Leaderboard

With a ported enclosure you have well... a port. That is basically an open hole of known surface area and length which tunes a box of known volume to a specific frequency. The resistance of the tuned port is very high above tuning and near/at tuning it resonates increases the amplitude at those frequencies. Below the tuning it unloads and simply becomes a "hole" in the box. This is a problem as the speaker is now essentially functioning in free air. Not a problem when its below its max limits, but still not yielding appreciable output vs its excursion levels... so why run things so hard for so little output. At the same time, people are often beating on their system HARD when this occurs and when they end up playing a track below tuning things REALLY go wild and unload. This will mechanically damage the speaker due to over excursion. Ripped/torn parts, fatiguing the lead wire... all sorts of bad. So, we place a sticker on the front of the box telling useful tips on setting up your system... and to me one of the biggest ones (if not the biggest) is to set the subsonic filter properly for ported systems. This is true of all subs. Not just ours. Now if you have a decent mechanical excursion sub with relatively no Xmax, it isnt as much of a problem simply due to the fact it has little linearity vs the high mechanical excursion. But on most modern subs where Xmax is closer to 75% of mechanical limits... you can power it linear right up to the point where it wants to break itself. Do yourself and the sub a big favor and set the filter a couple of Hz below tuning. If you are unsure of where that is, err on the side of caution and set it higher than needed. You can eventually back down when things break in and you "know" the system a little better. Learning curves are our friends. Thanks, Scott

Doesn't even need to be FL. A lot of us have looked at the air temperature inside a car as the determining factor. It turns out that the temperature at the sheet metal for a vehicle parked in the sun is much higher. I've measured 180°F at the sheet metal in my silver car, parked in the sun for a few hours in Maryland. A dark car will add 10-20°. Internal air temperature was around 130°F. Rubberized asphalt melts at 180°. Even low grade buytl will turn into gooey slop at these temperatures. Nothing like pulling wire through a car on a hot summer day and having it come through coated in the butyl adhesive that was supposed to be good to 250°. The more important point is that we have been conditioned to look at these products in terms of price per square foot. Since we've been told we need several layers everywhere, it seemed like a sensible metric. Problem is, asphalt and low quality butyl with thin foil layers perform similarly - terribly. The testing I've done points to it taking from 6-10 times as much of these materials to APPROACH the performance of a proper constrained layer vibration damper. Put that number into your calculations and you will do more work, spend more money and end up with a treatment you can't rely on. Why bother?

Here is another read on the so called "Impedance rise myth" http://www.soundsolu...impedance-rise/

Man, ya'll are really analyzing my pics. Anyway, just thought I'd drop back by and say, "ZOMG!" This sub just keeps impressing the hell out of me more and more. It absolutley slaughters anything that I've ever run with this little power. Even the Shiva that I used to have, which was a hell of a driver. A few ways to describe it: feels like someone is thumping me on my chest with their fist; smooth as hell; feels like there's a wind tunnel coming up on either side of my seat. I can't keep my rearview mirror in place, and it's pretty solid. I've never even had a pair of 12's that could do that. With as impressive as the Dcon is, I'm almost afraid to see the kind of damage an Icon or Xcon can do.

http://www.bcae1.com/ go to either #27 or #30 on the right side.

I've been very busy today. I sanded a shit load.

Sweet man. Just sweet.