Impious

1st, I moved this to product reviews as it appears more of a review than a discussion topic. 2nd, your link doesn't work.

That statement really makes no sense.

You have less volume because you used a 0db test tone to set the gain, which results in a very conservative gain setting. Basically, the amplifier will only reach "full power" with a 0db signal, which hardly ever happens in music. And in the range where your music spends most of it's time, the amplifier is outputting much less power. The two options are to set the gain by ear, or use a test tone recorded at a level lower than 0db, such as -3db, -6db, or -10db.

Unless your amplifier is broken, it should not be producing audible levels distortion unless you are pushing it past it's linear limits. What enclosure is the Xcon in?

I've seen you reference "Max" power on more than one occasion. Just an FYI, "Max" power is pretty much entirely meaningless. The Zed is a fairly pricey piece of equipment. Now, I'm normally one who's all for the higher power option. But if you have an extra $200 in your budget, you would be better off spending it on the speakers right now and purchasing better performing speakers than an amplifier.

Line driver isn't going to do anything about "sloppy bass". Seems to me you already had yourself talked into a line driver, regardless of the waste of money they generally turn out to be. Adding a line driver also increases your risk of introducing ground loops and noise into the signal chain as you're adding another component to the chain. Also, I'm sure if you've actually pin-pointed the gain setting as the source of the "noise" or if you're just guessing, but unless you've been able to exclude all other variables and identify the gain setting as the cause then you're just throwing darts. Really no point in this thread as it appears you were going to purchase one regardless.

Unless your amp is broken it should have no issues playing to 100hz.

Not really the type of "problem noise" I was really referring to that would necessitate a line driver or amplifier change. If it were cause audible problems during playback, that would be more of a cause for concern.

A line driver is almost never necessary anymore. Considering most amplifiers on the market can make full power with as little as .2V, about the only time I'd consider a line driver a viable option is if the amplifier had an intolerable amount of audible noise with a high gain setting. Even then, changing amplifiers might be a cheaper and more suitable option.

What would cause you to think this? It sounds like you need a lesson on the basics. The impedance isn't "created" by the source as you seem to be implying. You can't just increase the current output and expect impedance to decrease. By just randomly plugging numbers into Ohms Law it may appear this is possible; but it's not. Certain values in the actual circuit must be known before you can attempt to incorporate Ohms Law. The voltage and amperage you are measuring don't create an impedance. You may calculate the impedance, by using Ohms Law, because of the known variables at your disposal (the measured voltage and amperage). But the only reason you are calculating for impedance is because you are measuring the voltage and current, so you need to calculate the missing variable; impedance. To keep things simple, lets assume we are playing a test tone through the system. The load (the speaker in our case) has an impedance. This is a physical property of the loudspeaker, not a theoretical figure calculated by Ohms Law (even if calculating it is how you are able to determine what value the impedance is). The amplifier is operating at a certain level of voltage output. These two properties are going to determine the power output of the amplifier and as a result the amount of current drawn by the load. If the voltage output is 50V and the load is 4ohm, the power output would be 625w and the current output would be 12.5A. If the voltage output is 50V and the load is 2ohm, the power output would be 1250w and the current output would be 25A. The impedance of the speaker is a result of multiple different factors. The design of the enclosure, the frequency being played and the amount of heat in the coil are all going to affect impedance rise. The impedance of a 1ohm speaker at resonance may be 20ohm or more, and there's nothing you can do about it. The only way to increase the amperage output in the above example is to decrease the impedance of the speaker or increase the voltage output of the amplifier. You can not increase the amperage to decrease the impedance. It simply doesn't work that way. I assume your ultimate goal here is to get more power into the subwoofer. If you want to increase the power the subwoofer is receiving, you either need to decrease the impedance of the load (which is NOT going to happen by "creating more AC Amps") or increase the voltage output of the amplifier (which may not be possible without changing amplifiers). Just an FYI, what's going to happen when you push more power into the speaker is that the coil is going to heat up more, causing it's resistance to rise higher, creating a higher impedance, not lower. Are you aiming for an SPL fart cannon or a daily driver system? If your goal is a daily driver system, forget about impedance rise. Forget about measuring voltage and current. Just forget about it, they are ultimately unimportant to your goal. You won't have enough control over any of it to make any difference, so just stop worrying about it.

Yes. How much depends on the vehicle.

I dont mean to thread jack but how does he know which 8"s will do what he wants? Looks at as many reviews as he can? Research, reviews, and learning how to understand some of the information on the drivers presented on those pages.

