Trepkos

Actually, no. I was thinking of getting a Sundown 1000d, or a ED NINe.1, or even an AQ 1200d. But I didnt think the Hifonics would make the subwoofer sound this off.

I just got done setting my gains with the DMM, my main issue and area of concern is the subwoofer and the Hifonics Bxi1606d amplifier. The component set is working and sounding fine and so is the Sundown SAX 100.2 amplifier. The Hifonics amplifier and subwoofer on the other hand are just being a pain in the ass to get sounding decent. To give you all the information I can on the subject we'll start here. I want that 15" Fi Q sound that we see and hear in videos, the smooth rumbling bass on all frequencies, well-reproduced, very loud, and sounding very good. To achieve this I have done the following. I had the following set on my amplifier and head unit. Amplifier: SSF: 25hz LPF: 80hz Phase: 0 Bass EQ: 0 Bass Boost: 0 Gains: Adjusted with a DMM at their peak playing frequency to do 34.6volts(1200watts@1-Ohm) Noted with a DMM, the impedance load on the amplifier is shown to be 1.5ohm's according to the DMM staggering at 1.3ohms every now or then. The DC voltage being sent to the amplifier is steady at 14.4volts. Headunit: Subwoofer Output = 15/15 Volume: 26/35 Volume Offset: 0 Loudness: Off Crossover Frequencies For The Subwoofer is 60hz with a -12db/octave slope. --------------------------------------------------------- I decided to use this song as a test song, "Put On" - Young Jeezy. Well that, yielded no real decent results, the subwoofer sounded fine with no clipping and no distortion but also wasn't very loud at all. Heres a video of it. http://s286.photobucket.com/albums/ll101/T...efaultsetup.flv We will name that as the default setup, no enhancements, just pure gain and frequency tweaking. Shortly after that I decided max out the filter settings on the amplifier, setting the Sub-Sonic Filter at 15hz and the LPF at 250hz. And let the cross over settings on the head unit take over. There was a distinct increase in sound and performance from doing this, but nothing too great. So a little satisfied with that but still not impressed I decided to play a game to see how to achieve that 'sound" that I defined above and by doing this I played around eight different setups and recorded them with a video camera so you can see the performance too. -------------------------------------------- First Setup Amplifier Gains = Maxed Volume Offset = 0 Loudness = 0 Remote Bass Boost = 0 Bass EQ = 0 Video: http://s286.photobucket.com/albums/ll101/T...rent=Setup1.flv Second Setup Amplifier Gains = 3/4 Volume Offset = 3 Loudness = 0 Remote Bass Boost = 0 Bass EQ = 0 Video: http://s286.photobucket.com/albums/ll101/T...rent=Setup2.flv Third Setup Amplifier Gains = 3/4 Volume Offset = 0 Loudness = On Remote Bass Boost = 1/4 Bass EQ = 0 Video: http://s286.photobucket.com/albums/ll101/T...rent=setup3.flv Fourth Setup Amplifier Gains = 1/2 Volume Offset = 0 Loudness = 0 Remote Bass Boost = Full Bass EQ = Half Video: http://s286.photobucket.com/albums/ll101/T...rent=setup4.flv Fifth Setup Amplifier Gains = 2/3 Volume Offset = +5 Loudness = On Remote Bass Boost = 0 Bass EQ = 0 Video: http://s286.photobucket.com/albums/ll101/T...rent=setup5.flv Sixth Setup Amplifier Gains = 3/4 Volume Offset = 3 Loudness = On Remote Bass Boost = 0 Bass EQ = Full Video: http://s286.photobucket.com/albums/ll101/T...rent=setup6.flv Seventh Setup Amplifier Gains = 3/4 Volume Offset = 3 Loudness = On Remote Bass Boost = Half Bass EQ = 0 Video: http://s286.photobucket.com/albums/ll101/T...rent=setup7.flv Eight Setup Amplifier Gains = 2/3 Volume Offset = 5 Loudness = 0 Remote Bass Boost = 1/3 Bass EQ = 0 Video: http://s286.photobucket.com/albums/ll101/T...rent=setup8.flv If you think you can really help me on this subject, I have MSN, AIM, and Yahoo and would really appreciate the help.

