Impious

Linear Power

This. That's an awesome price. Hell, buy it and don't use it. Flip it on the forums. Probably come close to tripling your money.

Very good amps. Zapco is an old brand, very well regarded for producing high quality amps.

You are worrying about shit which does not matter. You don't "know" anything about the performance of a 20.1 if the results you are citing came from a clamp test. Stop paying attention to them. They do not mean what you think they mean. You are misinterpreting the results, and by that I mean you are trying to draw useful information from a flawed test methodology. Toss the results out the window and ignore them. They mean nothing. You are also not going to run 18V in anything but a comp vehicle (well ok, you "could" run higher voltage in a daily system but it's stupid and pointless), so I don't see how that's even relevant aside from the fact clamp tests themselves don't provide any useable information. Also, setting a goal for your system of providing your subs "rated power" is a naive endeavor. It does not matter for daily listening. For starters, rated power is typically a thermal not mechanical limit as the mechanical limit is related to the enclosure used and other factors. Rated power is not a power requirement. Related to that, you can have a rather large deviation from rated power without significantly affecting audible output. So who cares if you apply 25% less power to the sub? You will not hear it. None of the regular quality, run of the mill everyday amplifiers that 99% of users own are going to have a large enough difference between rated power and actual output to cause an audible difference. So as stated, these "clamp tests" even if accurate (which they are not, nor do they provide useful information) would just be a dick swinging contest...absolutely zero reason not to just go by rated power as they will be close enough to actual output in almost all instances that audible performance will not be affected. In the realm of SPL none of the tests are conducted in such a manor to make them a reliable or valid means of comparison, so again not useful.

Last thing I would want to do is promote the idea of users here paying attention to clamp tests.

You've got an old school vibe going with the LP's and the horns. Would be pretty fitting to find something a little more old school to run for a sub. An old Stroker or something, although the Stroker would need to be ported.

well, the glass work went a little beyond what I initially planned as usual. It's just a regular ported box with external ports and plexi on the back I have no idea how you can tolerate spending so much time 'glassing and installing. You were blessed with a love for the craft I suppose.I hate fabricating. I don't have the patience.

Both suck. Funky pup is where it's at.

LP's are fairly easy to spot from the internals. Almost all of them used the T03 case on the transistors and had lots of point to point wiring.Are there any benefits to doing it that way?It's an argument waiting to happen. T03's are high speed frequency switching. Some people think it matters, others don't. I honestly like Linear Power, I think they sound great, and they're period correct for my 88 Cadillac. I love the way they look and I love the way they sound. I'm not rushing out to buy anything new at the moment, not because there's anything wrong with them (I collect old LP), but because I enjoy the hard work, craftsmanship, and reliability of them.T03 is just the designation for that particular transistor case size. Different transistors can be housed within it. The case being metal improves heat dissipation. I don't know off hand of an advantage of the wiring, other than "modifications" were pretty big business for LP and that may have made it easier to accomplish. Printed circuit boards would be cheaper and more reliable I would imagine, albeit less flexible to design changes.

Because it isn't your made in China/Korea, order from a take out menu amplifier like everyone sells today.

LP's are fairly easy to spot from the internals. Almost all of them used the T03 case on the transistors and had lots of point to point wiring.

Pretty rare and stupid fucking expensive. If you can even find one for sale they are several grand each.http://www.ebay.com/itm/SUPER-AUTO-AMP-SONY-XM-2000R-/251327306400?pt=Car_Amplifiers&hash=item3a84465aa0&vxp=mtrWonder if that is the same guy from DIYMA that had several he was trying to sell. FWIW that's actually a really good price for them. Usually they are $1500 to $2k

Pretty rare and stupid fucking expensive. If you can even find one for sale they are several grand each.

As Q said clipping creates more power (and hence, heat) over time than a clean sine wave, but as long as this extra power is below the thermal and mechanical limits of the driver then the driver will not be damaged.

Deadening the cab will reduce engine noise....road noise was generic for sound that enters the cab while driving, engine and exhaust included. If part of your issue to getting the speaker volume you want is engine noise, I'd make it a priority. Every decibel of noise you block is a decibel of volume you'll gain.

To block noise you need mass. It's that simple. Foam absorbs sound, mass blocks it. The thickness of the foam is directly related to the bandwidth of frequencies it absorbs. For low frequencies, such as engine and road noise, foam would have to be unrealistically thick (several feet thick). So instead you want to block it with mass. Mass loaded vinyl is about the easiest way to go about it. Read some of Don's info on the sound deadened showdown website. Of course road noise went down some with 200sqft of CLD...it has mass so it's going to block some noise although it's still relatively ineffective. If your engine is really THAT loud, covering the truck in MLV with a decoupling layer of foam is a worthwhile investment. Double mass and sound transmission decreases by 6db. That's a huge difference. In car audio people always preach the "high gain is bad" mantra to keep noobs from just maxing it out every time, but as a "rule" it's a myth. Most amps are designed to produce full output with as little as .2V, and the gain is there to allow the amplifier to output full power without being overdriven with a wide range of voltages...as low as .2V. Aside from thermal noise M5 mentioned, gain position and distortion are not related in the way you appear to believe they are. As long as the gain is properly set for the input voltage, distortion is not affected. Whomever told you otherwise is mistaken. It seems you need to stop listening to the local shops if that is who's telling you this. Setting the gain high with a low input voltage is exactly how the amp was designed and what the gain is there for. Be careful "playing around" with a line driver. Aside from the ability to drive both the outputs and/or the inputs of the amp into severe clipping, many people either don't readjust the gain and other setting to compensate for the higher voltage or they don't properly readjust the gain and other settings and fool themselves into thinking they gained something when in reality they simply fucked up the system settings and aren't comparing the changes correctly.

