sundownz

I usually don't get to the forums much or at all on weekends these days; just give Debbie a call.

Our goal is to have a true sub-woofer in the 6.5" format -- so I'm pretty happy with it. It's a specialty product that we've had quite a bit of call for. We will have several mid-range / mid-bass products available as well -- the NS-6.5" mid (reference set) is more along the lines of what you are getting at.

1) Stock looks okay overall -- meaning if you count stock that will be on hand at distributors and not just our warehouse. 2) I may not ever use the tooled 18" frame on the X line; the 18" frame will be very costly and may not appear until the Z line. I do not have an ETA for that frame at all yet.

Got the response graph in; could be very useful as a mid-bass as well

Few more pics for you guys : * You can see the copper cap on the pole as well as the main diaphragm which is made from aluminum. This driver features a rubber surround as well which was chosen to help hit our FS target. * It's finished off with an aluminum dust cap as well. So the whole front of the driver helps shed some of the heat. This is in addition to the CNC slits all around the bottom of the basket as well.

I'll be sure to do videos when it arrives here for sure; right now we are doing testing at our factory with various coils to determine which configuration we move forward with testing here. It looks like CCAW as of now. I'll see about getting a video done at the factory as well so we can see it playing sooner Here are specs with very little play time on the CCAW version : Re : 2.9 ohms Le : 0.44 mH Fs : 44 Hz Sd : 105.6 cm^2 BL : 11.282 TM Qms : 8.7 Qts : 0.43 Qes : 0.46 Vas : 2.816 L Cms : 117 uM/N Mms : 75g Sens : 79.1 dB 1w/1m Ported box of 0.3 - 0.35 cubes tuned to 35-40 Hz looks very good. ----- A few common questions : 1) Power handling is pending extended testing. The coil is about the same size as what we use in the SA-8 v.2 but is CCAW rather than copper. We will be mechanically limited on the rating. 2) The motor is 126mm and the cut-out is 140mm so there is wiggle room. The only question is how easy it will be to mount with the terminals and wire; will be doing some test-fitting when it arrives. We can still tweak it as we did CNC frames for testing before making the mold. 3) The top-end response is pending a response graph which we should have this week. 4) Linear x-max is expected to be around 15mm one-way and we have close to an inch one-way of x-mech for the soft parts and a few mm of padding in the motor so the coil cannot bottom out.

It's a "regular" Sundown driver.

We did go with a 2" coil on it as well -- which is a bit different from most 6.5" sub-woofers. Plus the aluminum diaphragm will also soak up some heat as well. Thermally it will be very robust; power handling will be more related to mechanics. The flat piston diaphragm opened up a good bit more usable x-mech up top for us -- but I won't be going overly stiff with it as I want a reasonable Qts and Fs from it. Also... I mis-typed the shorting cap is copper not aluminum.

Little project I've been working on for a while... first prototype rolled out yesterday. It about 4 1/8" deep -- power handling and other specs will be announced once we finalize the coil (several variations will be tested). Every part was custom tooled; frame, diaphragm, dust cap, spider, surround, etc, etc. It also features an aluminum pole cap to lower distortion even further. Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available =)

Production on the X series is wrapping up; photos below! Production T/S spec will be coming in soon as well -- likely before the end of this week. Z v.4 production should complete fairly soon as well; we had some delay on the voice coils as the flat wire is imported from Denmark for those coils. Either way X and Z v.4 ETA should be within a few weeks of the original end of June time frame. ---------- Photos of the packaging inside of each directory; those images are pretty large (3MB each) so I didn't link them direct in the post. ---------- X-10 : Index of /misc/protos/X_Series_1250/Production Photos/X10 ----- X-12 : Index of /misc/protos/X_Series_1250/Production Photos/X12 ----- X-15 : Index of /misc/protos/X_Series_1250/Production Photos/X15 ----- X-18 : Index of /misc/protos/X_Series_1250/Production Photos/X18

Few random parts pics : * New one-piece terminals; picture turned out fuzzy but these have our logo in them. * The top accepts a small bolt on each side to hold down a ring terminal for the lead wires. * One of about five boxes full of the new terminals! * Some new 12" Cones * Production 12" frame * New gaskets * Production 15" frame * 15" cone * 15" cone front - we have tons of these now, so awesome.

