altoncustomtech

X2 on Quality over Quantity. Also, it's summer time. Everyone is out doing stuff like bumpin' their systems, working on their systems, vacations, spending time with family, working on their houses, etc., etc., etc. Hell, I just got done applying a coat of paint to my box, getting things prepped to change an element in my water heater, and I got the kids helping me pick up the yard so I can mow. It's busy time.

Statements like this are why people are reluctant to help. The reason why is because this statement shows us that you do not fully understand the way everything works and interacts. You are damn lucky those HX2's lasted any time at all. I don't know any specifics about that particular equipment, but I'd say it was dumb luck the combination of amp, subs and enclosure allowed you to do that to those subs. I agree with everyone else that your current sub is showing problems due to incorrect gain settings and operation and if you don't heed our warnings and follow our advice on setting the gains and such then you'll end up with a blown BL and blaming Fi for an inferior product when it had nothing to do with their product. Fi does build their subs to take some abuse, more so than some and less than others like about any other company. At any rate, I'd recommend at the LEAST a fully loaded BL and for your seeming taste in listening volume a BTL may be more up your alley. A BTL will be louder than a BL in the same given application on the same amount of power. You could upgrade your amp and electrical later down the road with a BTL to possibly get a little bit louder. Either way I'd recommend getting more familiar with the setup and implimentation of your equipment before you make some very costly mistakes. It's obvious you're asking too much from the single sub setup you're running right now, if space is your restriction then I'd recommend going with multiple smaller subs to get the output you're wanting.

LMAO.... Yeah, I know. I'm sure it's the same everywhere, but I've seen some really dumb things done. Case in point, just a couple of weeks ago a kid brought his car to me cuz his amp was overheating. He has a 1200watt Planet Audio mono amp mounted to a box housing a pair of 12" Kicker CVR's. Upon investigation, he didn't have enough 4awg wire for the power and ground wires to make it to the amp on the box. So he took a piece of 16awg speaker wire, wrapped it around the power and ground and ran them to the amp. I can only imagine the voltage drop it saw, its probably amazing it still works. The worst part was he said it didn't sound as loud once I moved the amp so the wires would reach it. He said it wasn't as loud.... without the distortion. Dumbass

That's good if you KNOW what each wire is. Not everyone knows, and most people have no business even trying. In today's vehicles there's several wires going into the factory radio that have nothing directly to do with it's operation such as illumination, ODBII, etc. If all you're doing is grabbing the memory and accessory wires that's no biggie, but without a wiring diagram it's impossible to know exactly what each other wire is without a lot of trouble or some searching on the net. I agree 100%, if you have the ability to get it wired without using a harness adapter you'll have much better connections, and a dedicated ground is a must these days it seems. I wouldn't recommend anyone who doesn't have the experience to wire up anything without the harness adapter.

Did you guys cut the harness? I've seen problems like this many times when people are too cheap to go ahead and buy the harness adapter. Not sayin anything bad about u guys here, just wondering how you connected it cuz it shouldn't have an effect on the dome light.

That's a fantastic review. I have a Rev D as well waiting to go in. Big? Yeah they're big. It's about a three quarters of an inch shorter than my SAZ-2000D.

That much air leaking is killing the score, and the sound. IB's only work when the back wave is COMPLETELY sealed off from the front wave, which in a car is nothing short of nearly impossible. I have great confidence though, that once you seal those holes and apply sound deadener to the rear deck you'll notice a tremendous difference in the sound and score. It may not be a bad idea to go around the back there where the subs are mounted and test for more possible leaks. The better you seal that from the cabin, the better off you'll be.

What kind of HU is it? If it's a Pioneer there's a possibility that you blew the PICO fuse when disconnecting the maxxlink, especially possible if you did it with the radio on. You have the dreaded engine whine. There's plenty of steps you can take to track it down though. NVM, reading > me. forgot you mentioned the HU was an Alpine. The thing I'd try is putting the maxxlink back in. Or, did you say you hooked all the amps up with RCA's?? If you're strapping the amps, don't the RCA's just go to one amp, then from the BR out to the input of the other amp??? I've not strapped any Sundown amps yet, but perhaps that is your problem?

The rear deck looks like it has a couple of gaping holes in it to me. Also the tweeter cups will leak some air as well.

That thing is just huge. One of the biggest 4 channels I've ever seen, if not the biggest. I'm with gcs8, can you give some more specs, power, terminal sizes, real length x width measurements. I still haven't completed my other two setups, but I have a '78 El Camino that's begging to be completed and I planned on going a little crazy with the stereo in it. This would help it =crazy in a heartbeat.

