Impious

Do you have a link to Brad's review? 12" Dcon Review - SSA Car Audio Forum Bravox review should start getting around this weekend.

Yeah, the Shiva-X is a revival in name only, a major improvement over the original Shiva design (being that the Shiva-X is based on the Brahma motor). I believe he chose the name "Shiva" because it was synonymous with good performance at a reasonable price, which is what the Exodus drivers offer. The Shiva-X I believe has a little better motor than the Brahma, slightly less stroke but includes shorting rings. There are a couple other XBL 12" drivers on the market. Off the top of my head; SI BM mkIII, CSS Trio12. Seems like there may be one or two more, but I'm drawing a blank (and frankly, could be wrong). CSS makes a 10" and 15" XBL driver in a different line (SDX series), and looks like this winter will be releasing a 12" version in that series. TC is still doing LMT. Drivers are available through Parts Express. I'm not sure where you saw the FEA thing, but generally FEA = Finite Element Analysis. It's not a motor design, it's a modeling/analysis program used to design motors. Everybody uses FEA to model their motors anymore, so it's sort of a moot point. For a comparison of the linear motor technologies, Neil did a good write-up on this site; An Unbiased Comparison of Linear BL Technologies - SSA Car Audio Forum

My first two guesses would be improperly set gain, bass boost or EQ, and/or too weak of an electrical system kicking the amplifier into protect. More details about the electrical system, wiring and system settings would be helpful. Also assuming you have the Fi's wired to a 1ohm load? What is the impedance of the coils on the SSD's?

We've all had our moments. Doesn't matter how good you are or how much you know, sooner or later you're going to have a dumbass attack.

The impedance the subwoofer is wired to. This thread may help you; gain setting questions - SSA Car Audio Forum

No benefit to two amps instead of one. And as was pointed out, the 50-200hz range is simply the range of the lowpass crossover....not the frequency response of the amplifier.

Nice deck. Had the 8240 for a while myself. Anyways, I love my Exodus Shiva-X. Based on the Brahma motor, good throw, lowish Le, sounds fantastic. I run mine IB but should do well sealed as well. DIYCable.com : Intro » Home » Exodus Subwoofers »

Wire is wire, to an extent. The main differences in wire are going to be the actual thickness of the wire cable itself, some low end brands will use smaller physical wire with a thicker jacket. So it may be labeled 12ga, but the physical wire may be equivalent to 14ga or 16ga. Second is going to be the number of strands. The only thing the number of strands really matters for is flexibility; the more strands, generally the more flexible. Not a major problem for smaller gauge wire, though. Third is the material used to make the wire. I guess I can't say off hand that I've seen any smaller gauge wire that's not actual copper, though I'm sure it exists just as it does for power wire. Some wire is actually copper clad aluminum (CCA) instead of actual copper. CCA has less current capabilities. But as long as the wire is copper, the proper actual gauge and flexible enough for your needs.....yes, wire is wire.

Yes. That's how Sundown's multi-channel amplifiers have bandpass capabilities; the lowpass crossover and bandpass filter are used to create a bandpass filter. Impious, could you elaborate on how to do that? Because I'm looking for a bandpass filter, can't seem to find one. Short of spending serious coin on a fosgate 3sixty.2 just to cross over two speakers..... Pretty simple really. Some amplifiers have a subsonic filter with a wide enough frequency range that it can be used to highpass a midbass. A SSF is nothing more than a highpass filter, so this highpasses the midbass. If the amplifier also has a lowpass filter that can be used in conjunction with the SSF, then the lowpass filter can be used to lowpass the midbass. This creates a bandpass filter. There are other ways to do it aswell. If your headunit has a lowpass crossover and your amplifier has a highpass crossover, you can use them both together to create a bandpass filter. Or vice-versa.

Wire is wire, to an extent. The main differences in wire are going to be the actual thickness of the wire cable itself, some low end brands will use smaller physical wire with a thicker jacket. So it may be labeled 12ga, but the physical wire may be equivalent to 14ga or 16ga. Second is going to be the number of strands. The only thing the number of strands really matters for is flexibility; the more strands, generally the more flexible. Not a major problem for smaller gauge wire, though. Third is the material used to make the wire. I guess I can't say off hand that I've seen any smaller gauge wire that's not actual copper, though I'm sure it exists just as it does for power wire. Some wire is actually copper clad aluminum (CCA) instead of actual copper. CCA has less current capabilities. But as long as the wire is copper, the proper actual gauge and flexible enough for your needs.....yes, wire is wire.

