Impious

Has to be that way unless Georg Ohm was wrong. Well, I was pretty sure Mr Ohm was correct (last I checked, at least) but shizzon worded his post in a way that suggested that wasn't the case.

In scenario 1 each coil would see 33V and 33A (it's actually 31.62 not 33, but not splitting hairs here) In scenario 2, since the coils are wired in series voltage is divided between the loads and the current applied to each load is the same, so each coil would also see 33V and 33A I'm failing to see a difference.

I wouldn't call it marketing hype. And I think most people miss the original intent of the standard (see Julian's comments above). It was meant to provide a standard by which amplifier measurements were to be conducted and the results/performance reported and advertised in order to provide an equal basis of comparison. It wasn't meant to "prove" what the delivered power in your vehicle would be (i.e. with less than 14.4V), it wasn't meant to indicate what level of distortion was audible, etc. But when you had some amps rated at 12.5V @ 1% THD and other amps rated at 17V @ 5% THD, or listing "max" power figures only, it was more difficult and confusing for customers to make an informed decision because all they would look at was the wattage amount and not how that wattage was determined. The CEA-2006 standard provided a standard basis of comparison by identifying a specific set of test conditions by which compliant amplifiers are measured and rated. The only reason 14.4V was chosen was because that was the only way headunit manufacturer's would agree to use the standard. Is it perfect? No. But it might be better than no testing standard at all. Is it going to be precisely indicative of the performance in your car? Well no, but non-CEA-2006 rating methods don't necessarily provide that information either. Is it possible to cheat? Sure, but who says the non-CEA-2006 guys aren't lying and/or cheating too? Is it "marketing hype"? Not really, it provides and equal basis for comparing two amplifiers which is something the industry didn't have previously. Logically speaking it has nothing to do with marketing as it's simply a test methodology that provides an equal basis for comparison. At some point we could call all amplifier ratings "marketing hype" in some manor. That said I do understand why some manufacturer's chose not to participate. But I think most consumers don't actually understand the intent of the standard. It was never about marketing or the performance itself, it was about providing a level playing field by standardizing testing methods. Like I said, it's not perfect (really, what standards are?) and I do understand the issues with it, but atleast understand what it's intentions were and were not.

So... you expect to see 14.4v at all times when running an amplifier? Also 1% THD is inaudiable especially at sub bass frequencies, I don't recall how much to go up to hear it.. but its a lot.. There are a plethora of other reasons why its a joke. Any reference to a test setup without reference to uncertainty in the testing methods is not valid. I also don't see THD spelled out very well, nor input excitation, noise measurements and so on. The test had reasonable intentions but the reality of it is that it is still fairly easy to cheat on. I believe the test methodologies are spelled out in more exacting detail in the actual publication, but you have to purchase said publication for $58 to obtain that information. What's posted there is just a summary of the publication. CEA-2006

We can detect changes in amplitude much less than 3db. Under the most commonly cited test conditions we can detect a change in amplitude of 1db. That said I'm not disagreeing with your premise.....small changes in amplifier power are not worth worrying about.

Another completely unnecessary device. Just match everything with a DMM, run one amp per sub, and save the $100 you would have spent on the Maxx-Link.

They have to be bridgeable or some call it piggy backing.. So to answer your question you cant go out and get to plain jane amps and "link" them per-say. You can how ever run them to two seperate coils which I dont recomend gain setting becomes and issue. What amps do you have? It's strapping, not bridging. Bridging is two channels of the same amp, strapping is two separate amplifiers. Also, no reason not to run two separate amps to two separate coils of the same sub (or one amp per sub in other situations). The gain (and other) settings are easily matched with a basic DMM. Even then, they don't necessarily have to be identical. A minor variance won't audibly affect performance in the slightest. Though I don't really understand the fascination with strapping in the first place. In 90% of situations where people want to "strap" they can just as easily run one amp per sub or one amp per coil with exactly the same result.

