Impious

On top of that I'd worry that the type of tenants a trailer would attract would be lower quality tenants which could cause more headaches than it's worth. Not a guaranty, but something that I'd think about before renting it out. I do have many customers at my work who live in trailers and pay us like a shot. But generally speaking........

There is some value in purchasing a product from a "mainstream" company that has a higher likelihood of still being in business several years down the road in case there is a need for product support, warranty work and parts/service, access to product information, name recognition (selling on the used market like craigslist, etc), so on and so forth.

Why? The numbers from a clamp test are certain to be completely useless. And for a daily driver system they are even more irrelevant.

Have you done any sound deadening to the vehicle? If not then you need to include enough in that budget atleast for the front doors. Good sound from components is just as much about the installation as it is the speakers.

If they are the same price I would go with the Focal. I don't believe it would sound any "better" or necessarily perform any "better" than the Alpine, but given their relative MSRP price point differences I would suspect the Focal might use better quality parts and/or design so it *could* possibly last a little longer. As M5 pointed out will hold better resale value and the top mounted controls as Aaron pointed out are also a possible plus for the Focal.

Yes and completely unnecessary unless you plan to compete in SPL. Put the $$ you would have spent on a 2nd BC2K towards much better uses instead. There's no such thing as "box rise". Impedance fluctuates as a function of many things....heat, frequency, etc. Don't count on it to save you from blowing up an amplifier if you wire below the recommended nominal impedance.

How much are both of the amplifiers?

If you wired them in series-parallel it would be a 1.3ohm load. If this is for a daily driver system I would recommend sticking with the BC2000, I don't see the additional cost and electrical system requirements of the 3500 to be worth the minimal audible difference.

The term "audiophile" has a pretty ubiquitous connotation to most in this hobby, both car & home. It's generally used to describe someone who believes there are aspects at every stage of the reproduction process which lie beyond or can not be completely captured and explained by science (i.e. measurements and other empirical analysis), or they use very obscure theories to try to explain why one product is empirically "better" than another. Those who put emphasis on empirical analysis use the term as an insult, implying they are ignorant and lack logical, rational thought. Those who consider themselves "audiophiles" use it as a term of endearment, suggesting they are more enlightened, informed and attentive. It extends well beyond the "mods" of this forum to the general application of the term by thousands and thousands of enthusiasts throughout the hobby.

Without knowing details about the coils I can't say for certain, but it sounds like it's possible the coils used for the recones are different than the coils originally used on the BL. If that's the case I would agree with Swift, best to recone them all.

There is no way to do it accurately with a DMM. Why do you want to know? This information is generally not something the average user needs or needs to worry about except for very unique situations. Why? sqrt(Power * Impedance) = Voltage You can use rated power to calculate the voltage output of the amplifier at rated power. The voltage output of the amplifier has to do with the rail voltage of the amp, not the load.

Honestly having a dealer in the middle does change the game. I understand that it sounds like you both have dealt with IA directly and both received the same story; no refund, no product changes. However, it's the dealers job to make this right with you, not IA's. The dealer will have to take his issues up with IA after he's satisfied you. This is the risk the dealer took when he decided to become a dealer....it's part of doing business. Sometimes he's going to have to take a loss to make a customer happy when he's getting screwed by one of his brands. I really don't think you have much recourse with IA directly, your issue is with the dealer. If you want a refund he needs to refund you. If you want a different product it's up to him to get it to you. It's shitty that IA is in the background potentially screwing him, but again that's his cost of doing business and a risk he decided to take by becoming a dealer.

It could be the settings, such as an improperly set lowpass filter. Otherwise your description of the problem sounds much more like an issue with the enclosure/subwoofer than with the amplifier. What is your sub, what enclosure and vehicle is it in, and what do you have everything in the system set at right now?

The Dcon will shine ported. If you have the space, you will be much happier with that driver in a ported enclosure.

Depends on your definition of "loud". It will get loud enough in a sealed enclosure for my tastes when listening to music at a normal listening level, but don't expect to be shaking houses as you drive by. Also low frequency extension is going to suffer with that driver in a sealed enclosure, those drivers really perform better in ported enclosures. IMO with that driver, especially if you are worried about output, ported is the way to go. Would you have the room to go ported?

I was going to suggest you try it in a different vehicle. The amp shouldn't act weird just being wired to the battery, which makes me wonder if maybe the amp didn't have a problem which took out the remote wire on the CD player as well.

Best for what?

Happy Bday!

There is no reason to do so.

You don't. You plug them in and play them like you normally would and they will break in naturally over time with regular normal use. You won't damage them by simply connecting them and using them as normal. That's all you need to do.

What exactly would you like to know? Sounds like you already have the amp, hook it up and see if you like it.

Also, be very careful with what something looks like from Alibaba or overseas markets in general. Just because something "looks" the same, doesn't necessary mean it is the same. There is a lot of IP theft and counterfeit products coming from China and overseas markets, and they will make many products that "look" similar to something else but perform nothing alike because they use much cheaper parts, cheaper glues, etc. That mainstream product might use similar looking but much better parts and/or design that in the end performs much better than the generic/counterfeit you can get off Alibaba. There was a guy on DIYMA who was looking into importing tweeters because they "looked" like some other tweeters and thought they were similar but for a much better price. If they were good enough he was going to wholesale them back to the community for a good price. When Erin measured them, they were absolutely terrible to the point of basically being unusable for anyone with any remote understanding of or desire for good reproduction. Point being....looks aren't everything. That's not to say you can't find an exact product overseas, and as pointed out the mark up on anything is outrageous. But just seeing something similar online doesn't mean it is necessarily the same product. Hell, the original and beloved JL W6 used all off the shelf parts. The brand SPL released literally a direct copy of the original W6 several years ago for less than half the price that the original W6 costs, but they used lower quality parts and as a result some things were different. The copy bottomed out a lot easier, generally didn't handle power as well and IIRC the glue didn't hold up as well.

I would agree with the previous posters.....try a standard ported enclosure.

That's not what happens in a pre-order. In a pre-order a company takes payment, gives an ETA (subject to slight change), and then builds and delivers the product. Not taking payment, giving an ETA, then saying you may get a product at some point in the future, but we can't say when and it won't be what you ordered because costs went up. FYI, Pre-orders are basically a companies way of raising funds because they don't have the capital on hand to either fully pay for the order , to buy the materials, or sometimes because they need the money now to do other things (pay bills, etc). You are "loaning" them your money with a promise around the ETA you'll receiving a product, and the "interest" they pay for this loan is the discounted price. More times than not it's their way of saying they need your money now because they don't have enough of their own, and in exchange for that they'll give you a discount on the product. It sounds to me like they can't refund you because they already spent your money and don't have enough on hand to refund you. Otherwise I don't see what the issue could possibly be that they can't give you your money back when they change the terms of the order so dramatically. Unfortunately this is one of the risks....the company taking your money now, and failing to deliver a product or the product you were promised. Unfortunately you paid cash.....your only option would be to sue them.

Really a difference of +/- 25% in a sealed enclosure isn't that substantial. The difference in response isn't going to be audible and the difference in peak excursion is only going to be a couple mm in most instances. Do you have a SSF ? That might help as well in this instance. Using an SSF and resetting the gain would allow you to increase output above the SSF setting but still allow you to limit excursion at lower frequencies, which is where the problems with overdriving the sub are likely occurring.