It depends on your wire gauge and the construction/conductivity of your automobile. Richard Clark claims to have tested a variety of vehicles and found the average vehicle chassis is equivalent to 17' of 4ga wire. Andy @ JBL claims they tested a variety of vehicles and found the average vehicle chassis is equivalent to 17' of 2/0ga wire. Who's right? I don't know, I haven't tested it myself. If you have an actual frame to ground to, you would probably be pretty safe to ground to that. But it's possible, depending on the construction of your vehicle, that the chassis would make a worse ground than running it directly back to your battery.

Your best bet would be the ID forums. It's been a while since I've done much reading on them, and I've not heard all 4 lines, so this is going from (my poor) memory of the subjective descriptions: I would avoid the old CD1e's if you run across them. They didn't use real compression drivers, but instead piezo drivers. Ok entry level stuff, but not as senstivity or as good as the other models. The CD1e v3 are entry level, not going to do as well in any category as the other models but finally use a real compression driver as opposed to the piezo in the older CD1e. The CD1Pro doesn't have as good of midrange as the higher models but has better top end than the CD2Comp and slightly lower sensitivity than the CD2Comp The CD2Comp has better midrange than the lower 2 lines, not as much top end as the CD1Pro and has the highest sensitivity of the group. There are also different "versions" of this driver; Titanium diaphragm (linked), Mylar diaphragm, then the CD2Neo (which I have) use basically a "modified" B&C DE500 compression driver instead of the standard CD2 compression driver. Everyone has a different opinion on which diaphragm/driver is "better"....I think general consensus was that the Neo's were slightly better. The new Ultra's are supposed to be the best of both worlds and then some. I believe a lot of the Team ID guys like this driver better than either the CD1Pro's or the various iterations of the CD2's. It actually replaced both the CD1Pro and CD2Comp's in the product line-up, I believe because ID didn't see the need for either after the release of these. The full bodies are going to be able to handle a lower crossover frequency than the minihorn versions, but the minihorns are a lot easier to fit in some vehicles. Also, while the CD1e drivers were crap some people used the CD1e full body lenses with compression drivers from the higher models because the throat was straight-entry as opposed to being angled which some people felt gave this combination a little better sound. Like I said before, unless you really want new.....I would look for a used set first. I bought my CD2Neo's used for $220 shipped.....which is a better deal than normally found, but gives you an idea of how much can be saved new vs used on these. Being that the Ultra's are the newest model, they aren't as cheap used.....I think they normally go for the $400-500 range. But the CD1Pro and CD2's can normally be found in the $250-350 range used but not abused.

IMO you are heading down the wrong path. I would be looking more into something like THIS or THIS or THIS

The screws are only there to act as a "clamp" and hold the two pieces of wood together until the glue dries. The glue is the actual bonding agent and strength of the seam, not the screws. Just an FYI.

Instead of asking us to do all of the "leg work" and submit drivers for your "approval".....why don't you do the leg work, find some midbass speakers that fit your budget and goals, and if you are unsure you ask us if the drivers you've selected will meet your goals. I can't count the number of times I've sat at a computer for half an hour searching a dozen websites for products that meet the posters requests only for them to dismiss all of my suggestions for one reason or another and select instead an inferior product they found on their own. It's not worth everyone else's time to do your leg work. I don't mind helping someone choose between given products......but we shouldn't be expected to sit here and do the research for you.

1st question: Yes, just set the gain appropriately and you'll be fine. 2nd question: Why do you need to cross you sub over so high? The Dayton's should be able to cover well below 100hz

No one has answered my questions.

I haven't changed the setup any as of yet. Got busy working on other projects 'round the house.

