neo_styles

I've run the Monoprice Enhanced Bass buds (8320) and was pretty underwhelmed by them. The major issue I had was with fit, which Alan doesn't have a similar problem due to his luckily-larger ears. I would say a solid bet for you on the reference end when you're takling about earbuds would be Shure's lower line (SE215); ran mine for about two years unamped before I shifted over to the Etymotic ER-4P (also a solid choice, though anemic on the low end). If your budget can swing it, though, the SE535 from Sure (or a set of customs from Westone or Ultimate Ears) would rock your world. IMO, they offer a very balanced sound and have a distinct advantage being a multi-driver in-ear setup. Get those things to seal right, and it's just bliss. As for the Audio Technica, those are some very impressive cans on a budget as I do believe you reach a point of diminishing returns in the sub-150 market and those ATs are riding the apex. Another solid set to look for with some oomph that I've had in my rotation for the better part of 7 years are the Sony MDR-V700DJ; I feel they're relatively neutral, yet are known for coloring the bottom end just a bit more based on its intended source material. Still, they're comfortable, clear, and pretty decent at imaging for a set of closed-back cans.

After poring through the ramblings of a vendor just trying to get your money on CA, You really can't go wrong with any of Scott's designs, be it Fi, AA, or SSA. Forget brand matching, focus on the sound you're looking for. What do you listen to primarily? I can stand the X, personally. Unless all you listen to is decaf, strike it off your list. Haven't run Sundown. Can't recommend them, either. I have run the SSA ICON. Love it, but that's because I don't need in-your-face bass and I like it environmental. For you, I'd consider the XCON and I know of a couple SSA sales that would make it VERY difficult for you to not consider it. Like this, for example: http://mobileaudioforum.com/forum/showthread.php?5449-2-X-12-Zcons or this http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com/forum/topic/61290-2-ssa-xcon-10s-dual-1-ohm/ As for AA? They sound great, but it comes down to whether you're willing to handle the build time. I would suggest you just take up one of the two sales that I linked instead. Those XCON 10s would rock your world, man.

6 cubes and you want a pair of 15s...why?

JBL A6000 GTi

Let's establish that I'm not inexperienced when it comes to head units and I also haven't downplayed the 80prs, but IMO, it's a wash if you're not going to use the built-in active features. There are decks within the same price range that manage to produce a cleaner, lesser-colored sound than the 80. I know it might break some hearts, but it is what it is. Back on the BT subject, the average consumer is not going to notice the same difference in quality over being plugged in via AUX/USB, or by BT. My two cents is that if the bandwidth of BT protocols your device supports aren't 3.0 or 4.0, however, I would not recommend it.

It ends up coming down to what BT protocols both your phone and HU are capable of using. What happens (and normally why BT streaming sucks) is the bandwidth of the protocol. BT 4.0 can support well over 320kbps streaming, but good luck finding a HU that supports its receipt. I've been guilty of using BT when I have a random music craving that isn't loaded on my iPod and, at least with my JVC KD-A95BT, haven't had much to complain about, though there is a pretty decent loss of life to the music. As for the 80PRS being the best under $1000 deck, I would say that's up for debate. Most feature-rich I can give you, though. If you're going to use it as a deadhead, you're not going to see much (if any) difference between it and, say, a CZ702. If the plan is to use external processing, I'd pass on the 80.

I really don't understand why What It Is to Burn gets touted as "the better album." This was adventurous, off tempo, and chaotic in all the right ways. But if you want to be in for a real treat, tune your system right and listen to Every Time I Die's Last Night In Town. The whole album. I never thought I would discover staging, space, imaging, and all the benefits of good time alignment from a bunch of Jersey Hardcore kids.

Thank you. I have a LOT of work to still do, but that is simply deck tuning and amplifier power. Next year's build will allow me a lot more control when I get to play around with a Zapco DSP-Z8, but I have been very happy with the raw signal that comes out of this JVC deck. The only adjustments I've made are using a preset TA value and bucking the top two EQ bands (5-band graphic is my biggest negative regarding that unit).

Screw writeups...video time

Are you willing to humor a trade for a bnib 18?

Damnit, I was expecting an AA Avalanche. Great truck, though. Fun for sound.

Thanks for the compliments, gents. Just submitted my review to the SSA store. I enjoy writing so long as you guys enjoy reading.

Please tell me you're trolling...