The rainbows came from 6spdcoupe on caraudio.com forums. Just register there and PM him. The set was $260 including shipping.

Not hard at all, just make sure you get a durable preferably metal disc.

The rainbows already sound very nice and worth the money and much better than my previous pg rsd set.

IMG]http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll101/Trepkos01/DSCN2021.jpg

Thank you all, the tuning is coming along real nicely. I am planning on putting a small amount of this extra ensolite I ordered behind the midbass in the doors to stop any reflecting sound waves. The tuning is coming on smoothly, I need to work on the tweeter attenuation and hopefully fix it in the crossovers as well as set the crossovers up.

Thank you, glad that some people actually read them.

Tuning Journal Entry One Well, I wired it up and did a test run and there is not much movement coming from the sub woofer at all. Been playing with the setting a bit, Ive been looking for the forum post telling you what each setting was but its been deleted. The mids and highs sound good, not crazy good but good, bit of distortion on the midbass because it tries to hit the low notes harder than I guess its suppose to. Anyways, if anyone could tell me... The issue was actually a lose wire in the back terminal of the box on the outside which was knocked loose when we were moving the box into its location behind the seat. Entry Two How much deadener? probably roughly about 1.3-1.5 rolls. Regarding the speak ers, yeah I realized to stop the distortion my gains are pretty much a tiny bit above their minimum. The subwoofer is working now, one of the wires was lose on the back of the box when we were fitting the box into the back wall, must have knocked one loose. It hits now, extremely loud. At volume 21 of 35, it shakes the entire internal cab, but I'll have to do some tweaking. The component set sounds really nice and midbass is reasonably loud. The deadening stopped alot of the external rattling tin-bucket related sounds plus improved the midbass response and also stopped most of the rattling inside the truck(unfortunately things within and on the dash still make a few noises). Tomorrow we will be putting the seats, which may be the hardest part of the installation because of all the equipment inside the truck. I was incredibly optimistic at this point due to getting the subwoofer moving and moving well, but alot of trouble and heartbreak was soon to come. Most of my description here is ever so slightly exaggerated. Entry Three Well an update. For some reason, the midbass is trying to hit notes lower than the frequency I have set on the LPF on the amplifier. The subwoofer is hitting okish, but everytime it does hit, the speakers on the right side distort or shut off completely(temporaily though) I think we can all spot the problem here from the above description, but I couldn't....at the time. To fix this problem, I found out that the RCA's needed to be switched behind the HU, and the two-channel amplifier needed to be on HPF instead of full. Entry Four The RCA's were actually backwards, I think there may be some issues with the subwoofer RCA and I need to do some more tweaking with the mids and highs. Aha! But the RCA's are fine unlike I had thought. More to come. Entry Five Im way up north from you. Anyways heres the update. The same issues that plagued me the last install are back so I'm not sure what the problem is, since everything has been replaced and changed since the last install EXCEPT the RCA cables, which are KnuKonceptz Krystal RCA cables. I'm going to play around with a few other RCA cables and see if I can find the solution. The problems are the following: 1. The subwoofer will not hit unless the bass boost is turned up on the remote bass boost. Supposedly the subwoofer should be able to perform better than that off of a Hifonics Bxi1606d amplifier(which argueably may not be able to output the complete advertised wattage), but there should be atleast some movement from the subwoofer at its current settings. 3/4 on the gains, bass boost on the amp at 0, HU bass boost on 0, lpf at around 45hz and the subsonic set at 15hz. This was the same problem with the last system except for even the bass boost on the amplifier and HU bass settings could be turned all of the way up and not affect the output. 2. Due to some extremely stupid RCA backwards wiring, the midbass might be blown because of the fact that they the amplifier that was powering them was being sent a signal from the subwoofer pre-amp on the HU. 3. The remote wire didn't work eventhough it had worked before the installation when I initially installed the cd player. But in the course of the installation, hoping that I would not have to fool around with taking out the HU during the install, I had to wire the remote to the ignition due to the remote wire not outputting any voltage as before. 