sundownz

Excellent. I am expecting good things from the revised cone, suspension, and coil. Since I tore up the 15 before you got to try it I'll let you have the 12 first this time for sure! May have to meet you somewhere and drop it off since it's very heavy and I'd hate to ship it around more than necessary and risk breaking it

As for the sound deadening I meant in my car The little civic has roughly $1k in sound dampening. The basement simply has concrete filled cinder block walls, that really doesn't let out much sound.

That is due to Sean's setup. With the woofer sitting in the wall like that it is effectively a really crazy 4th order bandpass. I really wanted to test it's limits and durability before giving it the thumbs up, there is no telling what end users will do to it It's not an SPL woofer... it actually sounds great. It was made to sound good, and it does that. It was also made to tolerate abuse, which it also does. A third goal was efficiency, again, it does that too. This adds up to great SPL scores even though it is a great sounding little woofer.

No ETA on pre-orders and I am still limiting information as slight changes may be made to this before production starts. You could run two on an SAE-1000D with properly set gains and some sense behind the volume knob. You would have enough power to potentially damage the sub if continually driven to max output levels. If you have some sense you won't hurt them, though... I've been beating on the proto with a single SAZ-1500D @ 2 ohms quite a bit and that is capable of over 900 watts. Just get to know the sub and it's limits and know when to stop It's not a nearly indestructable beast like some of these new super woofers, but they are incredibly durable considering their pricing.

Will it work with the 12" model by chance? That proto hasn't shown up yet as it had to be rebuilt... it'll come in right off with the new parts in it since they had to re-build it anyway. If not, I'll get the 15" model out to you once it is re-coned

We put the Nightshade in Sean's truck and beat the crap out of it with 4x SAZ-1500Ds at 1/2 ohm nominal each (about 1.15 ohm each with impedance rise): * 4.5 ft^3 box tuned to around 35 Hz or so (same box from SDE post) * Front of the woofer in the "wall" setup Peak was at 54 Hz and SPL is as follows: 40.9 watts @ 133.0 dB 141.1 watts @ 137.8 dB 311.3 watts @ 140.7 dB 513.4 watts @ 142.7 dB 811.5 watts @ 144.5 dB 1731.2 watts @ 146.9 dB 2845 watts @ 148.1 dB 4505 watts @ 149.2 dB 7081 watts @ 151.2 dB -- Still gained 2 dB at this point, very little compression The next step blew one coil on the Nigthshade... so we didn't get any more SPL readings. Our meters don't have peak hold so I only got the voltage reading down before the current meter hit zero (coil opened up, didn't short). Based on my voltage reading we estimate it to have been around 10,000 watts or so. Cause of death appears to have been slight coil rock. No problem as the next revision will be getting stiffer spiders, a stiffer cone, and a higher power handling coil. So next time around I am looking to burp at 10kw with no failure Scores are looking good all things considered. The box is heavily braced inside as it was made for two sealed 12" woofers. This creates turbulence and is bad for SPL. The port is also only 36 in^2 since it was just a hack job box for testing. PS: Sorry Rich! Don't worry... I'll be re-coning this to the new parts as soon as possible then you get your turn with it.

REGULAR VOLTAGE TESTING: Made a separate topic for regular voltage testing. Hopefully I can get more in-depth testing with a stronger electrical system soon. ----------- COMMENT 7-20-09 : These are results with OLD meters... do not compare directly to new testing. Will update this with new equipment. Pyramid 50 Amp Power Supply 8 AWG from supply to batteries Kinetik 2400 Battery Duralast 1000 CA Battery 2 AWG between batteries 4 AWG from batteries to amp Fluke AC current / voltage meter Sears DMM Measurements: 65.8 volts 49.2 Amps 1.33 ohm calculated rise from 0.6 ohm DCR ** 3237 Watts 14.4 volts rest dropping to 10.75 volts ** - Rise was higher than when I tested the 1500D, it was 1.08 ohms for that test. Presumably since my single run of 12 AWG speaker wire is heating up some much due to the extra power. I also did a few test runs at lower volume so the coils were warmer as well. ----------- UPDATE ON AUGUST 26 2007: Sean Belanger drove up from SC today with his O-Scope and a bunch of meters. This setup was in my SPL truck with the engine OFF. At this time I have 2x Powermaster D3100s, 1x Kinetik 2400, and 1x DEKA Intimidator hooked up in the truck. I had my trusty 50-amp pyramid supply hooked up to my batteries with 12 AWG wire just to keep them topped off, supply was set to charge at 12.8 volts and no higher. Discovered the following from the testing: 1) Power output stays about the same as what I measured above even with a drop to around 11.8 volts. 2) Efficiency was high at 0.5 DCR with a rise to 1.32 ohms @ ~80% measured at 3030 watts of output. 3) At 0.5 DCR with a rise to 2.08 ohms we measured ~90% efficiency at 2572 watts of output. 4) When the amp was dropped down to 0.175 DCR with a rise to 0.82 ohms power only increased to 3450 watts. At this load we had to roll the volume to avoid protection so voltage was dropping to 11.2 volts by the time we got a reading. Efficiency dropped to around ~65 - 70% at this load. 5) We could have gotten more "output" from the amp but we stopped increase gain and volume when clipping made the wave-form ragged. My conclusion for the SAZ-3000D is that, even for SPL competition, that dropping under 0.5 DCR won't gain very much. The power gain is small and results in a significant reduction in efficiency. In a Street-A or similar one-battery limited vehicle the 3000D seems to work best for 0.5 DCR with a 2x - 4x impedance rise for maximum efficiency levels, especially if multiple amps were utilized and efficiency were key. ---------------------------------------- HIGH VOLTAGE TESTING: Thanks to Sean we did some power testing on the SAZ-3000D yesterday. Power testing was done on two RE MT 15" woofers, dual 1 ohm coils (0.7 ohm DCR) with a rise to around 0.87 ohms at our test frequency. Power Output at Maximum Volume before Protection: 67.4 volts 77.1 amps 5196 watts Power supply voltage was 16.5 volts at rest dropping to around 14.5 volts. Our clamp meter ran out of steam at 400 amps so we measured efficiency at lower levels: 3294 watts @ 84% efficiency (252 amps draw) 3938 watts @ 81% efficiency (316 amps draw) 4424 watts @ 74% efficiency (392 amps draw) We didn't have an electrical setup to run 12.8 volt testing available at this time. ------------- Regular and High Voltage Posts Consolidated on 10-23-08 Original "Regular Voltage Thread" Here: http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com/forum/i...?showtopic=9952

