Impious

Just from a glance I see nothing special performance wise about the subwoofer to justify the $700 price tag, unless there's some special motor tech they aren't talking about. I did read however in the manual that the spider is rubber, claiming the cloth spiders on a normal subwoofer will "deteriorate". Now I'm not much into marine audio, but I can't imagine why a piece of cloth would deteriorate over time in the environment anymore than it would in any other. And I don't know enough about materials to say one is better than the other from an acoustics standpoint, but I've never seen another company using rubber spiders and there are some damned fine acoustic transducer designers out there. It would appear to me they are selling snake oil and charging exorbitantly for it. That said they did have a 6 channel full range class D at a reasonable price that would work out well for someone needing that many channels (i.e. 3-way active front stage) for a reasonable price ($550). But for only a couple hundred more you could go with the Zed Leviathan, so........

The problem is you are giving yourself a false sense of correctness by setting the gain with some instrument. Everything is a guess...from the accuracy of the equipment (and seeing clipping in the waveform on a lower end 'scope usually used isn't as precise as the internet would lead you to believe), to the "proper" level setting (test tone recording level), to the actual power output of the amplifier as conditions change, to the proper level matching between the system and thermal/mechanical abilities of the drivers in your install, to personal preference, to the varying source material....from start to finish it's based on nothing but assumptions and guesswork. It's a fundamentally inaccurate process no matter which tool you put behind the amplifier. And by using that tool you are fooling yourself into thinking it's "right". The best results, all things considered, are going to come from the user listening and making a determination on appropriate gain setting. No tool is going to get it right, so why even bother? So you can trick yourself into thinking it's "right" when it's not ? Ok, so you set the gain by ear and thought it was fine until things got smelly. So, what the hell is the big deal with backing off of it a little bit? Still stinky? Back off a bit more until things are good. You had 14K on a pair of drivers....yeah, things will get stinky. So what if you undershoot power by 20% of it's capabilities? You aren't going to hear a difference, and if you are worried about results on a meter than no tool is going to help you there anyways. If you can't hear the clipping, it doesn't matter audibly. If you have it set so high that you're damaging things then you let it go way too long and were really fucking far off.....learning experience that no tool was likely going to save you from anyways since you wouldn't have understood the inaccuracies and limitations involved in the use of that tool. I've never used anything other than my ears to set a gain, and I've blown 1 pair of subs almost 15 years ago. That's out of setting up and tinkering with probably a hundred stereos for myself and friends. It really isn't as hard to figure out as people fear.

He's a genius at self promotion though. The track recorded at -15db is loudest because it will allow for the least dynamic headroom but highest average power output from the system. If you are listening to highly compressed music (basically anything newer, especially most rap, pop and rock music) then you are probably into the "unsafe" setting territory. The best idea however is to ditch the DD1 and set the gain by ear.

Soundstream, NVX, Polk, Hertz and Nakamichi are all using that same board with varying degrees of parts quality and hence varying price points with the Hertz being the most expensive (and also has slightly better performance).

Yes they make rated power and yes they are perfectly fine amplifiers. They use the same board as about a dozen other amps.

Pretty sure there's a thread on here about those already, from not that long ago.

If you knew how to calculate port area, then you wouldn't have referenced the "sq in per cubic foot" nonsense.

This for sale thread is closed for now and I have deleted the last 4 posts as it was turning into a pissing match, which doesn't help anybody. For now I'll leave a link to the 2nd topic started by Bassink for further discussion between Bassink and Cloud to resolve the situation. http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com/forum/topic/59544-cloud77-please-read/

Apparently he tried to, that's what started the whole thing.

Yeah but that is besides the point, I didnt buy a 1550 watt amp what I bought was a amp that is advertised as a 2100 amp. Very misleading!! Had I known it was a 1500 watt amp, I wouldnt have bought it, I already have one of those. I can feel the difference in the two. Why did you even bother to "upgrade" from a 1500w amp to a 2100w amp? The audible difference between those two will be zero. The audible difference between the 1550w the amp is rated for and the 2100w you thought you were getting is likewise inaudible, so nothing to be upset about as you aren't actually missing out on anything. And the difference in power between the MMATS and the Kicker is inaudible. As was pointed out, the only possible difference creating the differences you are noticing could be a difference in amplifier settings. And you even said it was smaller and fit in your truck better, I'd consider that worthwhile if the difference in size is significant.

