover options such as vocal or xplod affect the woofer? One of the frequencies in the curve is 65Hz or so, but is that only for the mids/highs? Thanks again everyone.

Zero everything. No bass boost, do not EQ to the + side, always attenuate (dial the EQ down).

You claimed you were clipping the HU at 47 out of 50 and you have the sub outs dialed to +6? Bullshit. Not bullshit on you, but it is proof that the DD1 is a complete pile of shit. Not only that, but there is no way in hell an Xplod unit is clean to 94% of it's total output at 0... no way in hell.

In all fairness, it's a $500 7 inch in-dash, but I get it, lol. I should just buy an excelon in dash.

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I would dare venture an F1 would struggle to be clean at 95%.

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The only thing shocking to me is how often this topic pops back up. If you at all spent even 30 seconds searching this site you'd have never bought the DD-1.

Proven over and over and over again. There is only ONE purpose the DD-1 serves. And that purpose is to put money in SMD's pocket.

Maybe a web page needs to be created with simple bullet points explaining why, then we can just post the link.  Bingo done. ;)

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After going through the topic, I feel the title should be edited for accuracy. ;)

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I would dare venture an F1 would struggle to be clean at 95%.

An F1? I need a new head unit anyway, this thing is 2 1/2 years old. Any double din recommendations? Has to be touch screen. I'd like a capacitive screen instead of this resistive type as well.

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Right. Unfortunately, I found this site 2 years after my DD-1 purchase.

Bummer, you have to be confused completely. That site is full of bullshit. Sorry sad.png
Rofl. I see what you did there. Actually, I'm learning quite a bit and I honestly appreciate it. I don't plan on running any competitions or having a big dick contest, I just find value in promoting a brand such as Fi, regardless of the made in America part. I still enjoy the market and I think more people can benefit from the knowledge on this forum and from the workers at Fi like Nick, who takes the time to respond to customer inquires, no matter how juvenile the question.

I moved my amp today, drilled it into the back of my fold down back seat so I can easily adjust the gain and monitor it's temps. It was hot, but not hot enough to burn me or make me pull my hand away. I need to get familiar with my equipment so I know what is acceptable heat wise. It should get better ambient cooling being in the cabin now as well.

I have not yet adjusted the gain. I think I'm going to play my deepest bass song, adjust at my preferred listening volume and monitor temps over a few hours to see where I'm at. I've used this method on tens of subs before the DD-1 and only ever blew a pair of Visonik's back when I was 15.

My last question, my head unit has 2 subwoofer options. One appears to be the general subwoofer level, which is +6. And then there's another subwoofer option in another setting where I have it at +6 as well. Should I just make both of these 0 and adjust gain only? Does the EQ crossover options such as vocal or xplod affect the woofer? One of the frequencies in the curve is 65Hz or so, but is that only for the mids/highs? Thanks again everyone.

Zero everything. No bass boost, do not EQ to the + side, always attenuate (dial the EQ down).

You claimed you were clipping the HU at 47 out of 50 and you have the sub outs dialed to +6? Bullshit. Not bullshit on you, but it is proof that the DD1 is a complete pile of shit. Not only that, but there is no way in hell an Xplod unit is clean to 94% of it's total output at 0... no way in hell.

How is that proof that the dd-1 is shit? All having the sub level up on the ead unit is going to do is cause the amps gain to be set lower. Edited by ramteid

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I hope I will never blow aything in my system !

My bass amp is never really hot, and the sub neither (a BTL N2 on a 1500 w amp).

A friend of mine is running a Sundown NS-1 (@ 2 Ohms) on a fi btl N2 : after a loud listening session, the sub and amp are not even hot !!! You can say, by touch, that they were playing, but you can never guess they were playing so loud and for so long. People are, first, impressed with the output and the sound quality, and then, when they touch the equipment, most do not understand how it can be so cold !!! I live in the Caribbeans : hot weather all year-long, and lots of rain too !


We both have no DD-1, no O'scope, only our ears. When it sound weird, turn it down or back the gain down, and that's it.

 

Good luck.

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I hope I will never blow aything in my system !

My bass amp is never really hot, and the sub neither (a BTL N2 on a 1500 w amp).

A friend of mine is running a Sundown NS-1 (@ 2 Ohms) on a fi btl N2 : after a loud listening session, the sub and amp are not even hot !!! You can say, by touch, that they were playing, but you can never guess they were playing so loud and for so long. People are, first, impressed with the output and the sound quality, and then, when they touch the equipment, most do not understand how it can be so cold !!! I live in the Caribbeans : hot weather all year-long, and lots of rain too !

We both have no DD-1, no O'scope, only our ears. When it sound weird, turn it down or back the gain down, and that's it.

Good luck.

My sub is barely showing signs of temp but my amp is getting hot...if I had to guess above 110F for sure, maybe hotter. Solid ground at the battery, 0 ga power and ground wires into 4ga reducers. I'm not sure if this is normal for 1 ohm but the gain is barely up and I'm playing at 50% volume so it's strange.

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Right. Unfortunately, I found this site 2 years after my DD-1 purchase.

Bummer, you have to be confused completely. That site is full of bullshit. Sorry :(
Rofl. I see what you did there. Actually, I'm learning quite a bit and I honestly appreciate it. I don't plan on running any competitions or having a big dick contest, I just find value in promoting a brand such as Fi, regardless of the made in America part. I still enjoy the market and I think more people can benefit from the knowledge on this forum and from the workers at Fi like Nick, who takes the time to respond to customer inquires, no matter how juvenile the question.

I moved my amp today, drilled it into the back of my fold down back seat so I can easily adjust the gain and monitor it's temps. It was hot, but not hot enough to burn me or make me pull my hand away. I need to get familiar with my equipment so I know what is acceptable heat wise. It should get better ambient cooling being in the cabin now as well.

I have not yet adjusted the gain. I think I'm going to play my deepest bass song, adjust at my preferred listening volume and monitor temps over a few hours to see where I'm at. I've used this method on tens of subs before the DD-1 and only ever blew a pair of Visonik's back when I was 15.

My last question, my head unit has 2 subwoofer options. One appears to be the general subwoofer level, which is +6. And then there's another subwoofer option in another setting where I have it at +6 as well. Should I just make both of these 0 and adjust gain only? Does the EQ crossover options such as vocal or xplod affect the woofer? One of the frequencies in the curve is 65Hz or so, but is that only for the mids/highs? Thanks again everyone.

Zero everything. No bass boost, do not EQ to the + side, always attenuate (dial the EQ down).

You claimed you were clipping the HU at 47 out of 50 and you have the sub outs dialed to +6? Bullshit. Not bullshit on you, but it is proof that the DD1 is a complete pile of shit. Not only that, but there is no way in hell an Xplod unit is clean to 94% of it's total output at 0... no way in hell.

How is that proof that the dd-1 is shit? All having the sub level up on the ead unit is going to do is cause the amps gain to be set lower.
My guess would be that his point was with a +6 setting the preamp output would reach it's limit earlier in the volume range than with a lower level setting, which is entirely true....that's why it's louder, it outputs higher voltage for a given volume setting, hence it's louder at a given volume setting.

My only problem with the assumption is it all depends on how the circuit was designed. For example on the older Alpine units the sub level was labeled 0 to +15, but in reality the "+15" setting was actually just the full output and not an actual boost, or in other words it was actually the 0db setting. So although it was labeled 0 thru +15, it actually functioned as -15 to 0. So one would not expect an unreasonable amount of clipping with a high level setting, which is counterintuitive.

Without knowing the actual function of the circuit in relation to the settings, it's hard to pass judgment.

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