A good start would be to tell us; What enclosures you've tried Why you didn't like them What type of vehicle you have What type of performance you are seeking to achieve with the subwoofer

LOL, it took me a minute to get that. But once I did, it was funny.

Unless he plans to wrap the wire around his vehicle a few times for shits and giggles, it's not really going to matter.

If Ray ever wants an unbiased review of the 8's on this forum, my car is always open

Yes. That's how Sundown's multi-channel amplifiers have bandpass capabilities; the lowpass crossover and bandpass filter are used to create a bandpass filter.

12ga is fine

I would just get rough measurements. Your door is not completely sealed, it's more of a leaky sealed box, so your physical Vb is going to be different than the effective Vb. Without knowing the loss factor (i.e. the amount of the leaks) you aren't going to get it 100% accurate anyways. IIRC you basically have a pod built onto the door? You might get a rough measurement of that as well.....one thing you may consider doing, depending on what mids you are looking at, is to seal the pod. If you knew the volume you could calculate how that would affect the Qtc and Fc. You might be better off using a lower Qts lower Fs driver in a sealed enclosure to bump the Qtc up to the .6-.7 range since a high Q driver is going to be harder to find, and in your situation I would probably go for a higher Q alignment to try to get some more response in the 50-100hz range.

Qtc = Qts * [ ( Vas / Vb ) + 1 ]^.5

Kevin had said the break-up was a bit higher than that, and the graphs he has posted on the site show that as well. But I honestly haven't read a single review of the actual drivers.....I sort of tracked them long enough to jump on the sale price, then forgot about them since I'm still a while from actually using them. I'm a TOOL fan....they're the only reason I even heard of Alex Grey

http://www.diycable.com/main/pdf/AnarchyDocs.pdf 3.7" Mounting Depth according to the manual, with a 4.7" wide motor. Nice drivers. I grabbed 6 of them when they were on their initial sale Plan is to use them for a 2-way MTM or TMM for HT.

Bl curve basically shows the force of the motor relative to excursion, both forward and rearward. As you can see in the below picture, Bl (motor force) is on the Y axis and excursion is on the X axis. The curve shows the change in motor force as the coil moves through the range of excursion. We can use the graph to define Xmag, which is the maximum linear operating range of the motor. This is defined by Klippel (the measuring system used to generate this graph) as the point at which the motor force (Bl) has fallen to 70.7% of it's rest value. Xmag is important because it is one of the determinants of Xmax, which defines the maximum linear excursion the driver is capable of achieving, which can be used to define the maximum usable output a driver is capable of achieving. Xmax is the lesser of Xmag and Xsus (Xsus being the linear maximum linear operating range of the suspension). The graph also shows us the linearity of the motor. There are a few schools of thought on the "ideal" curve, but generally we would like to see the motor force stay relatively constant throughout the operating range of the driver. This means the curve wouldn't be as much of a "curve" as it would be a plateau, like the one pictured below, that stays flat for a period of time then begins to roll-off at the edges. The Bl curves for some drivers look more like an upside-down "U", those are said to be "parabolic" curves (there's some of that high school geometry you swore you'd never use in real life!). The reason we would like to see the "curve" stay flat is that if the curve is moving upward or downward, this is indicating a change in motor force at those excursion levels. This is generally bad for driver performance for a few reasons, but primarily because a change in motor force will cause a change in Thiele-Small parameters which will affect the response of the driver, and because a change in motor force will create non-linearities that will manifest as distortion. So yes, generally a Bl curve will give us an idea of the performance we can expect to see from a driver and can give us a glimpse into the quality of the design of the motor. But it takes more than a Bl curve to give us a good idea as to the "SQ" of a given driver. A Bl curve alone won't do it. But a good driver starts with a good foundation......and a nice Bl curve indicates a well thought out and well executed motor design, which is a great start to having a great driver

Arc Audio, Clarion and Genesis all have/had class G/H amplifiers. Hell, Bazooka has a class H amplifier.

Yes, the voltage output with music will be significantly lower. The test tone you are using is probably 0db, essentially meaning it's recorded at the highest possible level. Music on the other hand will have an average level much lower, somewhere in the -6db to -20db range depending on the music and recording process. This means that with music, you are going to get much less average power from the amplifier than you would with that 0db test tone. Two ways to combat this; 1) Use a test tone other than 0db, for example a -3db, -6db or -10db test tone, to set the gain with the DMM, 2) Set the gain by ear with a sampling of your typical music. I would vote for the latter, unless you are incapable of noticing when your drivers are being stressed or overdriven. In which case, use a -3db or -6db test tone.

Are you using passive crossovers and if so does the crossover have tweeter protection?

Try just the mid.