JohnHinerman

Hey guys, The system in my 2011 Ram is driving me crazy... Here is what is going on. At high volumes the draw from the amplifiers is kicking my trucks ass. The dash lights are dimming, the voltage drop is causing my HID lights to kick on and off, and I'm pretty sure that the PCM is trying to compensate by increasing the voltage regulation from the alternator. The voltage regulator is controlled by the PCM. It is not built into the alternator. When it is playing loud, it seems like the PCM is kicking the voltage up to about 15.5v according the my Bel radar detector voltage display and the HI VOLT warning it keeps flashing and beeping at me. The truck has a 180amp alternator installed on it from a 2500 with snow plow package. (original was 136amp) with an additional 4ga cable from the alternator to the battery. Optima Red Top 1/0 high quality copper power cable that makes a short run from the battery, into the cab and under the drivers seat. It then splits into two 4 gauge cables through a fused distribution block. The 4ga runs are about 6-8" from the block to the amplifiers. Each amplifier then has its own 4ga ground cable which is grounded with about 6-8" of ground cable. The amplifiers are a Alpine PDX-F6 with two 30amp fuses and a PDX-M12 with four 25amp fuses. I have two Fi SSD-10 d2 woofers wired series-parallel to put a 2ohm load at the amplifier (which it is rated for) When measure the speaker resistance, they are sitting at closer to about 1.4ohms. Each woofer is wired with 10ga cable, and each woofer has its own 10ga pair run from the speaker to the amp. All the gains were set with a DD-1 Will a capacitor provide any real help? Do I need a higher output alternator such as 250-270amp? Is the 1.4 load putting to much load on the amplifier? Any help or suggestions would be great. I've seen plenty of systems that dim lights etc, but I don't think I've ever had one with the voltage jumping so high like this is. I don't know what if any detrimental effects it could be having on the electrical system in the truck. Thanks in advance....

video is good... As far as all of the JL Audio hating, I just don't get it. We have used many many many JL Audio subwoofers over the years, and they do make a very good product. They are expensive yes, but Ferarri's are expensive also, but is that a great reason to hate on them? I donno... I wouldn't complain if my car or truck was full of W7's... just my thoughts...

Just wondering why the majority of subwoofers have a lower QTS and designed more for a vented enclosure. Yes, you will see maybe +3db from a vented vs a sealed similar enclosure, but is that always that crucial? I've built plenty of sealed enclosures in the past that have sounded great, and had great curves. Plus the you have the advantage of a smooth roll off, and generally allows for higher power usage with its better cone control. Then you have to think that many users don't know about subsonic filters and freq tuning. I'm not being biased towards any enclosure, they all have their uses whether sealed, vented, band pass, isobaric, free air, etc but it just seems that back in the day manufactures offered more options for sealed enclosures, and these days everything is geared towards vented enclosures. Is this a trend for higher output levels or is there something I am missing. Forgive me if I am not up to date on everything. In all honesty most of my experience was from the early '90's to the early '00's and just getting back into everything.

I hope that they sound as good as they look, and I hope that my power will be sufficient. I would be nice to have a M12 for each woofer, but I'm pretty much out of room....

Yeah, the magnet seems to be a lot bigger now....

I am going to be powering them with a PDX-M12 1200w. I know its not the 1000w each like it could be, but 600-700w each in a pick up should be ok for listening to music.

Here are some photos of the new SSD10's that showed up at my door the other day. Look pretty awesome, can't wait to get them going.

Yeah, I sent it back. I know how to solder. I soldered circuit boards and wiring for almost three years at a job I once had. I doubt I heated something up internally to mess it up, but who knows now. It was playing for for a little bit, then just stopped..sooo.. I'm hoping I just had a crappy speaker and a new one will fix all of my problems.. well, at least one of my problems lol

