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In the interest in trying to do as Sean (///M5) had told me I needed to do in my ON/OFF Axis thread I've been playing around with everything. I've been going through crossover and EQ settings on the components in the van, I've spent time playing with the components in the Jimmy (I can't drive it, may as well work on the audio, right?), and I've also been slowly buying up some other stuff to play with. I bought the Dayton RS180-4 mids from Ricksi, I bought a pair of Aura NS3 3", a pair of Fountek FE85 3", and a pair of FaitalPRO 3FE25 3" full rangers all for the sake of trying to train my ear and learn what problems and anomalies can and are occurring in the hunt to get the sound I'm looking for. I have to say that aside from an awful lack of midbass the components in the van are pretty much what I'm looking for. Even running passive they don't have any issues with breakup, overbearing on any particular frequency and aside from the loudness setting turned on on the HU the EQ is dead flat. They're actually fairly impressive speakers for the money I paid and the fact they've lasted as long as they have taking the beating they have I've more than gotten my money's worth out of them. Even with the loudness off the only real problem I hear is the midrange being a little more in my face than I prefer to hear, of course that makes sense being that the loudness setting boosts a little on the bass and treble ends of the spectrum thus quieting the midrange down some. I can't find any real benefit doing anything else with the EQ besides that. I've had to come to grips with the fact that the less than stellar job I did installing the baffles for the components is the most likely culprit for their lack of midbass. There's not enough breathing room around the large motor's on them to allow them to work right. Without doing some careful work I'll have the same problem with the woofers in the Bravox CS603CF's when/if I ever get around to putting them in. Aside from that I think the limited number of people who've heard the van would agree the highs are as clear and even sounding as anyone could ask for with fairly good stage and imaging. All that amounts to is that I got really lucky with it and that luck didn't follow me into the Jimmy. Well, that's enough of that mess. The point of the thread is to share my opinions on as I make my journey through testing and playing with all this stuff. Hopefully those thoughts and opinions and discussion on the topic can help others as well. I'm going to start by setting up the current components in the Jimmy in an active setup. I'm going to get the Solid 2 installed and wired up to the tweeters and set the crossovers on the Clarion accordingly to see what kind of difference that makes with the set. A little preliminary testing (mids hooked up without passives) shows that it may be a promising move. Once all possible scenarios with that set have been exhausted I'll be testing with every combination of speakers and settings. Another thing Sean said was to never buy a set of speakers and expect it to be the last ones a person buys. I'm slowly getting an arsenal of drivers amassed so as to figure out what combination of what configuration I like best and I figure the more options I have, well the longer it will take (this is fun stuff!!) and the more I can learn from and grow from the experience. Here's the full rangers. I already had in my possession some Tang Band 3" full range speakers from a Logitech Z-560 (580, 680, something like that, the 400+ watt 4.1 set) computer speaker set that blew the amp out many years ago. I'm using the enclosures from them for all four sets to do the testing with so I don't have to build any. The size and configuration isn't perfect for all of them but at least it lets me test them in an enclosure of some kind. I have to say from initial testing the Faital's are leading the pack. They're super smooth and seem to extend way farther up in frequency than the others though the low end sounds kinda hollow. I assume that's from the super flat impedance curve that's published for them. Second is the Fountek's as they seem to have the most realistic sound, but they don't sparkle on the high end much and the low end is pretty hollow sounding as well. Third in line is the Aura's with a surprisingly rich lower end but they have a very tame sounding midrange and high end. They don't sound bad, but they're not quite out there and realistic as the other two. I still have to get the solder off the terminals on the TB's before I can make any sort of comparison with the others. I listened to them for years and thought they were great but who knows what kinds of built in EQing, crossovers, etc. Logitech had built into the amp for them and it's been years since I've heard them so I don't think it's even remotely possible to comment on them from memory and in that context. Here's a couple of pics just for fun. The Fountek's in the enclosures with the Aura's and Faital's sitting next to them. I just had them hooked up to a cheap little Lepai amp that I had lying around connected to my iPhone. It's not great, but it works. I plugged the ports on those little enclosure's to attempt to make the playing field just a tad more level. I'll get a little more industrious about it when I can get a bit more serious about the testing. I did have them the same height, angles, etc. on axis while testing as well.