4. Midbass is repeatedly trying to hit lower notes than its suppose to and bottoming out in the process which sounds horrible. The component system itself doesn't sound very cost effective at the moment, Im hoping some tweaking will help that or the fault might lie in the RCA cables. A rainbow SLC 08' 6.5" component set being powered by a sundown sax 100.2 two channel amplifier should be extremely crisp, clear, and loud. Instead the midbass is bottoming out and making a popping noise whenever it tries to hit the lows, the tweeters sound so-so, and the set won't get very loud without overly distorting or the midbass popping. Thats the gist of it, Im going to either try to fix it myself today or find alot of the problems and tune the sound of it, if all else fails then Im going to take it to some professional installer and see what they can make of it. This system should sound alot better than it does. Hehehe you can sense the disappointment in that post but atleast I was pinpointing problems and drawing up solutions to try and fix them. Entry Six Well the subwoofer hits really hard if you turn the remote bass boost up, but otherwise, notso much. Up goes the HU subwoofer setting and up goes the gains, down goes the bass boost and say hello to real loud yet nice and responsive bass. Entry Seven Nothing wrong regarding the RCA cables, took an Y-Adapter to it and it didn't make a single difference between the RCA's running from the HU and the RCA's coming from the Y-Adapter. Maybe the impedance is off, is a DMM in anyway accurate in showing the impedance load on an amplifier or of a speaker? Impedance is fine, RCA's are fine. Im missing something here. Entry Eight Any tips on tuning the the component set some more? Theres three switches on the amplifier, LPF, Full, and HPF, I managed to stop the popping by switching to the HPF. But theres no real midbass now, and the subwoofer is not playing any notes higher than the 40-45hz. ' I'll go outside and play with it a in a minute though. I thought most people dont even have to mess with any kind of bass or subwoofer outputting options to get large amount of bass from their system. Now as you can see Im trying to work on the component set, mainly the amplifier settings. Entry Nine Played around with it and got no real positive response from anything you told me. Noticed the subwoofer kinda bottoms out below 34hz, the tweeters distort heavily on bass hits, the mids pop unless the amplifier is set to HPF. Pretty awful to be honest, Im very disappointed. Im going to go to a professional audio shop tomorrow and see what they're opinion on the situation is. Alot more disappointment.... Entry Ten Well, I went into the audio shop today and got my professional opinion, he didn't actually come outside and look at the system or play with the settings but more-so just talked around the information I was giving him. He basically said for me to flatline or reset the HU and turn all the settings down on the amplifiers, then turn the subwoofer output up on the amplifier and set the gains from there and then set everything else on the amplifiers from there and then the HU EQ settings. He also told me that I knew too much "intellectual bookie horse chit" about car audio. Followed what he told me and Im getting a better performance, I may have to move the midbass to about 100hz on the crossover because its having trouble hitting notes in the 80-85hz range. The subwoofer is hitting fairly hard with the bass boost on the remote and amp turned all the way down, the gains turned mostly up and the HU subwoofer setting on +5(out of +15). I set the HPF a little higher which allowed me to set the sensitivity on the sundown amplifier also higher, unfortunately this makes the system mids and highs extremely loud it also causes the rainbow crossovers to attentuate the tweeters. I can probably grab some silver wire jumpers and modify the crossovers to get rid of the tweeter volume precaution mechanism. I was also reading the rainbow audio manual for the first time since the component set installation(I just read it to learn how to install the tweeters in their flush mount cups), and I learned that the crossover can be manipulated for alot of different sound and power management with the aid of taking silver wire jumpers and arranging them on the crossover circuit board, that'll be interesting. With the HU subwoofer setting higher and the gains set quite high, the bass is much more clean and responsive plus I set the LPF so it plays over a wide spectrum of frequencies ranging from 25hz to 70-80ish. Now to readjust the midbass and stop the tweeters from attenuating(though I do not want to kill the tweeters). This is where things begin to look up. Entry Eleven Yep still tweaking, I'm thinking about setting the subwoofer output to +15 on the HU and then setting the gains a bit lower to even it all out. The mids and highs are coming along, I moved the Front speakers EQ to the octave of 90hz with a -18db slope per octave on the HU. I played some test tones with the two channel amplifier only activated and found that the 70-79hz range was causing the midbass to bottom out, the 80-89hz wasn't really really bad, the 90-99hz was playing smoothly. One of the worst sounding songs on my system(which is saying alot now, since its starting to come together) is Fake It by seether. Where the beginning intro with static is amplified by the tweeters making it sound awful where as on computer speakers, that static and distortion is muffled. Oh yeah, one of the bars on the grille came off when two of the screws broke holding it in, Im guessing from an incident where the seat was moved back and must have broke it. I will fix that, more ensolite is coming in tomorrow, which I may put behind the 6.5"'s in the door. And maybe do a bit more deadening work, Im planning on cleaning the inside of the truck a bit and also places on the door where there is tar from the deadening material. And that is my latest submission. Funny to see the evolution of this tuning process.

