SoundSplinter

As stated, you won't need as much port area with a round port, and it should go without saying that of course the port length specification will vary depending on your port diameter/area and enclosure volume.. but I'm going to say it anyway! Sound-wise, either a slot or round port will work just fine.

35 square inches of port area per driver is a minimum recommendation for the RL-p15's. I will make that more clear when I put up the new pages for the Premium series products. Now.. Lookin' forward to hearin' what you think as the days roll on

I'm not one to go on a b

Ack! Well crapola, I'm in dire need of some good news to report and it just ain't comin' quite yet.. Coils arrived this week, they turned out not to meet the specifications we need for the new driver (too small!). New coils are on the way. We have workable coils with a DCR of ~4.5ohms on the shelf, so what I'm probably going to do is construct a prototype with the 4.5ohm coil so that we can accelerate the testing process. All other aspects of the driver will be the same, so this prototype should be able to lay down the guidelines for how the final Supreme drivers will function. I'm hoping to have this off-the-shelf prototype by next week at which point I will release the enclosure constraints for this driver as well as the tentative T/S parameters (which should not fluctuate much as a whole between the 4.5 and 2.4 ohm DCR coils; in other words, while individual parameters may vary, modeling will remain fairly consistent). The spec's on the coil we are going to use on the final driver are as follows: 3.4" outside diameter 17 gauge 8 layer flatwound aluminum 2.4 ohm DCR We're gettin' there.. slowly but SURELY! :ph34r:

Ah, I'm readin' ya loud 'n clear Most of the cone has the wet & polished look from the fresh armorall, while the center is dry from the intentionally lighter coat! Keep on wangin'!

Glad to hear you're diggin' the driver, and thanks for the positive review! But I have to ask.. what's all that smudgin' in the center of the cone on the 4th pic? I hope the sig didn't smear!

Hey cougarballa. The Supreme series drivers should be comparable to the RL-p's in terms of enclosure constraints. They may require a tad bit of added volume, but it won't be hugely different. At this point however, I am not going to give you specific examples until we have finished evaluating a final prototype. I can say that a drop-in exchange on an RL-p w/ 1000 watts to an RL-s w/ 1000 watts should definitely afford the listener greater output. As a more general update for the rest of y'all; we had some trouble with the first batch of linear motor coils and have sourced a new supplier in Florida. The new coils should be arriving this week and with any luck a final prototype will be constructed by the week's end and ready for testing. This has obviously pushed back the release date a bit, however I will be doing my best to give these drivers a public debut this month. You can expect more information once a final prototype has been constructed.

Alcohol on the cone itself would probably be ok - the problem is ensuring that it is only getting on the cone and not the surround It's not going to be disasterous, but I still wouldn't recommend using it

Agreed! There are so many places for drama, let's not make this one of them ...

Damp rag'll do it. A light coat of ArmorAll doesn't hurt either!

I would agree that you probably don't have to flip it around, but it wouldn't hurt. The gasket is indeed a bit different than the ones we originally used, as it has a beveled design integrated into the front face. So long as you do a good job screwin' the thing in it should compress fine, but for piece of mind you may as well flip it (and then you'll have the design on the visual portion of your product )

I don't recommend trying to remove the paint. You would need a fairly powerful solvent and could risk the integrity of the surround if you get any on it. There are quite a few coats of paint on that thing, so it could get really messy if you try to remove 'em!

I haven't myself worked with inverted enclosures, but you might in fact be adding a slight amount of volume to the enclosure on account of the deep cone that is now protruding out of the box rather than intruding into the box! I imagine exact volume will require you to take your own measurements since it could also vary depending upon your mounting style (extra baffles, etc).

With 500 watts, it should perform adequately. For a flatter frequency response with comparable low-end extension, I would advocate 3.15 cu ft net volume vented @ 28 Hz. With the 4.8 cu ft net @ 31 Hz, you're lookin' at some peakage between 30-50 Hz (+5 dB @ 35 Hz). Go ahead and give it a shot since that's what you got - and be sure to let us know what you think

The driver displaces just under 0.2 cu ft FYI. In my opinion, a 1.85 cu ft net vented enclosure tuned to 34 Hz would be a great enclosure for the RL-p12. Whether or not it will be sufficient for you, only time will tell... a slightly higher tuning will afford you more overall output, at the expense of low-frequency extension.