Ok...it's been a while since I posted, but I wanted to put a lot of material through this sub before I gave any additional impressions. It's hard to judge performance on live instruments when you're talking about subs after all. Just that one slap of the kick drum or snap of the snare can be made or broken by a sub stage's performance. So here's what I used to put the ICON to the test: Barenaked Ladies - Hits From Yesterday and the Day Before Dishwalla - Self Titled Finch - Say Hello to Sunshine Tool - Aenima Korn - All Mixed Up Green Day - American Idiot A Perfect Circle - aMOTION Godsmack - Awake ...and a CRAPload of tracks from the 80s (which, if you happen to use Spotify, can be found here Barenaked Ladies - Hits From Yesterday and the Day Before BNL's latest hits album was probably the first I put on. Call me crazy, but that day I could not get If I Had $1,000,000 out of my head. Thinking I was only going to play that one song and move on, I kept finding myself noticing that certain instruments that never really had an impact were suddenly making their presence much better known. Obviously the drumwork was better this time around; things were more realistic, though I didn't get that hit-you-in-the-chest feeling (well...we are talking about a single 10" on 1/2 RMS here). But what completely blew me away is that I had never known BNL for making crisp, clean music; it always sounded muddied and rushed through production to me. Here, though, I was hearing tracks like they were recorded just this year. Dishwalla - Self-Titled This album is just a complete feel-good to me. I was going to use Opaline, but there's something funky in the mix that I thought might give that album an unfair advantage. Let's be honest here: this is an album I know pretty damn well. I've listened to it thousands of times and, during the whole time I had the DC, could NEVER get it to sound quite like I could back when I heard it for the first time (flying down the freeway in a '99 Jetta Wolfsburg, windows down, and a sealed Infinity Reference...don't laugh). Either bass was completely anemic or it was overexaggerated and would hide the rest of the musical elements. Here's where I started to realize that I was experience more SQ-oriented bass levels. I was again feeling the same things I was with the BNL albums and what shocked me was that it wasn't exactly quantifiable. Does this sub have...soul? I mean it's a frickin' piece of machinery, but it's almost like my music has a life of its own again. I wasn't getting the rear-view-mirror rattling bass I was with the DC, but I didn't care either. Save for a few spots where I knew a certain element of a certain song was supposed to hit harder than it did (and they were few and far between), everything was just perfectly balanced. I wasn't having a sub stage overwhelming a front stage or a front stage shrieking over a sub stage; it just felt...right. Suffice to say I started smiling here. Finch - Say Hello to Sunshine By and large, if you told me that I could only listen to five albums for the rest of my life, this would be one of them. This is my album that tests order out of chaos. I have heard this album now on about 30 different systems and each time come away with a different, yet at the same time, common impression. Sure, I heard a couple new things here or there, but the unifying principle remained: it didn't sound right. Everybody has an album like this and this album is such a particular bitch to tune that we often just throw our hands up and do our best to enjoy it as is. Who cares if the vocals and highs completely overwhelm everything else? Who cares if all I hear is the kick drum? SCREW IT! I'M JUST TIRED OF TUNING. But I honestly feel like the ICON just took a world of stress off my shoulders. Again, tuned as is, things just kinda fell into place. Was it the most bassiest ZOMG listening experience EVAR? No. Was it enjoyable? A resounding HELL YES. Again, I could feel that BALANCE and, the more I listen to this sub, the more I realize how integral having a subwoofer is in your car (even if you don't need what my son calls the "big boom"). There's rolling basslines that can finally come forward, tempo and rhythm changes on the drum set that can easily be detected, and THAT GUITAR...Ok, let's be honest that Alex Linares is no Yngwie Malmsteen, but Finch carries their guitar part as almost a mainstay in certain parts; from the infectious riffage of Ink to the chaos of Brother Bleed Brother, the ICON always seems to make sense of it all and say all good, I'm just going to play what I need to. Tool - Aenima Another album I have had tons of time with, though mostly using IEMs and studio headphones. In a near-field listening environment, there's a lot of details that get picked up on with albums like Aenima, but it detracts from the life of the music. Aenima is organic, in a way. Fans of prog can probably understand far better than I on the matter, but I'm just making my own observations. And for those who say I don't know prog, keep in mind I also listen to Dream Theater, Rush, String Cheese Incident, Alan Parsons, Oldfield, Yes, and a handful of other dudes. For a modern-day record, Aenima comes across to me as organic. What do I mean? I mean nothing on this album sounds forced. If you listen to it on a system that is overly clinical, you can't enjoy it. This is an album that needs a little coloration of sound to be fun. And fun it was. I'm not talking about kick drum repeptitions that make your skull shake kinda fun, just something you can turn the volume up on and rock out to when driving solo. Something you want to roll the windows down for. ICON to the rescue, again. I can turn my HU's volume up as much as I want and the ICON never attempts to steal the show, yet it produces some AMAZING complement to the midbass in a lot of these tracks. While I've heard Die Eier von Satan and Hooker With a Penis about five million times, I never heard it quite like I had with the ICON. The rolling guitar lines had new life I wasn't previously aware of. I can catch my smile slowly spreading during the sequences that Danny Carey is capable of knocking out on drums, especially on HWAP and Forty Six & Two. Korn - All Mixed Up Not much to talk about on this EP that hasn't already been said. Korn is known to mix with a favoritism for the mid-to-low end. While it's a fun addition for the die-hard Korn fan, there's not much to talk about in terms of musicality. The standout track here on the ICON was definitely the Dub Pistols remix of Good God. More quick-attack-quick-release drum repetitions coupled with some chugging guitar riffs, but not a whole lot of substance otherwise. Green Day - American Idiot This album has a bit of an unfair advantage here thanks to gratuitous dynamic compression. Tre's drum work definitely got all the love on the soundboard when this thing was being recorded. Still, I'm quite familiar with the ins and outs of this album (it's one of the few I can damn near play front to back on guitar) and was really impressed at how well the ICON was able to interpret all aspects of this record. The big wow moment here for me was on the acoustic number Wake Me Up When September Ends. While my mids and tweets in tandem have always done a decent job on acoustic guitar, the ICON was able to add that final element that made each picked note sound even more natural. I could close my eyes (not while driving, of course) and actually picture where around the guitar's mouth Billie was strumming. For the sake of brevity (since I keep running out of adjectives, adverbs, and ways to make the same things sound different), I'll just say that APC and Godsmack's albums were, again, pleasant surprises. My 80s playlist was streamed over BT from my Galaxy S4 using Spotify, but didn't hesitate to produce adequate SQ for listening impressions. Without a doubt, guilty pleasures like Cherry Pie and Rock You Like a Hurricane just got guiltier and the more brooding tracks like Fascination Street and Head Over Heels were a little more able to wallow in their own misery. And this is why I think I finally understand the ICON. I'm sure, with its 3" coil and 1250W rating, it can get as loud and low as you want it to, especially in a multi-woofer setup. But that's not how I listen to music and it hasn't been how I've listened since I was a 16-year old kid sitting at home and studying tracks on my parents' Fisher tower system and Bose 501 floorstanding speakers. If I wanted loud, I got out of the house and watched an act live. With the ICON, I feel like it's capable of giving me both those aspects while staying true to the music and in a fashion that I was previously unable to attain given my current or past setups. But if you thought this was my long-term impression....no. I've got another amplifier to feed this sucker and a whole lot more music material to feed it as well. I also plan to try the ICON out in a more loud-friendly enclosure of 1.3 cubic feet with a 32Hz tuning. But for now, this is probably as much as I'll comment on with my experience to date. Hopefully it helps a few of you out there debating if it's worth the extra coin to take the leap and keep on smiling.