Well this pretty much sucks. I have a brand new set of ID Xs-65 Components in my truck, along with a pair of ID CTS-69 in the rear. They are powered off a 4x150 PDX amplifier. I don't have my subs in, I have the crossover set at 60hz HP all the way around. I was driving the other day, listening to the radio at a normal level (Can't crank it without woofers and getting it set up) and one of the 6.5's stopped working. Mind you, I have the gain to just above muted on the amplifier, and again, I'm not rocking out with no adjustments or subwoofers to tune it in. First I thought that maybe my crossover wiring came undone since the tweeter was still playing. Nope. Hooked touched another speaker to the ouputs and it played. So I measure resistance across the wires to the mid bass driver at the crossover. Open. I figure there is no way I blew that speaker, and maybe the soldering of the speaker wire to the speaker inside the door went bad. (I really was more so hoping that thinking since I actually do know how to solder, and have a weller bench mounted soldering iron with temp control and everything) and so I take the door apart, of course the wiring is fine. Cone moves freely, no burnt coil smell. Can't see any damage to the coil through the vent holes or on the coil when removing the front pole piece. Just open circuit in the coil. What gives? These speakers are rated for 125w rms, and I have seen plenty of people pushing them with more. Even up to 200w. So I'm listening to the radio at a normal level,without any clipping or distortion, crossed over at 60hz and this speaker dies out on me? I'm hoping that I just happened to end up with a sub-quality speaker and this is not the nature of these things. There is no reason why it should have been blown or anything like that. So I'm thinking I just spent $400 on a set of speakers that I am not going to be able to even play loud without them blowing? I know that in reality 60hz MAY be below the normal point in which you would want to cross these over when using higher power and subwoofers, but come on, that is ridiculous. Do these things suck? I have Alpine Type R's in my eclipse with a 4x100 pdx that I play the shit out of very loud for at least three years now without ever having a problem..... I purchased them from Sonicelectronix which at least is an authorized retailer so warranty replacement *shouldn't* be an issue. But to make things worse, I sent them back my dead driver, and then looked online and they don't have any more XS-65 systems in stock. Look at seperates, and they do have the X65 mid bass drivers listed and shipping in 7-10 days which leads me to believe my new speaker is going to have to either be drop shipped from ID to me, or shipped from ID to Sonic, and then to me which who knows how long now I'm not going to have a speaker....my frickin luck.....

I wasn't really planning on buying any, just didn't know anything about them. Just sounded pretty loud from next door.

Just wanted to here peoples opinions. The guy next door to me has two 10" VX's in a civic, and although I just heard it walking by, seemed to be hitting pretty hard. Anyone have any experience?

ok, UPS is whacked because this order hasn't even shipped yet and I received a txt today on my phone from ups's service saying that my packaged is scheduled for delivery between 1pm-5pm today. Really? Come on ups, you tack the number and it has never been shipped... lol nice

Gotta love the youtube videos yelling at me for not reading lol I pretty much figured that was what was going on. No biggie.

With the LOC at full output, my 4 channel amp gain is just barely past min. I don't have the subwoofers up and running yet, and I haven't done any setup at all. Back in day ('97ish) I worked for a Consulting, design, and testing firm. Around then you were starting to see most OEM hu's using bridged output amplifiers which would give you an 8v signal. We would simply use one side output and a radio chassis ground to run signal straight into the amplifiers. This would give a 4v signal to the amp without and sound degradation by using low cost transformers or resistors to convert high level to low level. Sometimes this would work fine but with some situations there could me an issue with turn on pop or other noise, but 9x's out of 10 it was fine. And in all honesty, I only reason why I didn't do the same thing with this is because the factory hu has no turn on lead for an external amplifier. Everything in this truck is on a can bus system, even cargo lamps and anything else you could think of. the OEM-1 was quick and easy, and I haven't really heard any complaints about any audible degradation of the signal. In a world without a budget, building an LOC with something such as Jensen Transformers and high tolerance resistors would be the way to go imho. Sorry if I am getting off subject or deeper than my original question, as I was typing I was starting to remember things I learned while working there. Anyway, the amplifier input is rated for .2 - 4v input. the only reason I would think you might want to lower the LOC output is if for some reason the source unit was such a high output that at the 2:1 ratio which PAC claims would produce an output of higher than 4volts, and even then I'm not sure if it would cause a problem. There are plenty of line drivers that produce more than 4volts, and if memory serves me, there are not a ton of amps which normally rate higher than 4volt input. My thinking is keeping the LOC at full output will keep the signal voltage as high as possible to prevent noise Maybe someone can correct me if I am wrong... Thanks in advance for the help.