.. or you could pick up a second D4 woofer

I don't understand how the hell you are even listening to your system with your HU cranked so high. That sh!t would deafen me, even with crappy speakers! Is your trunk built exceptionally strong or something? I honestly am at a loss to explain your problem. The only thing that I can guess is that you either had too high of an expectation, or there is an equipment failure somewhere in your system.

> what should i do if it continues to bottom out even with the ported box? Well, if you are certain that your amplifier is functioning properly, your gain is set correctly, and you are convinced that your driver is not operating correctly.. there isn't much left for you to do but either accept the driver cannot meet your needs, or if you truly believe that something in the driver is defective, send it in for a recone. Unfortunately, our warranty is non-transferrable but if you would like a recone, I will help you out a bit.

Underpowering a woofer is not a problem until you try to get more output by crankin' the whole system up and up. If you feed the driver a clean signal at 100 watts, there won't be anything to worry about... but don't expect teeth shattering bass either!

You guys got it pretty well covered - until I receive the new surround and cone, I won't be able to commit to the rest of the driver (since we need the retooled parts for testing purposes, and ultimately decision making). For now, the driver is shaping up as follows: - NBR Rubber surround (not high roll) - Spun Aluminum Cone - 10-spoke cast Basket - TC2+ motor (2" voicecoil) So far as the suspension is concerned, that is one of the things we will be toying with once the new surround and cone arrive (hopefully later this month or early next). I would like to add a second spider, but this will be decided upon real-world testing and not speculation.. which means we'll have to wait and see! All in all, my goals for the redesign are to offer greater low frequency extension, improved sensitivity/efficiency, and a stronger product overall. Estimated public release will be early Fall / September. Once we start crankin' out the proto's I will surely post more concrete information. If you'd like to be kept on a notification list for availability, go ahead and email me requesting as such

The driver would be bottoming out if you have too much power on it. You really need to keep your amplifier gain setting lower. If the driver doesn't get loud enough for you, simply turning up the gain until it does is a very bad way to go about things. A ported setup should theoretically offer twice the loudness that you are currently experiencing, but it will still put out a nasty response if you keep your amplifier gain setting too high. NDMstang - you are correct that the suspension will limit the travel of the cone in most cases.. but when disproportionately large bursts of power are fed through the driver, the damn thing just doesn't have a chance and will stretch all the way (I've seen it, though only once when I accidentally switched the wrong buttons on an 2500 watt amp/oscillator combo, which I believe caused one of the internal cap's to unload freely as output producing a very loud CLANK from the driver ). Under normal circumstances, the RL-p's will bottom out fairly gracefully - though one will still hear some rubbing when driving them with too much power, even if they don't hit the back plate directly.

Use ArmorAll, you can spray it fairly liberally, but be gentle when wiping the cone. I would advise against rubbing alcohol.

On the contrary, the RL-p can and will bottom out if fed too much power (it will take quite a bit of power before slammin' though). Seems everyone here has laid out the cards and now it's time for ls1pimp to make some decisions. For one thing, lay off that gain man - you don't want to destroy the woofer before you have a chance to get your setup set straight! Get your wiring to the battery and try to find a way to use either a 1.25 - 1.35 NET volume sealed or 1.5 - 2.0 NET volume ported @ 34 Hz enclosure. 0.85 cu ft NET is simply not going to give you the output you want PERIOD. Don't forget about enclosure positioning and noise cancellation as well - but seriously man: Get wiring done properly Ease up on your gain - if the woofer is clippin' and makin' all sorts of nasty noise, you are hurting it and need to back off on the gain. Change your enclosure So now that you've heard this so many times, are you ready to go do it?!

Ah well, that driver will be something sweet to be sure! Now give us the tour of her new home..