Im about to include a log of entries I made on the other thread on caraudio.com involving the whole tweaking an tuning process and other difficulties Ive faced and still facing to help update you guys on the situation.

Fixed the remote wire by wiring it into the ignition. Then I began to work on removing the old component system's components and deadening the doors, unfortunately due to time restraints I only got this much done. Installed the tweeters. Got atleast 85% of the internal wall of the door deadened, triple layered behind the speaker. That is but only one door though, tomorrow is going to be a tough work day though. Hopefully cutting new baffles, installing the wiring, install baffles and midbass, crossovers, finish deadening and installing the subwoofer for good. These crossovers though are huge and won't fit in the door panels so Im hoping I can fit them under the seat in the middle with the distribution blocks.

With everything in the cab in the place where they will more than likely sit. Another view.

Woo, My first time deadening anything or even touching deadening material, I think is went pretty swell though considering it was my first time and I was doing this alone. Only trouble I really had were the corners and ofcourse the multitude of wrinkles. Now time for the ensolite, now Im a bit scared because Im hoping I have enough ensolite to finish the door panels completely after using as much as I did on the floor. I decided to just single layer the floor since it doesn't rattle that much if at all. Going to try putting the floor back in now and begin installing the amplifier, distribution blocks and etc. Ensolite went fairly smooth, few wrinkles here and there. Probably not the most presentable and professional job but it should work.

Well I crimped most of the terminals with this welding 0/1 crimping device which needed a hammer to be fully effected but I crimped the last two with a vice.

Yes got the ground cable sorted out and a new ground spot sanded down and ready. I decided to tech-flex the ground cable to differentiate between the power and ground since both wires have red insulation. Decided to take a small bit of wire and wire it from the battery to the relay switch to improve the power flow from the alternator positive to battery positive wire which is also hooked up to the relay switch. Getting ready to deaden the floor of the truck, this will be my first deadening job. Im going to deaden the main area, the middle area, and the floor boards but Im not going to mess with the door seals. You can also see where the panels have been cut with the dremel, not the smoothest cuts but good enough atm. I might take the dremel to them again to smooth them down and cut the spots where they arent very even. Cut the cloth aswell, ofcourse, not the prettiest cuts Ive done in my life. I can probably tidy it up a bit, but Im not worried about the presentation of the back will since it should be hidden for the majority.

Well, pretty much done with the engine compartment, Big 3 is done(took a while), finished and uberly secured all the wiring headed to the cab, I also sorted out the wiring underneath the truck for the underneath neon lights. Battery terminals installed....etc etc. Here are some pics, hopefully I can begin work on the actual system now. Heres an overall view. You can see, I made a new grounding spot and sanded off the paint beneath it. On that grounding spot is the end of the battery negative to chassis and the start of the chassis to engine block. You can also see the fuseholder going from the battery positive to alternator positive. Looks sorta iffy just hanging there, Im thinking of cutting off the mounting platform on it to make it look like its intentionally suppose to be hanging. I used the small little looks to mount the power cable going to the inside of the cab of the vechicle so it wouldn't drape over the engine. I will also be zip-tying the small underneath trigger wire that is draping over the fuel injectors do that power cable. Everything is tech-flexed and electrical taped. Another perspective. Yes that the chassis spot that I made and yes that isn't an ordinary washer, thats actually the end of a ring terminal which I tore off. To act as a washer(might be just temporaily). You can see in this pic that we grounded the cable on the engine block location where the alternator is bolted in. I cranked the vehicle and it started just fine and the voltage readings on each location was also fine. Between 14.5-15v's at each location, 12.5v with the vehicle not cranked.