I like the white. It definitely adds to the overall look of the install. The only thing I wonder is if the paint causes any detriment to heat dissipation? It looks good though, real good. Would have been kewl if you could have painted the model #'s black to match the logo.

Do you have a dedicated ground for the HU? I've found that almost all factory grounds in the wiring harness are worthless. Therefore I usually use a 12AWG wire and run a ground from the chassis down to a real good point to make sure the HU is well grounded due to past noise issues like this. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if you already did this, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.

Wow, very informative. Thank you Jacob! I thought I understood all that before, I really do now. and without feeling after reading it.

Sorry to hear you're having noise troubles, they always seem to be a pain to track down. I know I hate doing it. Thought I'd jump into the IHOP and say hi to everyone. I'm still working on finishing the van so that I can start on the Jimmy. We've run into some mechanical trouble with it which is why it's still not complete. Having to spend all my time and money getting the mechanical troubles fixed first so we can drive it. I did get the Hifonics gear removed and sold, so that's a plus. See you guys around.

It's really not that big of a deal though. As the information grows the best thing to do is simply not post it publicly. Keep it to emails to the members only and as long as everyone is honest it will never become an issue.

I'm glad it's working now. Just as bassahaulic asked, what did the issue end up being?

Thank you for the explanation on how they work. I figured it was something along those lines but wasn't completely sure. I must say the only time I've ever noticed them begining to light is when the volume is just shy of the shuttle launching setpoint. The strangest part is that in my van there WAS a Hifonics ZXi6006 running the components with a rated 150 watts per channel, but in a friend's car with the exact same bulbs on a Powerbass 700.5 which is only 50 watts per channel, in both vehicles the lights would only begin to light at the very top of the volume level. This has led me to believe for quite some time that they responded to distortion more than the total power running through the circuit. It could have more to do with the frequencies the passive crossover's crossed at since he does have PG RSD's where I have the Hifonics Atlas components. At any rate, I'm glad someone has the knowledge of what these really are doing in the circuit. I can't help you any with those particular tweeters, never played with them, sorry. However, on the light bulbs, it doesn't matter where they are in the wire. They could be next to the crossover, next to the tweeter, or anywhere in between. Just whatever point is easiest to install them in. I installed them so that they would be hidden up under the dash where if they did flash it wouldn't be very noticeable. The only time's I've ever blown them has been after I got my KDC-X991 HU, the volume on it has a tendency to increase or decrease at an extremely fast rate when you hold the button on the remote control. Each time the bulbs have blown was when it went from the teens to 35 in the blink of an eye.

I'm not into competing either, however, I think I have to agree that this information for the brothers ( & sisters) of IAK should be distributed by email only. Believe me when I say there's several good ways to open encrypted documents, and there's some software out there that while not particularly easy to come by, can make short work of most standard encryption methods. I'm all for inside Team secrets, that's one of the benefits of being a team/club member in the first place. I honestly believe though that any documents containing information that should be kept within the Team should not be made readily public. I'll send you an email shizzzon, even though I don't compete I'm still interested in what has been compiled, especially after that intriguing conversation we had about enclosure densities a while back.

That's not really what I was trying to say. If the sub is wired in series then you're good to go. I was wanting to make sure you KNOW for certain that the sub is wired series. Where the amp says it's parallel is only referring to the internal configuration of the terminals and has no effect on the wiring of your subs. Please DO NOT wire the sub to .5 ohm on purpose. A DMM is a digital multi-meter, used to test voltages, resistance, continuity and more depending on the unit. If you have a DMM you could connect it to the sub and verify for certain that you're wired in series.

Nah, I think you guys just like showing off, lol.

Holy ampified brown note Batman!! 48 of ANY size speaker is nuts, but 48 10" subs on 18,000 watts of power makes you guys down right commitable, lol.

You have the coils wired in series then? If it were wired in parallel instead that would present a .5 ohm load at the amp which SHOULD probably put the amp into protection and cause it to not play anything. Though that would really depend on the amp and how the protection circuitry is designed. Do you have a DMM? Also, have you checked both ends of your RCA's to verify they're still plugged in? (sounds silly, but I've seen it happen) Can you re-install your old amp and verify everything is working? There is ALWAYS a chance that the new one is bad out of the box. While it's VERY rare, it does happen.

Gonna ask a few silly sounding questions here to cover the basics. Are the RCA's plugged into the IN jacks and not the PASS THRU jacks? Where are the GAIN and LP knobs adjusted to? How are the speaker connections made at the speaker terminals? What is the coil configuration on the sub?

It's looking great! That black leather looks fantastic, should definitely set off the whole thing. Can't wait to see it finished and I still can't believe there's enough room across there to fit those 18's side by side with room to spare! