Impious

Yes, you could build a sealed enclosure larger than "recommended"....especially since there is such a broad range of what manufacturers "recommend" and their reasons for "recommending" that enclosure. Depends on what you are referring to by "produce a lower sound". A larger enclosure will typically have a higher F3 but a less steep rolloff thereafter compared to a smaller enclosure. There's no hard-n-fast rules on polyfill. It's one of those things you can just play with. Why would a ported enclosure be 4x the cost?

Resistively Damped Operation. http://stereointegrity.com/Files/RDOOperation.pdf

Many people run a single coil and use the other as an RDO coil. Or they run a single coil and leave the other open to raise the Q of the woofer, so it may fit better within their particular application.

No, it would not eventually lead to failure. That is false. The woofer would be completely uneffected from a longevity or failure standpoint. The woofer would play the sum of the signals...nothing more, nothing less.

I had the 8" Memphis Sync components in my car for probably close to 2yrs and really liked them. If it wasn't for my love affair with horns they'd still be in the car. Another guy I know has the 5.25" Syncs in his truck and they sound great as well. They've changed the look some on the newer models compared to what I run, so I don't know if there's any performance changes they've also made....but; http://www.memphisca...onent-speakers/ (Model 15-MCS6). Image Dynamics CX and XS lines can both mount the tweeter coaxially; http://imagedynamics...om/products.php Boston Acoustics both current models and most of their older lines (Pro and Z series) allow coaxial mounting; http://mobile.boston...?category_id=14 Really though....if you are handy you could also use any component set and create your own "tweeter bridge" similar to what Boston uses on the Pro series.

Not sure who told you that, but it's completely false. Most ported enclosures you see in car audio will have much less "crisp bass" than a good woofer IB. Granted, the IB won't have as much output as ported...but my single 12" subwoofer IB sounds fantastic and has more output than I'll ever use.

http://www.gatelyaudio.com/products.htm

This thread is a year old...understandable how it may be confusing due to it being October of '08.... You may have seen it several times, but it wasn't because they were running separate amps. There was something else at play. False. Another misconception. Even if there were "a slight difference in signal" from the amplifiers (which would be very slight in two even mediocre amplifiers....like, slight enough to possibly be measurable but certainly not audible), the subwoofer would not be damaged. It would play the sum of the signals, not self-destruct. What do you think the original use of DVC was? It was to allow connection of both channels of stereo sound to a single driver (subwoofer, for example) so it could reproduce the signal contained in both channels.

Generally the all-in-one systems from low- and mid-end manufacturers are generally not great (Bazooka, etc). What type of bass are you looking for? Ground-pounder loud or just something to fill out the bottom end? If you are just looking for something to fill out the bottom end without being overbearing, and myself being completely unfamiliar with the trunk of a Cobalt or how much room your mountain bike takes up, I might suggest you investigate an IB setup. No enclosure taking up trunk space...it might be possible to locate the subwoofer somewhere under the rear shelf firing up into the cabin in a location that is out of your mountain bike's way. Hide the amplifier elsewhere in the trunk and you'd have a system that takes up little to no trunk space and you wouldn't have to worry about removing/reinstalling anything.

I never said anything about unloading. An enclosures effect on a woofer and it's various performance aspects runs much deeper than simply when unloading occurs. You are looking in the wrong place. Plain and simple. Just because you heard a similar setup in a different car that happened to have different amps and liked that setups sound better is completely unrelated to the amps. There are a couple dozen variables that could be at play that would cause the differences you noted, all of which have nothing to do with the amplifiers damping factor. A new amplifier is not the fix. It would be helpful if you could go into a little more detail about what it is you are having issues with. Is it like an overhang problem...notes not sounding tight and controlled? I really couldn't get a good handle on what exactly the problem is from your previous description.

Then build a different box. But don't purchase a different amplifier with the single prospect of "better woofer control".....damping factor is completely blown out of proportion as far as importance and impact is concerned.

Buy a monoblock. Bridging a 2chan to 1chan causes a certain distortion. Monoblocks have better powersupplies that can take more beatin. doesnt get as hot, etc. None of your reasoning is really correct. As to the original question...a mono amp would generally be more flexible, and generally more efficient and more cost effective. That's in general, not always the case. If you find a 2-channel amp that fits your goals and budget there is nothing wrong with using it.

Don't pay too much attention to that article, as there's not much worthwhile information contained in it. He's merely contributing to what he's apparently attempting to disspell, as outlined in the opening sentence....All that article proves is he really doesn't understand the function or use of a gain control.

Standing waves are not going to occur within the enclosure due to the small size of the enclosure compared to the wavelength for subbass, unless you have an enclosure the size of a room or are running your subwoofer up to several hundred hz.

http://www.diysubwoofers.org/bnd/4thord1.htm

The son of a lady I used to work with got a ticket for noise ordinance violation with his OEM system. Anyways...as has been stated, good luck getting a judge to believe the officer is in effect lying or mistaken. Won't happen. The officer doesn't really need proof...the ticket is the proof. It'll end up being your job to prove it didn't happen...and even if you could prove it didn't happen with "witnesses" for example, chances of the ticket being dropped are slim. Slightly off-topic but demonstrates my point...young lad that used to work for me was at the lake with some buddies. Him and his buddies were in a few different boats, and one kid tossed a beer can from one boat to another. DNR officer also happened to be on said lake, and the DNR officer claimed he "saw" the beer can not land in the other boat, but land in the lake and wrote the kid a ticket for littering. The can didn't land in the lake, it did in fact land in the boat. But the officer couldn't be persuaded at the scene that it didn't land in the lake, and when they went to court even with the eye witnesses who saw the can land in the boat....the judge upheld the ticket, siding with the officer. Is it fair? Probably not. But it is what it is.

The other guy. If I'm understanding your post, you would be correct in that sealed enclosures don't have the unloading issue that ported enclosures have.

They certainly aren't the norm, but they have been around here and there. More than just the Focal for certain.

Those low notes are put out by the excursion of the sub. A sealed box makes the pressure that the sub exerts force back onto itself, making it rebound faster and not allowing for that full excursion, unless you are using a very large sealed enclosure. ported lets the sub "breathe" so to speak and allows for more and deeper movement of the cone. (as far as my understanding goes) Not really.

Not looking up all of those amps. Got any links?

Flexibility in wiring options. SVC doesn't offer any flexibility, DVC/QVC does.

You didn't think to verify the amplifier would handle the load before you purchased the amplifier?

First you need to explain why you think you need a capacitor. What exactly is it that you are trying to "fix"?

Keep in mind that impedance is also heat and frequency dependent. So it would be impossible to choose any particular impedance based on measurements as the measurements will be all over the place depending how and when you measure. Some people don't like the DMM method. But I think it sets a reasonable baseline for someone not familiar with gain setting/structure.

I wouldn't recommend you actually drive a subwoofer to it's mechanical limits, however...