18sound seems to produce pretty good drivers, albeit they can be on the pricier side of things. The Fs is pretty low for being pro audio, however the Q is very low so it's going to begin it's roll-off pretty early with a shallow slope. Definitely don't plan on great low end extension unless you plan on building a ported enclosure into your door. The DE500 is the compression driver the ID Neo is based on (possibly a copy of, though I believe ID claims there are differences). So it's a good performing unit as well. The compression drivers are not designed to be direct radiating devices. The are specifically designed for horn loading. The horn lens (or "body") improves sensitivity by improving the acoustic impedance match between the source (the speaker or compression driver) and the air into which it's playing. The horn body is what gives HLCD (horn loaded compression drivers) the benefits that they have; high efficiency, controlled directivity, etc. Yes, choice of horn lens is very important. For starters, the design of the body sets the usable bandwidth of the HLCD. The length and mouth area of the body will determine the effective operating bandwidth of the horn. Generally speaker, the shorter the horn and smaller the mouth, the higher the cutoff (crossover) frequency needs to be....the longer and larger the horn, the lower the cutoff frequency. So the size of the horn is going to determine how low you will be able to effectively use the HLCD, and this must be matched with your system design goals. You can't use a horn body that's only good down to 3khz if you intend on trying to cross the horn at 1200hz. Second.....part of the benefit of using a HLCD is controlled directivity. Instead of the sound being radiated in all directions from the speaker as is the case with a direct radiating driver (with the exception of things like beaming), the horn body controls and limits the off-axis response giving a certain dispersion pattern. The shape of the horn is going to determine the dispersion pattern. This is usually stated in degrees, and basically tells you how the off-axis response of the horn will be. Now, with standard pro audio horn bodies you're going to have symmetrical dispersion in the horizontal plane.....for use in a car, this is generally not a good thing. This is why car audio-specific horns have the shape they do....they are designed to allow the sound to radiate towards areas we want it to be (like towards the driver and passenger), but limit it's dispersion towards areas we don't want it (like towards the doors). This can help improve the sound by reducing reflections off of various surfaces in the vehicle and can help achieve a more uniform dispersion pattern across the listening area. Another consideration is the shape of the horn. The shape of the horn and horn termination (how thing are treated at the end of the horn's mouth) is going to affect frequency response and internal reflections in the horn itself. This will, obviously, have a large impact on the response of the horn. Anomalies in the response as a result of internal reflections can't be fixed with an EQ since it's an acoustic effect occuring within the horn....a poor horn design is going to have poor performance unless steps are taken to physically modify the conditions within the horn body such as use of foam and differing termination techniques. There are some other things to take into consideration that will affect sound also, but I think that gives you the jist of things. So.....the short answer to your question could have just been yes, the horn lens matters I wouldn't try to use pro audio style horns inside a vehicle unless you are only worried about how loud you are able to get. Car audio specific horns, while definitely not perfect, take our specific considerations into account. The only real outlet for those right now are Image Dynamics. In which case, unless you've already found a set of horn bodies you are trying to mate compression drivers to, you would probably be best off to just look for a set of new or used ID HLCD's (includes both the horn body and compression driver); either the CD1-Pro, CD2-comp or the newer Ultra's. USD Audio had some as well, but they are harder to find. Illusion Audio and Veritas also had some horns, but those are harder to find. Those are the only companies I would really trust to purchase car audio horns as there were a couple other companies that I probably wouldn't recommend. It's possible to buy the ID horn bodies by themselves and then purchase compression drivers separately, but normally not cost effective if you can find a good used pair unless you simply want to use a different compression driver than ID uses. The ID's come in mini-horn (shorter) or full-bodied (longer) styles. As noted above, the full bodies will play a little lower but are harder to fit. Not if setup properly. The midbass will be used within a region where the ear can't really differentiate height cues, and car audio horns placed under the dash are designed to use the dash essentially as an extension of the horn body.....so the sound will "roll" up the dash and provide a higher sound stage. The horns need to be properly mated to the underside of the dash without any gaps between the bottom of the dash and the top of the horn mouth. How they are aimed (horizontally and vertically) will affect imaging. Generally you want to mount them as wide (side to side) and as far back (towards the fire wall) as possible. Also keep in mind, a large part of sound stage reproduction is frequency response and time alignment (there's much more to it also, of course, but these fundamentals need to be right to have a good foundation). You will, I repeat will, need equalization. You will also want to make sure you have adequate control over time alignment of all of the drivers. Hope that helps.

What exactly separates this driver from the other entry/mid level priced drivers already on the market? What differentiates it from the competition? Why should someone buy a VVX-12 instead?

Seriously? Nick just posted an update on this yesterday, the thread is listed on the first page of this forum, 3 links below yours. Two seconds of reading would have yielded your answer: Current BTL back order - SSA Car Audio Forum You can also find more information HERE and HERE There are several threads right here on the main page regarding the issue. I don't think the Fi section needs anymore active threads relating to the current backorder, given the information is already on here and available to anyone willing to take a second and read. So I'm closing this thread. Scott or Nick, if you disagree with my decision to close the thread based on redundancy please feel free to reopen.

Load your subwoofers, enclosure and power level into an enclosure modeling program and look at the excursion plot...it will give you a rough idea of where your excursion (and excursion troubles) are going to be. Ideally you would want to keep the excursion below Xmax. Generally you're going to be okay for around a half-octave below tuning. Setting it exactly at tuning is a little conservative, probably a little too conservative and with some disadvantages. Keep in mind a SSF is nothing more than a highpass filter. If the manufacturer follows standard crossover terminology, then the frequency the SSF is set to will be the -3db point of the signal. So setting it at your tuning frequency could potentially (and unnecessarily) result in a loss of output within the useable bandwidth. This is of course all subject to different circumstances.