Robert.Metzel

Jacob, I sent you an email about picking up one of the scratched 2000d's. Let me know your paypal or hit me back via the email. Thanks man!

IMHO, if you are buying a piece, then saving for the next piece, so on and so forth, I would start with the headunit and components first like you said. Because then you would have some decent sound to listen to while you saved for the next piece. Big 3 can be done at any time. And I totally understand where you are coming from on the go big now. Starting off small is great, but more costly in the long run when you have to upgrade everything. So as long as you do it all right, you will be good to go.

We final got our new T-Shirts in! Its the first design of many to come. We actually have a big enough following that people requested we make shirts! lol Let me know what you guys think of the shirts and little website I designed for them. Only a temp setup for now. I used stick guys because My partner Luke and I are known as the Black Tie Guys. So we use stick guys on stuff sometimes. People seem to like it. lol 1. 2. 3. 4. Temp website for the shirts is: BTP T-Shirts - Home

Before my son was born, I was running 18's and I really miss the output of that setup. So I am thinking of sending in my 12's to get re-coned as 18's, or if its not to hard, just doing the re-cone myself. Yes, I am tempted to off load the two 12"s and just get a 18' xcon or BTL, but with hardly any more power, and 1/2 the cone area, this setup should be louder theoretically. Secondly, I am not a box designer at all and I am completely lost as to what works and doesn't. This is a daily setup. I don't compete. Using RE's Calculator just as a ref, it looks like the max volume I am able to get is around 13.5 cubes before displacement. That is leaving a bit of space between the cargo hatch and port. Also leaving room for me to see out the back window. But, I have never heard a setup that fires up and ports up. Any feed back on that in an SUV? Doing it the latter way will let me squeeze box to about 15 cubes before any displacement. Plan would be 30hz tuning. I would use a double baffle and dowel rods for bracing. 6-1" rods total. 2 top to bottom, 2 front to back, and 2 side to side. Or is that over kill? So questions I have are: 1. Fire up and port up going to sound like ass or diminish output on the meter or ears? ( Don't compete but still like to get metered for fun ) 2. Am I better off sending it in for the re-cone since the basket and everything needs to be changed? 3. I know increasing cone area should mean more output, but will it be that big of a difference on the same power level? Install dependent yes, but theoretically, the gain should be pretty significant correct? Money is tight right now, but I am moving some funds around, booking some extra gigs, and selling some stuff that I have had in storage forever that is wasting space. This is the box design I came up with to use just about every square inch of room I can use in the cargo area. This designing being roughly 13.5 cubes. Feel free to tell me the exact size as I am not sure how to figure it it accurately. This design leaving about 4" from the face of the box to the cargo door wall. I have ZERO clue on how to design a port for this so a bit of help there would be greatly appreciated too! The bigger box would be about a 1/2" to 1" off the door and porting up, but again, no clue on the port design. Add 3" to the depth if you are feeling port design generosity! lol 23" as total height and the box about 3" over the back head rests, but I could go 25" if it was an absolute must. Any higher and I totally lose my visibility out the back. 25" would be roughly 14.9 porting back & 16.7 porting up before displacement. Thoughts from all you guru's please! Front: The 5.5" is about an 1/8" over the top of the wheel well. Width on bottom and top are 1/8" gap on each side of the plastic. Top:

Sweet! How do those RE's sound? I used to love my XXX's, but I haven't heard any of there subs since the were bought by us amps. That's the 1500 rms RE amp to isn't it? How do you like it?

I personally don't care what its made of....as long as its made with love!

So the HU voltage read fine right after it happened. Now, I get no reading at all. Tried a 60hz 0db test tone and a 1000hz 0db test tone from volume 0 all the way up to 25. Positive on the core and neg on the outer jacket. DMM set to AC. So, I am guessing the HU preouts are screwed. Okay, HU is an easy replace through Crutchfield but, how would the preout voltage blow the amp? Or is it not blown? Here is what it did tonight when tested: RCA's plugged into the amp: Turn HU on which is defaulted to iPod source. Amp turns on, no output. Change source to radio. Goes into protect mode for about 10 secs then amp comes on. RCA's unplugged from amp: Turn HU on, default iPod. Amp turns on Switch to radio, amp goes into protect for about 10 sec then turns on. No output of course. I cycle through between iPod and radio about 4 times and then it just stops going into protect and stays on until I turn the HU off and restart the cycle. So I am guessing the amp might be shot too if it still goes into protect even without the RCA's plugged in? As mentioned before, this is a brand new HU, yes, I guess its defective. But when this happened last time it was with a different HU, which was also brand new. Different RCA cables too cause I upgraded from the cheap walmart one when I got the Kenwood. I am completely baffled right now!