You are missing the point. If your preamp voltage is enough to drive the amplifier to full output, then the voltage output is fine. Gain and volume position are irrelevant here. If you are driving the amp to full output at 90% of max volume and you increase the voltage so you get full output at 50% of max volume...you didn't gain any volume, it just happens sooner in the volume range. Trying to turn the volume knob higher will just result in clipping. It will be "louder", but you'll be driving the equipment into clipping. You aren't gaining anything, other than a loss of range of the volume control. First thing to determine is if you are diving the amps to full output. And what do you mean by engine noise? The sound of the engine itself or engine whine through the stereo?

Not a useless question and physics provides a ready answer. Double power and cone area (I.e. Double your displacement) and output increases 6db....which is going to sound about twice as loud in the sub bass. If you double cone area and keep power the same, you gain 3db which is noticeable but not twice as loud. This of course assumes the alignment is the same in each scenario. Now, asking whether 1 sub or 2 would be loud enough for you is a useless question as it depends on your personal preferences. We can't answer that for you. Worth the cost is another personal decision on how loud you need your bass to be to satisfied. Personally If money is an issue I'd focus on a single quality subwoofer in a well designed enclosure.

Sounds to me like you are trying to find reasons to buy the SA's because you are buying into the hype. The guy next to you at a car show is completely irrelevant and means nothing unless he had his system in an identical vehicle with the drivers in an identical alignment to yours and identical power and system settings. Since none of that is true....forget about the guy next to you at the car show. If you now want to save weight and space, why not build a well designed enclosure for a single Mojo and try it before you even consider spending money on new subsand amps? I also have no idea why you think an saz1200 is an "upgrade" when it's less power than you have now. You're not going to be louder by "upgrading" to less power.......

I hate installing. 6 hours today just running wires through the cabin because my car is a pain in the ass and I had to remove every seat,seat belt and interior panel to run the wires. Now I probably still have another 6 hours in connecting everything and running wires in the trunk. Getting too old for this shit. My back hurts now....LOL

I'd grab some speakers and play with placement. Even a cheap coax would work for just testing out locations. I prefer kicks.....not everyone agrees with me. Though Andy Wehmeyer (formerly of Harmon) has posted a lot recently on DIYMA of the flaws of pillar mounting. So I'm glad I'm in good company Though I really hope you run midbass in the doors as I'd like to see how you turn that map pocket into an enclosure. I need to do the same to my car....have thought of a few different ways to go about it but haven't decided on a method yet. I suck at fabrication so I'm a little outside of my element when trying to envision how to fab it up.

More difficult to design/build design picture 2 with the long port length of picture 1. Picture 2 looks nice and easy because of how short the port is relative to the enclosure depth. Look at how long the port is on picture 1. Much easier to accomplish with a single L shaped port.

Still going to have reflections. Think about how sound radiates from the driver. Below beaming it's omnidirectional, for both the mid and tweeter. Those reflections are going to create comb filtering and other anomalies in the FR and power response and narrow the stage due to the early reflections (since the sound we hear is the sum of the direct radiated response plus reflections). We are in a car, so unfortunately there is no "good" location unless we rebuild the entire interior (which based on your idea of a "small install" might be in the realm of possibilities for you ). But along the scale of better to worse speaker locations, IMO a-pillars are on the worse side of that scale. Not to say no car has ever had speakers there that sounded good. But there are some unavoidable issues with those locations that I personally find more objectionable.

Placing midrange and tweeter at the apex of 3 highly reflective surfaces is always my last resort.

No, under seats is a bad location, period. We localize midbass based on interaural time arrival differences ( ITD).....which is the difference in arrival time of the sound to our left and right ears. If the midbass is located directly under you, as it would be if you placed a midbass under the driver's seat, then there would be no difference in the arrival time of the sound to your left and right ears which would narrow the soundstage. A sound that should be located far left would instead be directly in front of you. Obviously by logical extension any speaker location directly in front, above or behind you would be equally bad. You want them to be as wide as possible to create the proper difference in time arrival to your ears for proper imaging and sound stage reproduction. We can't locate midbass frequencies vertically, so height position of the midbass speaker doesn't matter for imaging purposes. But horizontally, creating the proper ITD is essential to properly recreating the soundstage. As for the center console/center of the vehicle idea....the problem with that should be obvious. Sounds from the "left" would sound like they are coming from your right.