simplicityinsound

i wish i had more time to spend on other audio forums...since opening the shop, the work load is pretty crazy, unlike a regular sales guy who handles the customers, and post up pics and does the finances, i am still working on cars hehe i am always learning everyday since my knowledge of audio is so limited, so posts like this really help. after all, it was reading posts by other gurus that lead to stop just trying to cover everything with CLD (as you still see a lot of shops doing) and isntead go to a focused area plus 50 percent coverage on rest when possible.

actually, let me just post up an example of a response curve. this is a car's initial response curve, no eq, just xover, gain control, no sub playing yet. based on this, what are your thoughts on the sealing effect and the damping for the midbass driver, it is located in the lower door, no other aftermarket speaker is in the door.

but your shops not alone. here's a sad example of what could be an acceptable install. speaker baffle - checksound deadener or CDL on the door panel and trim panel - checksealed access hole - WTF!? closed cell foam wont doing jack shit to seal those holes. that install probably cost the car owner 1000+ in equipment alone. I like other aspects of that shop's builds but every time I see them pretend to seal the access holes with ccf... just sad. Hey really appreciate the constructive criticism. I really learn new things every day. here is my theory and i hope you will allow me to present my side of why i use CCF in general for door openings on MOST car doors. 1. please remember that we are as shop and do car after car so sound proofing isnt always given the most amount of time, so basically, we are looking for a solution that is both effective and can be performed quickly...i have no doubt that if we molded a fiberglass shroud to cover the opening each time, it may be be a better sealing method, but the truth of the matter is, that isnt posibble most of the time. keep in mind that 99 percent of hte time, we do NOT charge extra for sound proofing, it is rolled into the labor at the rate of something like 100 bucks a door, which really pretty much means we hardly charge at all. we do this because we dont feel like any car with a door speaker install should leave without some kind of sound proofing. 2. one thing if you will notice, i usually never say i am "sealing" the door with ccf or any other product, i simply say we are sound proofing it or deadening it. ccf, obviously, the best served as a barrier to decouple the outter door card with the metal door panel. as far its sealing properties, i do find that over the years, it is a good balance of sealing effect and wont get hot and sloppy and melt onto the moving window assembly behind it as CLD sometimes will. 3. having said that, when you say CCF is not acceptable for sealing of the openings in door panels, what specific aspect do you mean by that? are you saying CCF that we use (in this case STP branded) wont trap air? as in, let say if you build a sealed enclosure, and you stuck a piece of CCF on it, and then you push on it, will you feel no resistance? thus it does not change the damping effect of the air spring in the box? will you loose virtually all your midbass peformance? is it more about impact or extension? I guess another question would be what do you see as the most natural response of 6.5" class midbass drivers that has been installed in a modern car's doors after sealing with CCF? do you see a big dip in the lets say 100-300hz range becuase the speaker is so underdamped that it might as well be playing sitting on the dash in open air? 4. if i showed you an rta graph of a midbass playing in a car, will you be able to tell me if this is a speaker that is in a door that has not been sealed, sealed with CCF, or sealed with somekind of solid panel such as wood or fiberglass? the reason why i ask these questions is that i feel that i did not one day just wake up and say, lets use CCF to seal doors, i have tried a bunch of different things, from thin foam from Ed, to cld, and eventually started using these based on what i heard and what my rta measured...but, i do know there must be better methods out there from which i can learn from, so perhaps if you can suggest as to sonically speaking, what is the major deficiency of what i am doing and what a alternative is (perhaps MLV?) i really would like to learn cheers, Bing

hey Guys, my name is bing and I am the installer on this vehicle. you can see my installs at www.simplicityinsound.com I want to apologize for how the OP post came out sounding...i want to make sure of a coupla things just so things dont spiral out of control over this hehe... I have absolutely zero bad things to say about any of the sundown amps at this point, as far as running hot, i agree they run relatively hot to the touch, but i would say no hotter than the Zapco DC reference amps i use a lot. I had told him that we should not jump to any conclusions beucase yesterday was a scorcher with well over 100degrees ambient temp wtih in car temperatures even further above that. also, i want to add that what he meant by running hot, was not only just with the cover and carpet on, but i think he thought they ran pretty hot with the cover fully off and just exposed to air...that they seem to run hot in general...but again, i had told him that hot running amps is not that unusual, as long as it doesnt thermal on its own all the time...its fine...but that happened after this post was already made hehe as far as having the amp installed in the manner it is...well, if you look on my ite, you will see that it follows a relatively similar pattern...majority of those installs dont have fans on them, beucae i felt that after a while, as many have said, having a fan mostly pushes air around, the ones that i do have fans on are the ones into plexi housed amp racks...etc...on those installs, there have been VERY few thermals even with the cover and amp fully on. so that hsnt been an issue... but again, i feel that the combination of how hot it was yesterday, and the listening preference of hte OP, could have combined to make that happen, an that on that day, perhaps some of my other installs would have done the same if played under the same kind of volume and music taste. so basically, what i am saying is, for me, personally, i would like to see the install go for a coupla weeks in normal tempratures, to make any sort of meaningful conclusion on them... just wanted to make sure there is no misunderstandings b p.s. i am off to airport now for vacation so i wont be replying for a few days...