Ahh If you are referring to non-isobaric drivers mounted in a push-pull configuration (i.e. one driver mounted cone out, one driver mounted magnet out and wired electrically out-of-phase) then the even-order distortion is reduced because the distortion components are now 180o out-of-phase even though the drivers are acoustically in-phase. Though I've seen widely varying claims in the amount of reduction.....anywhere from 3db to 10db+ As far as subwoofers mounted at opposite sides of the vehicle; I wouldn't worry about it as long as they are both wired to pressurize the airspace simultaneously (i.e. don't wire one out of phase, unless you have an extremely wide car). The dimensions are still "close" relatively speaking compared to wavelength in the subbass. Figure a 50hz note has a wavelength of 22.5 feet, so even if they are 3' apart as they might be in a trunk the amount by which they are acoustically out of phase is going to be very small compared to the length of the wave. The main thing in a car is to have them simultaneously pressurizing the airspace. And just to make sure there's no confusion.....Isobaric mounting arrangements and DVC subwoofers have nothing in common. Isobaric was popular before "small" enclosure subs were plentiful, not high power handling drivers, as isobaric allows an enclosure half the size of a single subwoofer and back-in-the-day most subwoofers required larger enclosure volumes. This is where Kicker got the name for the Solobaric subwoofers.....they were supposed to work in enclosure sizes half the volume as comparable drivers on the market at the time without necessitating isobaric mounting, you only needed one driver instead of two....hence "solo".

I hope it is helpful. The RA affects the input signal by adding to the frequencies center at 45 and 32 hertz. The amount of signal added and level of the signal is adjustable. Zed Audio calls it a sub woofer control preamplifier. You would use it to "exaggerate" the sub bass input signal. Basically to put more bass in music. So it's basically just an EQ with two points to boost around. No, it's more like an Epicenter with two center points instead of one. The RA uses a similar idea to add "synthetic" bass to the music. The Epicenter used 1 center frequency, this offers two center frequencies.

The tinsel lead carries the power from the speaker terminal to the voice coil. If there's a disconnection somewhere in that chain, the voice coil would not receive the power from the speaker terminal and the DMM would read an open circuit or no resistance.

The CD is only needed for the MS8 to EQ the incoming signal, which is only really needed on OEM headunits. My CD didn't even include the audio file on it. The reason you can't change the xovers after the tuning is because the tuning would be no good with different xover points/slopes. Any particular tuning is only going to be valid for the particular xover settings at the time of tuning. Just pointing this out as I wasn't sure if you knew the reasoning behind it or not. Any auto-tune that doesn't follow the same ideology would be less accurate by default, so while a pain in the ass it's ultimately necessary. That said I do miss being able to compare differences in xover settings quickly and easily without having to retune the entire system if the only thing I'm trying to do at that particular moment is test different xover points.

Make sure the DMM was on the correct setting. If the DMM was set correctly, could be the tinsel leads.

I fuse mine for the wire and not the amps for the simple fact I can then change the amp power higher if I chose without having to worry about the fuse under the hood (I have 1/0ga wire but my current amps won't pull anywhere near enough current to max out the capabilities of the wire). Just one less thing to have to think about and plan for when I'm messing around with different products, and I'm not losing anything by doing so. I don't think anyone is saying you can't or shouldn't use a smaller fuse, but more or less making sure people understand why the fuse is there in the 1st place. Which is to protect the wire from a failure that could lead to fire, not the amps.

Off hand.....lack of digital input, limited manual tuning capability, preset saving similar to what 72kid mentioned. It seems like there's more I thought of last night that I can't think of now.

I'd like to see a lot more of the nitty-gritty details about what all it does before really getting excited, but just from the overview he gave it sounds like it has the potential to be a really neat unit. Not sure if RF developed the auto-tuning or if they used Audessy with a modified target curve (he mentioned Audessy in the first vid and a "RF curve" instead of an "Audessy" curve), but a lot of how well an auto-tune does is all in how the software was written. JBL put a LOT of time into getting their auto-tuning right.....not sure what method(s) the RF unit is using. Honestly it sounds like RF took a lot of people's complaints about the MS-8 and tried to "fix" them in the RF unit. Hope it turns out to be as nice a piece as it's anticipated to be......I miss my H701 but do enjoy the MS-8 as well, sounds like the RF might be a good mix of both.