I have mine in 3.1 cu. tuned to 32 and it sounds sexy. L port is 3 inches width...but runs the height of box..I think I gave it in the neighborhood of 16 sq inches of port

I give up

Aargh, sometimes I really hate this forum software Test

The true ssa evil

Yep, I saw the PM and replied. Just went through your entire Van's build log (Nice Ride BTW) and I did not see exactly how you have your front stage set up ... I see in the vids that your dash in nice and flat, but couldn't tell how you have everything installed ...I was just wondering if you could give me an idea on what you have going on there ... I seen a van similar at USACI Finals one year running advanced SQ classes and thought I could go back though my pics and see if I could figure out how he had it set up ... I'm almost positive everything was countersank into the dash with agressive angles and vented through the fender wells ... and I'm thinking his midbass drivers were in the Kicks vented through the fender wells too ... I would like to go back and check, but I do remember that it sounded AMAZING !!! There's no pictures of it because I built the baffles and installed all that before I had joined any forum and before realizing anyone would really be interested in seeing pictures of any of the builds I've done. It's really basic though with the passive crossover's each mounted under the driver/passenger seats. The window track, window motor mount, and factory speaker baffle are all one big plastic frame that bolts to the door in these vans. I took a grinder and eliminated the factory baffle from the frame then built a baffle that covered the frame where the factory baffle used to be. I then put CLD (more than necessary) on the outer door skin along with a CCF egg crate type foam behind the speakers. Then because the plastic frames were impossible to cover with CLD or anything else I picked up some sheet metal that's a little thinner than the door itself and skinned it over the plastic frame. I applied CLD and CCF to that and then mounted the baffle to the door and installed the mids. I mounted the tweeters up on the dash as far forward as I physically could. Everything is in phase and like I said before, I got really lucky it all sounds as good as it does. The description of that van seems as though it should definitely sound good. That guy definitely has skills that I sure don't possess. On top of that, when I did the original build in the van we hadn't had it that long and my wife didn't want it to be heavily modified so I did as much as I could to make her happy and make it still retain the stock look. Of course that went out the window as the build's progressed but that's how it started out. I'll hunt through all of my pics and see if I can find ANYTHING of the doors behind the door panels. I just realized you said videos too, LOL. I can't believe those shitty ass videos are still up!

New eye liner?

here is a video from the first days of the install.... dani had heard it a hand full of times.. infact i scared the shit out of her the other day.. i wish i would have got that on tape.. she jumped like crazy lol anyway ... she is trying to act hard in this video because shes embarrassed of her last one... http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_annotate?o=U&v=mSxGeLOkXp4&video_referrer=watch

box is tuned at 29 . my head unit is at 50 hz, my amp i can not tell you for sure, because i can not see it.. but its low. . i am not a sales rep .. but any one that knows me can tell you when i like somthing.. i spread the gospel to anyone willing to listen... infact most times at car shows you can catch me talking to a group of guys huddled around my trunk.. and im just telling them about what i run.. because they asked. funny story i was at work today.. i do route sales.. so i was out of town good ways im in the box trunk sorting my parts for my next stop and i hear " hey yo big jon!! " i look up like WTF. and there is this guy i donno who he is yelling " ah yo you gotta any subs for sale right now? " lol yeah ... my SUNDOWNS.. he said whhhaaaa..... i told him.. " i got something new for ya " he said he will get in touch with me to hear them... but again.. i donno who the hell he was.. my point is.. when im jazzed about something you will know it!!

So far for my next set up i am leaning way towards the ethos.

True. NoBSJon, should be his user name. I do like reading his posts.

This forum isn't a no-work-required box calculator. You must post your goals with this system for anyone to make a recommendation. What kind of music do you listen to, are you looking for loud as possible or quality sound etc

Z v.4 15" D1 : Z v.4 15" D2 :

NeoPro-v.2 Info below. They will be in stock mid to late August. New power ratings : 6.5 - 180 RMS 8 - 200 10 - 300 * Included Grilles And mechanical drawings : http://www.sundownaudio.com/misc/protos/NeoPro_v2/NeoPro-10%20V.2%20mechanical%20drawing%2020130716.pdf http://www.sundownaudio.com/misc/protos/NeoPro_v2/NeoPro-8%20V.2%20mechanical%20drawing%2020130716.pdf http://www.sundownaudio.com/misc/protos/NeoPro_v2/NeoPro-6.5%20V.2%20mechanical%20drawing%2020130716.pdf

Most competitiors are trial and error basis only ...Most competitiors do not give suggestions by sharing their practices and loose their edge in competition ... Most "Balls to the Wall" competitors do not take suggestions from people that do not compete ... Honnestly guys ... this is my observation at multiple shows and events ... I invite people to forums all of the time ... Most are very nice and just say "no thanks"

Just register on Bongo International and order your sub from the Fi website using the US address they'll give you on the Bongo site. Or contact your local rep.

Need way more details than that. Dome material, FR, how low you're crossing them over, intended application, etc will play a factor.

Sure someone would trade shipments with you, lol