ncc74656

I had never thought about using anything other than car audio drivers in my install until you suggested it. I had always thought and been taught that car audio is in the car and home audio is int he home. you go with rockford, alpine, or kicker in a car and buy yamaha, klipsh, and bose in the home. I have only recently been looking at a wider range of drivers for the car. I will always have the option to go 2 way later on and sell off what i buy. as for my audio goals i want to have clear and loud bass (it does not need to be ultra hella accurate but just a balance between massive spl and linear frequency response). I want a system with minimal dead spots and a relative response curve. that is to say a response curve that is acoustically pleasing but not so much a "flat" graph curve that would sound hollow and empty (not that you could ever get such a thing in a standard vehicle anyway). basically i want to have the same audio quality as my home stereo and the volume of a rock concert.

to be honest the notion of working with a 3 way setup that is over complicated and difficult to setup and perfect is a large incentive to me to head down that road. In my experience i have had coax 2 and 3 way setups and component 2 way setups in passive and active (never with a DSP) and i have found that when i try to make 1 driver reproduce to wide of a frequency range i get distortion and unclean sounds to high volume. I have used mostly alpine R's in the past and then these 10" crachendos that are... well yea... I am leaning towards a 3 way primarily due to the requirement of a "mid bass", through out my conversations on here and SMD it has been pointed out htat my mid bass is severally lacking and that i needed a better mid bass speaker and thus i would truly like to have a dedicated midbass that is not going to be distorted by higher frequencies for fall off on the frequency curve. i have seen plenty of good drivers that have excellent published specs on response and efficiency. My original idea to go with JL, focal, rockford, ect. seems to have been misguided as there speakers are stupid expensive compared to the ones i have been told about on here so in that light i am taking that information. It is a choice to not go 2 way and if i were open to going 2 way i would most certainly go with it based on your recommendations. I had considered a 2 way from hertz a while back however again the issue of a mid bass came up and then on top of that i simply wanted a better environment to learn in. id much prefer to simply have all the speakers and DSP's to play with so i can see what does or does not work. i have no issue spending 500 bucks on a part i may not use as i have never used it before and im sure it will be a learning experience. my secondary goal is to have a great sounded stereo, my primary goal is to have product on hand that i can play with. perhaps i do buy these speakers and end up not being able to tune it out right so i end up using just the mid and high from it, perhaps it takes me 5 or 6 rebuilds to get it right, im fine with both of those scenarios. i am on here to primarily give me the best shot i can have at succeeding in a 3 way setup. if it sounds like shit the first few times i install it then so be it, its my vehicle so i do not care about the quality of the sound while im learning. if i had nto made this post i would not know about the daytons, the funteks (or how ever they are spelt), nor would i have found the minidsp's or seen that JL and the like are quite over priced for my application. in that sense i believe this post has been time well spent. even if i do not end up using the parts im buying for this i will at least have them to play with and experiment with and i will finally have first hand experience with such items. hell i would not have even considered a mid range smaller than 6.5" until i started doing the research based on this thread.

yes i want to go a 3 way. if you all wish ill ditch out of the forum and not ask any questions. thats fine. however i will never learn with out doing so ill go at it figuring things out as i go and let ya know how i fair.

i would assume that having your port and sub facing in to the cabbin creates more SPL for the obvious reasons of compressing the air in the cab vs the trunk?

i normally do use pandora but dont have a cell phone right now. broke it a few weeks ago and sort of like being off the grid

well then its as easy as turning a dial. didnt look at the specs on that amp

my computer programmer has a real time interface that displays voltages. the lights are easy as they visually dimm and then the PCM, ECM, and VP44 all have there own voltage monitor that displays min/max voltages for a trip.

in that case once you get that proper sub sonic you should be good to go. when throwing thousands of watts at a sub when it unloads it breaks down fast.

i just had an idea. i pick up a .25 and .5F cap from a good brand (say rockford) and i place them in with diods for my factory power distro block and my after market distro block that i use for my head lights, computer programmer, fuel pump, ect. i add my extra batteries in the back and hook all my audio to that batter/distro block to that battery in the back. run 0ga from both front batteries to the back OR a 3/0ga wire run to the back from one of the batteries (wich ever works otu to tbe better). that would remove all the long wire runs through the cab, give smooth power to my trucks computers and prevent the amps from using the caps. thoughts?

the minidsp is what i was looking at for a processor, still reading up on it. no, im not interested in a 2 way setup, this build will be a 3 way. also want to play with kerfing and dual sub enclosures. for the settings i quite like the DEH80, i cant think of any other single din that has anythign close to its functions. visually i dislike the large button it has for volume and i dont like that it is missing HD radio and satalite built in. its a very nice unit but i dont see the point in spending the money for it given what i want to do. spending the money on a minidsp seems a better choice. not that i wont have some spare cash, now that im looking into other speakers than JL and hertz the price point is cut by a good 50%. edit: the HD radio is to get more stations, nothing more than that.