Thats with the vehicle initially cranked. And a different DMM, that voltage dropped down to 15v. With the vehicle not running, it read 12.5v. I might try cleaning the engine area since Ive been told that its excessively dirty, heh.

The changes I made to the fuse holder to get rid of excess wire. Looks a lot cleaner. This is how I am going to try and mount the power cable in the truck to keep it from draping over the engine or swinging. Just a temp. setup, I'll tech-flex the wire, uniform the screws, make it look a bit better. Now Im starting to question how I am going to finish up the Big 3, battery negative to chassis, and chassis to engine block. The original plan was like this. Take a strand of 0/1 awg wire from the battery negative to here: Which looks like a ground point on the frame behind that multitude of smaller(underneath neon light wires) wires. And wiring it to one of those places on the engine block, either on that screw at the top or the the place sticking out in the middle to the left of the striped alternator positive - battery positive wire. Or replacing the wire in this picture that you can see coming from the chassis to the engine block.

Yay! My rainbows! They will be replacing the Phoenix Gold RSd 6.5"'s. This time I will actually be deadening the doors and cutting new and more secure baffles for the speakers than the one that the PG's had. I know I complained a bit about the PG rsd's but they weren't bad speakers at all, they sounded really good, especially given the conditions they were installed under. And when I was thinking of upgrading and changing parts of my system, they were actually the one part besides the head unit which I had plans on actually keeping. They and the Profile Ap1000 are being replaced with this 2008 Rainbow SLC 6.5" component set and Sundown SAX 100.2 two channel amplifier. I hoping with the new baffles, and deadening material, that it sounds really nice. The midbass, whooo.. The Cal25 tweeters, these things are tiny! I am working a very slow pace, hitting certain areas at a time, and right now I am working on the engine compartment wiring and eventhough I finished the fuseholder wiring wednesday night, I just wasn't happy with the presentation of the exposed wire on each end of the fuseholder and also the messiness of the split loom so this morning I managed to re-install the fuseholder(pain in the ass) and eliminate most if not all of the exposed wire. I also got rid of the split loom and I will either leave the wire like it is and tuck it a little bit or I tech-flex it. I also better secured the fuse on the fuseholder. I decided to see how the connection was so I took the DMM out and reconnected the negative terminal to the battery and measured the voltage. Without the engine cranked I was reading 14.5v(rounded to the tenth) at both the battery, relay switch, and the end of the fuseholder, I then cranked the engine and it increased to 17v. Yay my deadening came in!

Haha nice stuff man, looks great though.

Began routing the wire into the cab and underneath the door seal. Zip tied to an existing mechanic there. In this pic you can see where the power cable actually enters the cab through the grommet underneath the driver's floorboard. I need to actually finish electrical taping that small bit there. The power cable and fuseholder has been mounted and electrical taped and split-loomed. The KnuKonceptz battery terminal has been reconnected to the battery with the stock wiring and the audio system 0/1 awg hooked up to it. I would like to say, the KnuKonceptz In-Line ANL fuseholder is a pain in the ass to install. It really is, you actually have to shave and cut down the wire in the 0/1 awg to get a secure fit into it and no allen wrench I have fits the screw holding the ANL fuse down. I believe the one under the hood is fairly secured, I really hope it is tbh.

Good point, it shouldn't, there is about an inch of clearance in front of the surround and the grille.