Efficiency would probably be slightly higher @ 4ohm as opposed to 2ohm.

Just for reference to anyone reading this thread, everything in this quoted post is wrong. Pretend you didn't read it and forget the information immediately.

It could be a huge number of things. About the only way to tell if it's actually a change in the system response or a change in your hearing (your hearing isn't linear with SPL, it compresses the low frequencies more at higher SPL's) is to put is on an RTA and see if the actual system response is changing in the manor in which you describe. Once you verify the change in actual frequency response (if it exists) and see what changes and where, you can start to deduce causes. Otherwise we're just throwing shit at the wall to see if any of it sticks.

It's in the off-topic section where people can discuss their non-audio related interested.

Happy Birthday !!

Gotcha. I didn't realize you couldn't use multiple plug-ins on the mini-DSP. Would be a shit ton more flexible if you could.

I don't see a question. Are you asking about how to implement rear fill or our thoughts on being able to use multiple plug-ins on a single mini-DSP unit ? Or ways to generate a L-R signal ?

Yah not going under the car. This is my plan. Is it safer to go with say a 250amp fuse on both ends near the battery? Also my other question was should I use a fuse on the line from the rear battery to the fused distribution block? Every power run needs to have a fuse as close to the source as possible as a proper safety precaution.

How close are you to assembling drivers?

It's called sibilance. Normally it's in the 4khz-9khz range, where in that range depends on the artists voice and other factors. EQ'ing down the offending frequencies might help, but the problem might not be the driver's themselves. It could be an install issue (such as poor driver aiming) or a reflection that's causing the problem. In which case you'd be better off to fix the install/reflection if possible than trying to EQ it away. For example, some tweeters run a little hot through the midband when the are on-axis and turning them off-axis can smooth out the response. More details as to the speaker locations/aiming and the vehicle would be helpful. Also would be helpful to know what EQ functionality you have available to you.

The Royal Excelene I just bought is stamped 50mm2 on the jacket, which is technically smaller than 0/1ga by 3.5mm2 assuming it's an accurate number and they didn't just round for simplicity sake. But worst case 3.5mm2 isn't enough to make a difference in any situation but those maxing out the capabilities of the wire, at which point it would be wise to step up a gauge anyways.

Are your FR measurements gated at all or just an open measurement?

This thread is just conjecture. Can't be anything more. The only thing you can do is hook it up and see how your electrical system handles it. There are far too many variables involved. Upgrading the big 3 would be a logical and cost effective upgrade, but beyond that you have to wait to get it installed and see how your electrical is performing to determine what your needs may or may not be.

Pretty awesome entertainment stand

You just want to make sure you aren't overdriving the preamp input section of the amplifier or the output section of the amplifier, leading to clipping. Otherwise it's a simply matter of setting it to whatever is necessary for your installation. Without knowing your preamp voltage level or what level JL considers "high" and "low" I can't say for certain. There is nothing wrong with a gain setting halfway up (or higher) as long as you are getting full power from the amplifier without clipping. With the setting in "high" you will need more preamp voltage to drive the amplifier to full power output, so having a higher set gain makes sense. There is nothing wrong with this. Personally I would probably keep it in high and set the gain where necessary to avoid potentially overdriving the preamp section of the amplifier. If having set to low isn't overdriving the amplifier preamp stage, then you can keep it in low as well. I would however not boost the EQ adjustment on the HU to make up the difference in output. Increasing the boost on an EQ asks the amplifier to output more power at and around those frequencies, and can lead to clipping. A +3db adjustment on the EQ asks the amplifier to double it's power output. A +6db asks the amplifier to quadruple it's power output. You can see how this can quickly lead to problems. As for the sub level adjustment, it depends on how it works. If +10 on the adjustments allows the HU to output full rated voltage than anything up to +10 is fine. If it outputs full rated preamp voltage at a setting of 0, then increasing the adjustment means your maximum volume setting on the HU must decrease otherwise you will clip the preamp output.