Long story short, I'm keeping the factory Nav/HDD/BLUETOOTH/IOD/DVD/MP3 head unit in my '11 Ram. I installed a PAC OEM-1 (OEM-CHR3) for the plug and play ease plus remote turn on from the can bus system. My question is on setting the output levels of the OEM-1. I installed the OEM-1 and just turned all four outputs on the LOC all the way up. Is this correct? Is there any reason I wouldn't want them all the way up to feed the amplifiers the highest signal level?

Sooooo.... I orderd the two SSD10's yesterday, and was told they are still looking about 10days build time. Just a few min ago I received a UPS tracking number for the order. Says it will be here on the 22nd??? Thats cool with me...sooner the better. Don't know what happened to the 10day build time if this tracking info is correct.

I have a PDX-M12 and I also have a PDX 1.600 and they seem fine to me. Main reason I went PDX is because of the small footprint and the fact that they can be stacked.

actually the suburbs of Detroit, but anyway. I found this site and have picked up a lot of good info. I used to be pretty big into the mobile audio seen some years ago. I worked for an audio engineering and consulting firm starting my senior year in HS and learned a lot about audio, way more than most people even want to know about. I've chose to forget a lot of it myself lol Anyway, I've always been into audio systems but as I've grown up some I just haven't had the time to stay devoted. But along comes a new vehicle, and it is time for me to start things off again. This is a great site, and so far everyone has been very great and welcoming, glad to be here. John

For sure, I'm pretty excited. I have high hopes for them so we will see.

No options, just Dual 2ohm copper coils. I was going to get the spider leads, but Nick at Fi said I don't need them, won't have any cone lead contact problems, and the added cooling just adds to the power rating which I don't think I need to worry about either.

Order has been placed... I'll update once they arrive...

The enclosure was $64 total, so it isn't like I spent a ton of money. back out of high school I worked for an audio engineering and consulting firm and had to (well actually enjoyed it also) build all sorts of ensloures and customer one off stuff for projects. I've built plenty of them in the past for myself also, but in all honesty, as I've grown older it is harder to find the time to do things like that. I'd love to spend all weekend building a customer enclosure, but if I can save a ton of time by dropping ins omsething that is already to go, then hey sounds good to me. In a perfect world I would build customer door panels, and kick panels and everything else. But for this build, I'm trying to get it in and done quick and painless lol Building the 6x9 adapters for the door is no big deal, but it was also an hour in the garage sawing and drilling grinding whiile the better half sat in the house pissed off that I wasn't in there eating dinner lol Anyway, I am going to order two SSD10's. It says they come standard with the copper coils now, which I think is better option for me than the flat wound coil. Also, given the power supply, added cooling seems like a cool option (no pun intende) but not needed. I'm assuming the internal leads are possibly a spider woven tinsel leads (correct me if I'm wrong) which I like, but then again it is another $50..... While I have everyones attention, can I add another question? Door sound damping. The window regulator/door module/speaker mounting area is all one plastic module. Would you guys say add damping material to both inside of the door and to the plastic door module? Thanks for everyones help. I used to be big into this stuff, but it has been about 10 years since I've done anything for myself as far as car audio goes.

Wow, for some reason I thought they were both made in the USA? That is one of the reasons I am looking at them. Please don't tell me this stuff about the Atrend box. I called them and actually asked them if there was any clearance problems with the speaker and the seats or anything else and they said no. I was trying to make this an easy install. I've already spent time cutting 1/8" allum plate to allow the 6.5"s to mount into the factory 6x9 front locations, and I thought I could get off easy with the pre-made box. We will see. Oh, and mounting depth in the catalog says 6.75, yet on the website it says 6.25 I will have to measure it when I get home. I guess I will order up a pair of SSD10's tomorrow. I don't think I really need the additional cooling or internal leads do I?

pmureika, what kind of power are you sending to your SSD's?

Lol.. .Not making this easier guys.. . so indecisive.... To make it plan and simple.. I really like the looks of the FI, plus the custom dust cap etc... ( I know, worst reason ever to buy something that is meant to be heard and not seen) However, that being said, the Sundown does look pretty beastly also. I am just unsure as to wether or not I am better off using the woofer rated for less power, and supplying the recommended power, OR using the the higher power rated woofer and not giving it the 1000w it claims it wants...