Answering your questions in the more general "DSP" (Digital Sound Processor) sense rather than specifically this product; Advanced tuning capability. Because the xovers built into amps are limited. You are stuck with a specific (fixed) slope with a specific bandwidth of xover frequencies to select from and specific xover types you can use. These limitations are for the most part eliminated with a good DSP. And a DSP does a hell of a lot more than just function as a crossover. They also offer advance EQ and time alignment among other features. Generally no. Your headunit might have some EQ, some time alignment and some flexibility in xover selection. Your amp might have a crossover. But generally speaking a good DSP will offer more flexibility and more options within those features. More xover slopes, wider range of xover frequency selection, ability to select different xover types for different channels, more advanced EQ features and options, more detailed time alignment, etc etc. Also there are now going to be several options for those who need 8 channels of processing in the DSP market whereas there are only 2 headunits I know of that have ever been produced that have more than 6 channels of processing. Many of the external units offer 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound, which few if any headunits offer. This is just a general overview, not an all-encompassing comparison. But the moral of the story is more flexibility, more options and more adjust-ability which results in the ability to obtain a better sounding system as a result. Are these units for everybody? No. Not everybody needs the advanced features an external DSP will offer. But for someone looking to greatly improve the performance of their stereo (primarily on the sound quality side of the spectrum) they offer a large amount of benefits.

They are also less reliable and more prone to failure.

By that logic are you saying the size of your wire has nothing to do with amp power? No, he's saying that the fuse is there to protect the wire from meltdown. It doesn't matter what amp is connected to the other side, the wire itself has a certain ampacity that if exceeded will become a fire hazard. This is what the fuse is there to protect against. So you fuse for the wire. The wire should be properly sized for the amp, and the fuse should be properly sized for the wire. The one caveat I'll add is in the instance where the amplifier does not have any onboard fusing you would want to select a fuse size that will protect both the wire and the amplifier, but you would want to go with the most conservative of the two.

That's for sale on my local craigslist. Only $50 if anyone is interested

Or dual switches. I'd just take it out though. The Epicenter's do nothing good, but I also really, really don't understand why you'd want fake notes in your music Some songs you really like don't have very little or no bass in the recording? I have a few songs that could use a little "enhancement," and I bet I'm not the only one. Not everyday listens to music for the bass, or wants to add more bass to their music than what was originally there. If the song I'm listening to has little subbass content.....that's fine with me, that's the way the song was made. "Fake" or exaggerated bass in a song is far more annoying to me than a song without much bass.

I had a DVA 9860 that I would take up to 30/35. I'd never measured the outputs, but didn't notice any audible distortion. That said, if you want to "play it safe" and use 24 or 25 instead you can, it won't hurt anything. You'll be able to obtain the same level of overall output, the only difference is the gains on the amps will need to be set a little higher (which is only a problem if the amps are noisy with a higher gain setting) and the stereo will get louder quicker, you won't have quite as much of a "quiet" range in the volume control......which may or may not be an issue for you.

If possible, try hooking the sub up to a different amp that can push it to approximately the same output and see if the same thing happens. Or, take a DMM and measure the impedance of each coil while physically pushing the cone in and out a good bit (but don't rock the coil, keep the motion completely vertical). Doing either of those should help you narrow down if it's the sub or the amp and wiring. It could be a lot of things, need to do process of elimination. If the same thing happens on a different amp or if the DMM shows that one of the tinsel leads is loosing connection at higher excursion then you'll have to see about having the sub repaired. If it's not the sub, double check all of your connections and try lowering the gain and/or bass boost (which should be off anyways). If his HU has any type of actual bass boost or a subbass band EQ turn it to zero. Could also be a poor ground that can't support the higher levels of current.

Look nice. Releasing any prelim T/S yet? Or will they be similar to the current version?

You need to take a step back for a minute. Your system design plan is just not very well put together. Yes, you have to use the passive crossover if you want to use both the mid and tweeter in the component set. No, you do not want to put the mid in the back door and tweeter in the dash. That's not a good plan. Not sure why you would want the components in the rear instead of the front anyways. You want the better performing speakers (which in most instances is the comp set) to be the primary speakers in the system, which would be the fronts. Your best course of action from this point would be to remove the 6x9's you have in front, install the component set in the front, sell the 6x9's and if you absolutely must have rear speakers purchase a pair of co-axials to install in the rear doors.