So a good portion of the new raw parts arrived today -- nearly a full 40' HQ truckload of soft parts and frames. Plus, of course, additional E, SA, and Z v.3 style parts! Still have more that will be arriving on our next two containers as well to complete all of the parts we need for X, Z v.4, and NS v.3 drop-ins / re-cones... will be partial containers of parts on those as many of the out-of-stock woofers will be coming in on those trucks as well (SA and SD-2 lines). I don't think very many people realize just how many raw parts we keep in stock here but this is a nice peek into that The fully built X and Z v.4 are still moving along according to the ETA in the pre-sale; roughly end of June for those.

Amps are here. We'll be testing and shipping as quickly as possible.

If you get a chance to audition some SA-6.5CS components take a listen. They are very smooth with a very flat response. Customer feedback has been very positive on them so far

The woofer is an OEM project for Sean (EMF) assembled here. As it does use our patented frames that would be expected. People asked for a woofer like this so he is offering it to those people -- it's definitely not for everyone nor is it designed to be a massive quantity selling driver. I am not sure if Sean comes over to SSA to answer further questions; but I imagine they could be posted on the EMF Facebook. ----- As for excursion in a ported box; we have plenty of Team members driving woofers beyond x-mech of our old parts in ported boxes even around tuning for bass boxing. This is why we made new parts with significantly more clearance. This is carrying over to daily as well ; if you check out some videos of our Z v.4 in the little VW Golf we are using about 4" p-p around tuning (in this case tuning is in the high 20s) reliably -- it achieves a pretty impressive 145.5 dB at 25 hz in a super basic enclosure as well. Many other customers with similar goals used two Z v.3s for the same output in this range. This is still yet not for everyone -- not everyone NEEDS that but we offer it for those that need or want it

There isn't a DD 8" woofer made with near the linear mechanical capacity of the SA-8 v.2 -- the DD 2508-SC I had Klippel testing has a hot mess of a CMS curve and a very odd BL curve. I am confident the 1008 and 1508 have a better suspension as they use 2" coils, though... but I wouldn't expect LF performance as good as an SA-8 v.2 from either. I haven't had a 1008 or 1508 in here for Klippel yet, though. Stock woofer vs. stock woofer the 1508 would be better at SPL burps than an SA-8 v.2, though. Many people enjoy the "punchy" sound from a 1508 as well; but if your goal is low-end extension the SA-8 v.2 would be a better choice.

Sundown was about 20 years late with their surround design, those have came and went as has most of the products on the car audio market. 20 Years ago there wasn't much if anything in regards to a frame or motor that can utilize the excursion provided by such a large surround geometry. I never claimed to invent the big surround. But we have tooled our own version, paired it with a frame that can handle what the surround allows (as well as a spider that can as well), and attached it to motors that can also drive the cone to high excursion levels. The surround geometry is also designed with even higher excursion linear motors that we have coming down the line in mind. Klippel testing of the units so far show a very linear CMS curve and real-world in-car testing has shown excellent LF output; which is what customers want.

This driver will perform nothing like an SA-8 v.2 ; aside from what the T/S spec tells you the frame design of the SA-8 v.2 allows a wider and more linear suspension. Not to down the product -- but it is a VERY different speaker than the SA-8 v.2 and they will not directly compete. The market for small ported box 8s is quite large ; typically customers use 2 or more of the drivers as a single driver ported box is, in fact, quite impractical (not impossible and not unheard of; just a bit impractical).

Public pre-ordering is closed.

LAST DAY for the public pre-order !

Prototypes are in my truck ; awaiting a good time capital-wise to start releasing them. Likely tweeters first, then mids, then a complete set with crossovers later.

Updated with all the new information I can think of.

Derrick has the pics and videos to upload later... but we got up to 145.5 dB @ 25 Hz today in testing @ 1970 clamped watts. We are looking forward to trying two of them on an NS-1 with upgraded electrical when production arrives... 150 @ 25-30 Hz with two 12s... maybe ?

Current Z v.3 style boxes are compatible; but we've tested up to 50% bigger than the Z v.3 style boxes with good results as well, especially tuned low. The bigger box will allow you to take advantage of more of the excursion capacity of the woofer.

Assuming they have the same spider pack that is fine.