awesome,what do you think about it so far.great subPretty much what you said, but I've been elaborating in the "My First ICON Experience" thread here, on CA, and on MAF. Suffice to say, it's good enough to get the word out about it

I know it's a bit over the $250 budget (you'll see the price added in your cart), but here's what I'd recommend considering it nets you a Leica lens: http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-DMC-LX7K-Digital-Intelligent-3-0-inch/dp/B008MB719C/ref=sr_1_1?s=photo&ie=UTF8&qid=1385592903&sr=1-1 Otherwise, you can get a Zeiss lens here and I've used this unit with pretty good success. The sensor in this one is pretty quick and fairly accurate: http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Cyber-shot-DSC-WX50-Digital-2-7-inch/dp/B006K554BE/ref=sr_1_23?s=photo&ie=UTF8&qid=1385593076&sr=1-23

Rick, what's your budget?

I'll second Sony being a good Point & Shoot choice. Pentax, believe it or not, also has some really good options if you're on a stricter budget.

Totally up to you, but at least with these you'll have a warranty if something goes tits up. I suppose try to jump on that dB-r sale, but it's going to be a complete fustercluck

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_67935_Hifonics-BRX2000.1D.html http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_43838_Precision-Power-PPI-BK1800.1D.html http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_24979_Precision-Power-PPI-S2000.1D.html http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_67869_MB-Quart-RA2000.1.html There's a couple new options to consider with my vote being the BK1800.1D

Call or email them directly

Good stuff, man. Those IA comps should sound great once you give them a good home

I love my ICON. Takes a minute to get used to having this kind of bass in your car and the best way I can describe it is warm, full, and surrounding.

I would have said the SD-2 as well