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The motors themselves are actually very different, there are cosmetic similarities but that's as far as it goes. XCON's have a shorting ring inside the motor to lower inductance so the woofer can play lower than without, the large bumped top plate is mostly so the coil has enough travel, allowing the XCON 31 mm of xmax one way. The BTL however while looks similar is totally different on the inside, if it is fully loaded there is no pole vent, and axial cooling vents drilled into the pole piece and top plate, along with a small gap to increase air velocity in order to cool the coil, the BTL will take serious power before failure, it is actually impossible for the coil to hit the top plate, making "bottoming out" impossible. The Spiders will rip and the tinsel leads will pop before the coil hits the top plate.

I didn't have any way to test performance when I did the review site. I was really trying to figure out which of the products were what they said the were. At the time, this was important since so many sellers were misrepresenting the absolute basics like what the product was made of, mass/area, heat tolerance and just about everything else. Remember, quite a few were simply taking Peel & Seal out of one box, putting it in another and calling it sound deadener. Some were calling it butyl sound deadener and others were being deliberately misleading with descriptions like "rubberized compound". I relied on the consensus of forum "experts" and assumed that if many people insisted a product worked, it must. This was a mistake on my part. Getting to the bottom of the gross falsehoods was important, but that's still a pretty low standard to to which to hold products like these. This is what led me to start this business. I started working on an update to the site. I had learned how to test product performance, so that was going to be included. I quickly ran into a dilemma. There are plenty of good products out there, but very few that advocated proper application. I was faced with endorsing a product when the seller was recommending applying it in a manner that was to their advantage and not the consumer's. I'd had enough and decided to try and do better. I don't want to get into specific competing products, but there are two absolutely critical components to a constrained layer viscoelastic vibration damper. The adhesive needs to be viscoelastic and the constraining layer needs to be capable of constraint No thin foil or no foil facing can do this adequately. That's not to say the constraining layer has to be foil, but since it almost always is, you get the point. Anybody designing a vibration damper should know this. It's safe to assume that if you are looking at a thin foil or Mylar facing, you are actually seeing a flashing material with a reflective facing intended to protect the material form UV damage. Another consequence of this is that the adhesive (butyl or asphalt) is optimized for waterproofing, not vibration damping.

Here we go... Equipment info: BOSS REV665 (2) BRAVOX AUDIO CS50K (1) SS DAMPLIFIER PRO ECLIPSE 8443 (1) more info to come soon... here are the pics of the car and the component install (with bonus Deadening pics ) & of course, Mark will be helping me with this The Fammed Video

I'll have to pick one up and yes. the amp and wires were all good. The sub wouldn't play and i would push on the cone a lil and it would come on for a sec then stop playing. That sounds like a connection problem in the tensil leads.

Nice post Duran. The BTL and Xcon look similar, but as explained above they are different. For example, the Xcon has a shorting ring to lower inductance ( a feature more set for the SQ or daily driver crowd) and the BTL does not. The reason is the BTL is aiming to keep as much motor force as possible for big power installs. Both are excellent drivers, but they are built for different applications. The top plates are different, the height of the magnets, along with their inner and outer diameter is different. So from a far, they make look similar, but next to each other, the difference is noticeable. Both are at the top of the game at their respective market segments, but are not meant for the same application.