Okay... so this has been under wraps for a while, but it's time to talk about it now. These will probably be coming out around the same time as the SAZ-3000D so I'll let out some information now! A few small changes may happen before release but this is the idea. A joint venture between Stereo Integrity and Sundown Audio, the "Sundown Audio Integrity E12" subwoofer. Dropped it in my Civic, with no engine at this time, and pulled 140.0 dB @ 51 Hz without any tweaking of any kind and in a rigged up box that used to be sealed for two 12" woofers... A few pics of the whole deal: * The E12 next to the Nightshade 15" woofer * The E12 chilling out in the Civic. It was 1 dB louder like this than facing up * Battery number one * 60-amp power supply and Kinetik 2400 -- only had 12 awg wire to charge them, unfortunatly * SAZ-1500D in the car, ran at 2 ohms * Term-Lab Reading These will run around $140 full MSRP and will be rated for ~ 200 - 300 watts RMS, although more is no problem for them based on testing so far. ------- The E12 was also tested in Sean Belangers truck. It sat in a 0.5 ft^3 sealed box inside of Sean's wall, inverse mounted. * Box in the wall, firing back * There it is with all the huge wiring SPL Results as follows: 17.7 watts @ 133.2 dB 33.9 watts @ 135.9 dB 66.5 watts @ 138.8 dB 120.4 watts @ 141.3 dB 236.7 watts @ 143.7 dB 448 watts @ 145.1 dB 765 watts @ 146.2 dB 999 watts @ 146.3 dB 1399 watts @ 147.2 dB 1886 watts @ 147.2 dB The motor started at 75.5 degrees and ended at 82 degrees after the testing. Now... we ran a 60 second burp on a 74 Hz sine wave @ 450 watts. The motor went from 82 to 84 degrees... so it'll take thermal abuse!

Excellent. The BTL is a monster... I bet the 10" version will look pretty weird, though

No plans for that at the moment. At first there will be a 12" and a 15" -- and even those are not scheduled in the immediate future.

The SAE-1000D power output specs are rated at 13.8 volts and match pretty much dead on what the amp will do at that voltage plus or minus a few watts based on build variances.

Fuses don't blow immediatly when you exceed their current capacity. They take a while to blow and generally will handle a fair amount more than rated current.

I do testing in my basement (concrete filled cinderblock construction), inside a car, with over 1000 dollars in sound deadening applied. I can test well into the night and nobody hears anything

The basket is staying chrome for sure. The 12" prototype should be coming in with the black anodized top and back plates (basket is still chrome). At that time I will make the final call on which I like best, and will ask on the forum as well for opinions... the full chrome suprised me on how good it looks so it is very tempting.

Not sure on that yet. I am a fan of subtle cones but may investigate other options. This woofer is not scheduled for immediate release so changes may happen.

Sure does... funny thing is I was trying to make a tweeter... *laughs* JK Jacob i have to ask, and you can pm me the answer if you want, but did Scott help you out at all with this sub, It looks like it has great potential to be an spl beast. Some similarities to a fully decked out btl, the triple stacked magnets etc... It's looks This woofer is not related to FI Audio or Scott in any way. The BTL is a beastly woofer, but this one is not related other than the fact that it is also a very large SPL geared woofer

The proto coil should be good for about 3000 watts RMS continuously for fairly long periods of time, 6000 watts for shorter bursts, and even more than that for "lane burps." The production model will be getting an even beefier coil, cone, and soft parts. If you do tear up the proto we'll call it R&D and keep improving the design based on what fails

The cone is the "boob" style as of now.

No. None of the amps come with birth certificates at this time. I'd like to start doing that later on but it requires too much labor at this point.

Yessir. I will most likely have re-cones available, if not immediatly at release, I'll get some made.

From what I understand they don't make them anymore. Loyd has one though

Indeed. Max out the gains and eventually it will get too hot. And you are correct, thats not exactly the right way to do it I am testing your second amp *laughs* you have dibs on this one if you like since it will match your other proto amp.

All Sundown amps have a remote knob. None of them have cooling fans. I've only had bad experience with fans... they either fail, get loud, get loud and fail, are loud from day one then fail, etc. With a proper, unclipped, gain structure and a decent mounting location none of the amps need an internal fan due to sufficient thermal dissipation area. If I made an amp with a more cosmetic heatsink as small as the SAE-1000D then I would need a fan, but the heatsink has plenty of dissipation area and thermal mass for the task

Sure does... funny thing is I was trying to make a tweeter... *laughs* JK

Sean, As soon as I can! I only have ONE prototype so we'll have to block off something on your wall. This coming weekend I am getting up with Chad and Loyd... eventually the sub will go to Richard for some daily abuse (if I, or we don't tear it up), but I'll be sure to make my way to your place for some measurements before then.