Impious

You're right, you should be embarrassed that at 22 years old you were out egging.

Could you post some "general" crossover points for those three segments? There aren't any. Speaker/install/etc dependent. Seriously, just about every "rule" could be broken under certain circumstances.

Keep in mind a poorly tuned active setup will sound worse than a moderately well tuned passive setup. There is a balancing act between knowledge, skill and sound. And it will take considerable time to make an active setup actually sound good. A crossover isn't a brick wall. It doesn't block frequencies above or below the crossover point, it attenuates them at a certain rate based on the slope of the crossover. There are a lot of factors. One could nearly write a book about all of the various factors, advantages and disadvantages. Short story is that one is not better than another. They each have their own purpose and role. It depends a lot on goals, skill and knowledge in tuning, restrictions, budget, personal preference. If you are just starting out (which is appears you are), then with either active or passive 3-way is a bad idea. It takes more understanding to properly setup even when passive. Active would have you pulling your hair out. Speaker placement is part of proper install. And no, not all speaker placement issues can be overcome by tuning. It would be too long. Pick up some good acoustic related books and start reading.

If you blew it, you are doing something wrong.

Well, according to the manual you can turn off the lowpass filter in the HU when in SW mode so it might still output a full range signal. That said the level adjustment would affect both the subs and speakers since you only have the single output, and without knowing much about the level adjustment with a higher setting (like +15) it might cause the unit to reach it's full voltage output at a lower volume setting if it's acting like a boost at that point (i.e. if it outputs full voltage output with the setting at 0 then setting it at +15 would mean you couldn't turn the volume knob up as loud with that setting). Something to take into consideration.

I would agree with bassahaulic. Put a line level controller in the signal path for the sub amp, not the speaker amp. Also, what HU do you have? I find it odd you have a sub level control on the HU, which usually means it has atleast 2 sets of preamp outputs, but you want to daisy chain the signal from the sub amp.

Depends on the amp. You would need to look in the owner's manual to see if it's full range output or filtered.

No. Hence the reason it's the standard distortion threshold for power measurements. Also take note that any amplifier is capable of producing more than 1% THD. 1% THD was simply the amount of distortion generated by the amplifier when outputting it's rated power into the specified load. It's not. There are also ways to fudge the number, so unless you know how it was measured it's meaningless. Any amp of reasonable quality is going to have an inaudible SNR. Realistically the SNR of the amplifier simply needs to be better than the SNR of the listening environment. Since we're talking about car audio, it's not uncommon for the environment to have an SNR of 60-70db if not worse. IIRC CEA-2006 covered both power (4ohm only) and SNR. Whether or not they are "true" is still a matter of the manufacturer as there's no authority that verifies the information. It's still on the honor system. CEA-2006 requires the amplifier's rated 4ohm power be measured at 1% THD and 14.4V. Ideally if an amplifier was CEA-2006 compliant then it's rated 4ohm power output and SNR were measured according to the standards specified by the CEA-2006 measurement standards and the ratings accurately reflect that performance.

I like how your idea of a small install starts with fiberglassing the entire rear deck panel.

Mess up one factory panel in a car like that and it's a really expensive mistake. I'd end up spending more replacing broken panels than I would have made from the labor costs..........

you will not have an audible difference between those options due to power and you will not hear an audible difference in sound quality or "clarity" between those options. As myself, M5 and Rick have said, the ONLY difference would be the simplicity of 1 amp instead of 2. That's it. Nothing else.

Like it a lot better than the prior format

You're right, my fault. I missed the "on each". In which case, I agree with your original statement. No audible difference either way, complete waste of time to "upgrade" unless it was simply for the simplicity of having a single amp instead of two.

He only has one Soundstream amp. 2kw not 4kw

Maybe. Difference is ~4.4db before power compression which is going to be significant @ 2750w per driver. It's entirely possible for power compression to completely eliminate that gain in amplifier power, not to mention he'd be 1kw over the RMS rated power per driver running at full power. The difference between his current power level and running them at rated power wouldn't be audible enough to make the upgrade worthwhile. By the time you factor in the cost of the amp & the additional electrical needed to support it you are in the realm of diminishing returns going with either option, in my opinion. And that youtube video of the clamp test is entirely useless. Put no faith at all in it.