It really depends on what you're looking for. It sounds like you want an actual audio processor for 3-way active (high, mid, sub), but most of the processors you're looking at don't really offer the features you want or will need. The Cleansweep doesn't do anything other than equalize the input signal. It does it's job well, flattening out the response of the incoming factory signal to undo any equalizing the factory system may have built in, but if you want to actually adjust the response of the system then it's not a good option as it doesn't offer any other capabilities to equalize the actual response of the system. It also doesn't offer the crossover features you need. The Re-Q(5) is even more limited than the Cleansweep, it doesn't equalize the input signal over the entire bandwidth, it just restores bass that may be attenuated by the factory system. So it, in essence, doesn't do anything other than increase bass output. It's basically the OEM-integration equivalent of an Epicenter. It also doesn't offer the crossover features you need. I don't know what product you were looking at from Audiocontrol, so I can't comment there. The RF 360.2 is the best of those you've mentioned, offering user-adjustable equalization and crossover capabilities. But.... ....if you could find another $200 in your budget (or look at previously owned products) I think the JBL MS-8 will do everything you are asking for and then some. It will condition the incoming factory signal to undo any factory processing, allows complete active crossover processing (8-channel output), then it also automatically tunes the audio system via binaural microphones, and post-processing still offers a user-adjustable 31 band EQ. It's $800 on Amazon, but used units have been going for under $600. The unit isn't dummy-proof. The quality of your installation and pre-tuning setup is going to determine the quality of the results. Another option is to find a used H701. It won't condition the incoming audio signal from the factory system, but it does offer all of the other tuning features you need for a quality active setup (crossover, EQ, time alignment, etc).

I know I know, my aspect ratio i all funky, im new to recording vids lol

Sub par products, and an owner who is a complete douche.

Typically I do the following for any company and it works very well. Go to their website and find a "contact us" email address. Send an email explaining the application you are using the product for and the source of failure (if you know it). Be very specific about what you used it with, when you noticed the failure occurring and what sensory perceptions you experienced when it failed (sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste) and ask them what the best way is to remedy the problem. DO NOT say it is their fault the product failed, DO NOT demand they fix it for free. Generally, the company will be very willing to work with you, and possibly, even if it was likely your fault but it is still under warranty they will fix it for free. (minus 1-way shipping). If it wasn't your fault but was out of warranty they may give you a discount on something. I had an expensive tweeter blow. I followed the steps above and the company concluded that it was most likely my fault and not the fault of their product. They fixed it free of charge and sent it back to me.

Besides just getting it fixed you need to see what caused the sub to fail in the first place before it happens all over again after getting a recone.

I want to get my son's face on my forearm so any time I'm missing him, I can just look down, but damn, how do you go about finding people talented enough to do that correctly? Anyone that can tattoo a portait, will advertise it. In your case I recommend Googling "myspace tattoo indiana". You can look at hundreds of artists work without even leaving your house. You will want to look for someone that does realistic tattoos and has some portraits in their portfolio. I know ppl say myspace is dead BUT musician's and tattoo artists still use it as FREE advrertising. Secondly IF you see someone with a portrait that you think looks legit, THEN ask them where they got the work done. The only other real way of finding someone is to travel from shop to shop looking at portfolio's until you find the right artist.

I'll let you know after they arrive on Friday. Cool man! Hoping to talk him out of Focals! Just got done installing the Bravox CS60K's and I am thoroughly impressed. Crisp clear highs, thumping midbass, screaming mids. I have never heard a set of components in this price point that that play this loud and .clean. I would highly recommend. Thanks SSA for offering this sick pricing on these speakers.

The test is not so easy to do in a scientific way, requires a lot of money in gear (read >$300k) plus some very defined samples that are thin and most importantly a repeatable fixture to hold them in. I have access to the gear that gets used for this any day I like, but the fixture is far from trivial. Discussion is amusing to me either way as it is about diminishing returns. You have to look at the whole package which for a quiet good sounding vehicles includes many more things than just a deadener itself. Panel resonance is NOT your biggest problem in any car audio installation.I recommend SDS as a company flat out as the hardest part of any effective deadening is the install and so far only Don has time and time again given the right recommendations of how much and where to install the product. That and his product is designed more than adequately for what it is required to do.

Necessary port area is easy to calculate. The formula dv is greater than or equal to 39.37 (411.25Vd / the square root of fB) 1/2 Where dv = the minimum diameter of vent in inches fB = tuning frequency Vd = cone area in cubic meters

Pretty impossible to tell you what will get the loudest as your specific set of variables will differ from everyone else experiences. I would just follow the Incriminator guidelines.

heres another quick vid