Thanks! Shot with a 17-40L on a full frame body at 21 mm. So it does distort a bit. This is what a 15mm fisheye looks like. 180 degree field of view. And thanks for all the comments everyone! Makes me wanna try shooting cars again, but in the style I shoot weddings... TONS of off camera lighting.... Nate the owner of the Lightning and black Vette doing some touch up when we got to the airport. Hard to tell, but he is 6' 9" and weighs a good 330!

Honestly, just about any Canon or Nikon entry level DSLR is a night and day difference from a point and shoot quality wise. I like the new Canon T2i because the moved up the HD video option to 30fps in 1080p from 25fps and 60fps in 720p among a slew of other great features. The screens on the new camera's are amazing too! They have a higher resolution then a 4x6 print. So when you look at the screen its like looking at a print. Its pretty sweet! Great website that is pretty much one of the top camera review sites in the world..... Lots of good info and test. You can also jump around reviews to specific things you are looking for or wondering about. DPReview.com

No way it could cause such problems. It would shoot it into clipping, just like turning the gain all the way up. Was the amp mounted on the box ? Yes it is mounted to the back with a foam spacer, rubber spacer, and another foam spacer. I have always mounted to the box when I don't have enough room for an amp rack. Never had an issue and have always use the spacers to damping the vibes. But, Maybe my luck ran out? While driving to my car shoot today, I glanced back and noticed the amp light was back on. Pulled over, hooked the rca's and speaker wires back up. Turned it back on with zero bass output. But when I switched from iPod to radio, it goes back into protect. Switch back to iPod and it comes out of protect with no output still. So I am at a total loss right now. I am going to swap rca's out tomorrow to see if that does anything. Yesterday they metered fine, but today with the amp acting weird I'm gonna check them again tomorrow.

HAHA.... you asked for it.... Bodies: Canon 40d w/ grip 2- Canon 5d w/ grip 1d Mark II Rebel XT w/ Grip IR Conversion AE-1 Program w/ several lenses TONS of old film camera's from 35mm to Large format Lenses: Tokina 12-24 f/4 Canon 17-40L Canon 50 1.8 Canon 50 1.4 Canon 15mm Fisheye Sigma 50 2.8 macro x2 Canon 85 1.8 Canon 24-70 2.8L Canon 70-200 2.8L Lighting Gear: 2- abr800 ring flashes 2- Vagabond II Battery packs 2- 30" Moon units w/ Mask sets 2- 56" Moon units w/ Diffusers 2- 20° Honeycomb Grids Numerous Gels for the ringflash Metz 44 flash Canon 430ex flash 2- Canon 580EX II flashes 2- Vivitar 285HV flashes 6- Cybersync Receivers 2- Cybersync Transmitters 4- 42" Wescott Umbrella's 4- 9' Manfrotto Light stands 2- Rosco Gel sets 3- Flash diffusers Fong Lightsphere II Color flash Gels Stability: 486RC2 Compact Ballhead Giottos M7001 ballhead Giottos MT-9360 Legs Bags: domke f1-x Lowepro backpack National Geo Medium should bag

After rereading, The Black Vette and Orange Lightning are his, the red vette is another buddies, and the Viper and bike are yet another guys.... But yeah... He has money to play with. Next car he wants is a 2004 Lamborghini Murcielago painted Flat Black with black rims and tint. He has a thing for blacked out cars... lol

First off, I am a wedding photographer, so I don't know shit about shooting cars. lol But this is how I spent my day... driving around and taking pics... it was pretty fun! So here are buddy Nate's current rides. I don't know any specs. I just know they are stupid fast. I do know he had the Lightning's engine modded quite a bit and had it painted the same orange as the new chargers. Vette is pretty much stock and just blacked out. We also played with another Red Vette, Dodge Viper SRT-10, and a custom Motorcycle that has a 350cc truck engine and NOS. That bike was insanely fast and loud! lol Last 5 pics are straight from the camera without editing done yet... So here are some pics for all you HP freaks.... And don't mind the stupid links. Flickr just changed so now its a PITA to post pics and everything has to link back to them.... 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

dual 1 ohm wired in series/parallel. Final impedance read 1 ohm on my DMM

Soundstream Rubicon 1600d..... output board blew 2 times in a row within 2-3 weeks of being hooked up. Using 2 different HU, both of which were brand new. Mark, I would love to buy new! I am currently trying to offload a bunch of crap I have had laying around to get some more funds. And HU output voltage reads fine right now. I take it a spike would blow the output board? You think it would just go into protect if it spiked. I pulled the rca's and tried to turn the amp on but it just sits in protect. I'm pretty sure it shot!