if you already have all the parts then just use what you have. when you are playing music you will hear an audible change in the sound when its distorting. having said this if you are useto hearing distorted music you may not realize what you are hearing. dont set your settings to explode, dont have bass boost on, dont turn your deck up to +11 bass, dont turn your gain knob all the way up, ect. the gain wont make the amp put out any more power but it will make it put out more power sooner in relation to your decks volume knob. once you start turning your volume knob up after your amp is sending max power thats when you start clipping things. in either case if the amp is sending a non distorted signal it is not capable of giving "to much power" to that sub. if you are using less than rated power on the sub you can place it in a larger box to reduce the load and increase SPL from it with less power.

the deh80 is not the radio for me anyway, it cant do 3 way active so its a moot point. still i dont understand why on there top of the line radio they would not include HD radio...

a few hz below your tuning frequency the sub "unloads". think about the port and the box, its there to create back pressure and you feel that in the SPL (sound pressure level). when you drop below the tuning frequency the box is no longer providing resistance to the air the sub is pushing and it looses that mechanical force. when this happens it takes very little power to hit or exceed Xmax on the sub. think of how hard it is to lift a 100Lbs weight, gravity is your mechanical resistance (as the box is to the sub above tuning frequency). now say you go up to that weight and pick it up but someone hollowed it out so now it weighs 5 Lbs. (im sure you have experienced this at some point) now you pick it up and damn near fall over as your arm flys up into the air as you were expecting MUCH more resistance. this is what happens to the sub and just like you pull your shoulder mussel the sub can bottom out or break its soft parts.

they are in my sig. i intend to run 2 KX2500.1's 1 KX650.4, 1 600.2 eclipse, and a sig processor of some kind.

what are you running, 1 ohm or 2 ohm to the amp? im assuming 2 ohm? in either case AT MOST that amp is going to give you 2KW of power and even then i doubt it will be clean. there is not a snow balls chance that a hifonics amp is going to pump out 20% above rated power. i do not think you are putting to much power into it. i think you are trying to get to much power out of your amp. you also want your subsonic to be a couple hz below your tuning frequency. 20hz sub sonic is WAY to low, FI recommends </= 28hz.

a proper enclosure with a good clean sine signal will prevent damage. when you throw 4KW out of a 1.5KW amp its not able to control the sub and the sub does not move in a liner fashion. the sub will move out part way along the sine wave (plus a bit more from sheer mass and newtons laws and such) but it will stop before it reaches the peak or bottom of the note and thus you are sending power into the sub but its not moving out any further. this leads to producing heat with out producing any cooling. the subs movement in and out (sucking air into its pole and compressing it out) is its cooling.

mechman 420

if its an 18 ill buy it.

your windings look great compared to mine when mine went up. if you do order a recone id recommend getting the fire dust cap.

currently i get a .6v drop at my amps but my computers get a 3v drop at times. i want to avoid issues with my computers and lights failing. also it would allow for more of the alternators output to go to my system as its no longer needed for the vehicle.

for 2 SP4 18's what else does this box need? do i have any errors in my math? gross volume 19.48 port length 26 (+2.5" for kerf correction) 30hz tune 14.37 cubic feet net volume .38 displacement .52 woffer displacement 1 extra baffle port thickness .75" box wood 1" MDF 204.25" squared of port area with 1:2.26 ratio http://i.imgur.com/MFLyfWx.jpg]

do not let your dust cap get crazy hot. its a carbon cap so its thermally conductive and thus it will always get some degree of heat transfer but if you burn your hand touching it then its to hot. you know when you are turning your bass boost up to get that extra volume for your friends. dont do it! this is why: http://imgur.com/a/XgKEP also keep in mind that hifonics will only do rated power with a lightning strike. if you are getting full excursion on that sub ill put money down that your clipping your signal hard core.

that sounds great. to be clear i have no issue spending up to 120 a speaker if it gets me a better sound quality. seeing as the JL's are just paying for brand name it seems that the 50.00 speakers are the best choice. i say this to emphasize that hte 13.00 price point is great but if the 50 gets me that much more than so be it. the one thing i CAN NOT wrap my head around is the focals... they better come with a brick of gold for there price.

after looking over the various speakers it seems that the cheaper ones are nearly identical to the really expensive ones. i wounder, does anyone have a list of who makes what brands? are speakers kinda like the batteries where even tho we have dozens of battery brands there are only a hand full of manufactures in the world who make them?

yea i am looking at those peerless now, id have to find a powerfull 4ohm amp to run those 8 ohm mids... but i doubt that will be an issue. suppose i could repair my eclipse and just use that stereo amp adn pick up a 4 channel for the mids/highs. *shrug*. well if i look at the prices im looking at about 1600 for the sub amp (or maybe 500 if i run a second KX2500.1) and then another 700 for the Fi. add to that hte glasing material, MDF for a 25 gross cubic box and what ever else i need such as a 600.00 3 sixty or a 300.00 dsp. either way im already at 3K so...