Don't know the entire situation, but if this was a shop it's not uncommon to run across an unknowledgeable sales associate. Not really Kicker's fault. They do, when used properly.

Mechanically it's going to depend on your enclosure. Thermally it's not going to be able to handle an amount of power over and above the rated power that will create an audible difference, making it rather pointless. I don't see the point in going with that Hifonics amplifier if you intend on running just a single 10" Gcon.

Not just your electrical. The amplifier's internal power supply is going to have it's limit of what it can support before it starts to sag, the output section is going to have current and rail voltage limitations.

Absolutely not. Cone diameter has absolutely nothing to do with the "tightness" of the bass.

This. Unless you fix whatever the issue was that caused the SA15 to blow, you're just going to continue killing drivers no matter what you buy.

I already did. In this post. http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com/forum/topic/59562-smd-dd1/?p=1002165

Absolutely. IMO, there is no way I would invest in something from Zed to use on pro audio drivers, just doesn't make sense. I'm not going to hide it, I HATE pro audio stuff. It's for the clubs, and that's where it needs to be. If you are going to use a quality product like Zed, please consider a nice set of components. I believe in the end, you will be much happier. Good luck to you. Since I know how Blues guys like to promote competition success......RC's Buick GN which went undefeated as well as winning the most $$ in competition history used all pro audio speakers. Eldridge, Harry Kimura, Doug Winkler (Phd in acoustics), etc etc.....all used pro audio mids and/or subs and I think we'd agree did pretty well in competition The genre of speakers isn't the problem. Just like any other type of speaker, the problem is when people use them incorrectly, for the wrong reason, and use low quality low performance speakers.

Just to offset some bias in this thread....there is nothing inherently wrong with pro audio drivers. In fact many pro audio drivers (JBL, 18sound, B&C, etc) are extremely accurate, very low distortion speakers that perform great when used within their intended design limitations and objectives. While competition isn't the end-all be-all of SQ, there have been dozens of cars to win world titles using pro audio drivers including some of the most famous vehicles and vehicles built/owned by some of the biggest names in SQ competition history. The problem with the typical pro audio driver used in car audio is that 1) the particular speakers used are not the same accurate, low distortion speakers I previously mentioned (many times even labeling the speakers "pro audio" isn't even appropriate, see my comments on the Skar "pro audio" speakers), 2) they are implemented into the system entirely incorrectly and for entirely the wrong reasons, and 3) bullet "pro audio" tweeters should never be installed in a vehicle. And as a 4th, most of the people doing it don't have a fucking clue about anything related to acoustics and are just following the crowd and assume it's "great" because they don't know any better. So, your system plan for the front stage isn't a good plan. Don't use bullet tweeters, ever. And you can't determine how you are going to use speakers you don't even know anything about performance and limitation wise. They might work in a vehicle when used properly, they might not. Generally speaking I wouldn't recommend them for the average user due to some of the various factors that need to be taken into consideration, such as their lack of low frequency extension and how to properly integrate that into your system and associated tuning requirements. I would agree with the suggestion that a standard passive component set or active setup with "normal" drivers would suit you just fine. No reason to limit yourself to pro audio drivers, and if you are more of a novice (which it appears you are) then they aren't a good idea anyways. And FWIW, most of the crowd using pro audio speakers in car audio (i.e. most of the SPL crowd using them) don't have a fucking clue what in the hell they are doing or talking about. As a general rule of thumb....don't take their advice and don't listen to their opinion of the speakers or systems performance. They're idiots. Especially if they're from Florida. Sorry Floridians, but it seems to be an epidemic down there.

The manual lists the full set of T/S. But again, nothing special and excursion is anemic.

He's always sort of made a "profit" by misleading noobs. That's how he built his name and got popular, by misleading noobs. Once he was popular he commercialize it to cash in (like any fart smeller would).