Haha nice one, Mark. Is that ghost hunting? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKB7zfopiUA That video is AWESOME! I would have loved to get in on doing something like that!

That's exactly what I plan to do!

Oh I'm so pissed off right now! So, a little over a month ago my amp started cutting in and out one day then went into permanent protect mode. Had the amp hooked up for maybe a month and was brand new. So it was deemed the output board took a shit. So I had to argue and jump through hoops over a few days to get them to replace it under warranty. 3 weeks later they finally get the new replacement amp to me. Hooked it up, set gains,ssf, etc... Everything sounded great until tonight. I'm driving through town listening to Aerosmith's "Amazing" on volume 13 subs set at -5db via my kenwood. ( Amp reaches max power at volume 25 with sub set at 0db. ) Out of the blue while the song was playing my amp surged and my subs started blasting bass like I was burping them. It scared the shit out of me because I'm listening at a moderate level, not expecting 140 db to come blasting from the back! lol So now, after all the I had to go through the first time, I'd put money on it that they won't replace it again. So when I got home I checked, double checked, then triple checked EVERYTHING from the battery back. Not one issue was found. Coils on the subs are good cause I pulled and checked those too. I got good readings on everything I could hook my dmm to. So now, I am once again without my subs and the money going towards my components is once again out the damn window! Which I was only half way there so now I have no amp, I really don't want this amp anymore, and no money for a new amp. I own my own business, but we are going into the slow time soon, so I can't afford to just drop a ton of cash in case things don't pick-up right away in the spring. Which sometimes they don't.... So I'm pretty much left with getting this amp fixed, or going without. With this being the second time its happened with the same Make and model amp, I really just wanna throw it into the river. lol End Rant

Love my 2 ssd 12's! Congrats!

Does this model have an audio setting called DSP? If so, make sure it is set to on or through. Its the setting for the D/A converter. Kenwoods is MUCH better then the one built into the iPod.

My current amp just has the bass boost so no. Past amps that had gain control no. I have just use the radio's sub level control. Never saw the need to have 2 things that do the same thing installed. lol

Some questions on this: 1. Clipping on the songs? I have Audacity and every single song I load shows TONS of clipping. How does that effect the subs? Just the same as an amp clipping? 2. When looking at the graphs and peak points, song A shows a 31hz peak at -12 db's. But when the song is played, the little db graph shows the song hitting 0 db's. I ask because my gains are set to -6 db because I don't compete and I don't play bass tracks. I just want them loud on music. So if its showing a peak at -12 db's, but the little L & R channel graph is hitting 0 db's and a tad beyond because of clipping, am I over driving my subs? They sound fine to me at full tilt when I step away from the car, but I am a newbie, so hearing a tad bit of distortion is harder for me. I can post screen shots of what I mean if that would help when I get home.

Ok, You DO NOT have to download a program transfer songs from "Bob's" Library on his computer to your iPod. What you do is plug your iPod into you computer and load up iTunes. Then click on your iPod under the devices. Under the Summary tab click the box next to Manually manage music and video's. Now, plug the iPod into your friends computer and load iTunes, tell it not to sync when asked. You can now select whatever, song, album, video, etc you want. Click on your selection and drag it over to your iPod under deceives and drop. We do this all the time whenever my buddy or I gets a new song or album and we have never had an issue. The only bad thing is if you ever want to resync your entire library it will wipe all the songs that are not in your iTunes. If you are just trying to pull off an old iPod I am not sure how that works, but unless he deleted his entire library on his iTunes you could just do as stated above. From what I have read Ipod Dump works great and is free. So go that route if the iTunes library is gone on your friends computer.

Didn't refresh the page to see this before my reply. Yeah, spit out my OJ when I did see it.

haha... I was just guessing since "I" was posted and no one added a period to anything. You kept says so close so I assumed that's what was missing. lol