With that said, this installation went fairly smooth tbh, the subwoofer is securely in the box, the grilled is securely attached the box and all connection are/should be secure and still connected within the box and the super/wood glue should be dry now and the box terminal should be in good shape. My friend had to leave around this time so we actually had to go back through all that we did concerning upgrading the electrical system that was unfinished and get the truck drivable to move it back to the garage. There was an issue where the positive and negative terminals(old ones) weren't very secure to the battery that delayed this quite a bit. But after he left, I solved this issue and picked up where we left. Here am I seeing how well both amplifier will be sitting and sorta getting an idea on how they will sit once the actual amplifiers are in the truck. I cut off the old terminals attached to the stock wiring and rewired them to the new KnuKonceptz terminals. This was sorta difficult but there is nothing moving that wire from those terminals, they are SECURE. I decided to postpone the Big 3 installation until tomorrow or this weekend, in this picture i believe I was getting the wire prepped for the power wire going to the distribution blocks in the cab(not there yet). I was probably measuring the wire for the fuseholder. Ok, I got the power wire in the positive battery terminal and I have split-loomed and electrical taped it. By the way, before my friend left he did complete a wire from the alternator positive to the relay switch positive with the 0/1 awg wire and techflex. After he left i took the techflex and tucked it under the rubber connector ring's insulation to make it look neater and it will not be replacing but actually be added on the already alternator positive to relay switch positive wire. I also found a place on the frame of the vehicle for the battery negative to chassis connection and I will be making the chassis to engine block connection on the manifold. That aside I just realized I got to fuse the alternator + to battery + wire. Yeah I moved the truck. Finally got the fuseholder installed(its dark) and I have snaked the wire on the other side of the fuseholder through the grommet previously used by the previous power cable into the cab of the truck. This is a pic of the fuseholder and cable. I have two beefs here. 1 - The fuseholder isn't very 0/1 awg friendly and I had to do alot of shaving to get the wire to fit in there decently and even then there is a little bit of exposed wire from outer bit of wire being pushed back, you can see in that picture, it isn't much but I hate exposed wire. 2 - My other beef is the actual fuse connections, they seem to be for an allen wrench to tighten, unfortunately I have no allen wrench that will fit it and I have an allen wrench set. So I had to use a wrench to sorta tighten it, which it appears to be tight and secure I'm a little iffy about keeping it like that. This time Im actually routing the RCA's on seperate sides of the truck, RCA's on the right and power-gnd-rem on the left. The RCA's are also zip-tied to existing wires underneath the door seal to keep them from sliding or moving out of place. So heres been the problems so far: - A few issues one finding the wires for the Big 3, seems like there is more-so a Big 7-8?. - Those few issues I listed concerning box, most of those should be cleared except the screw which may not be in the wood, thats kinda has me a little worried. - The fuseholder issues concerning the fuse may not be tight enough in there and no allen wrench to properly tighten it. ----------------------------------------------------- Here is what I need to get done tomorrow or this weekend. - I need to split-loom electrical tape the wire coming from the fuseholder and into the cab. - Need to do some wire management on the engine compartment underneath neon light kit wires. - I need to try and better secure the fuse in the fuseholder. - Look into purchasing a manifold nut for my truck to secure the big 3 cord going from the chassis ground to the manifold. - Fuse the battery positive to alternator negative 0/1 awg wire(if i really have to) - Finish the Big 3 and straighten up all wiring in the engine compartment. - Modify previous ground for 0/1 awg wire. - Place all power and ground wire where it needs to be in the amplifier spots, also do the same with subwoofer speaker wiring. - Re-Install the floor, install amplifiers and distribution blocks and route wires up through pre-placed holes. - Install amplifier remote controls onto the middle dash panel with wiring going through the carpet. - Get ready to the install the box(Panel and wall cutting) - Fit box, reconnect negative and positive on the battery securely and make sure all big 3 and electrical connections are secure. - Wire up the speakers/ subwoofers to the amplifiers. - Get ready to set the gains and other settings on the amplifier. - Install the box and hook up the subwoofer speaker wire to the box terminals on the outside. - Make sure each component is getting proper voltage after the the positive and negative are reconnected. - if voltage is correct, turn on radio, set gains, make sure all works well and if all does, get everything ready for the seats to go back in. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Next week we will begin to install and new component set and the deadening whatnots, hopefully.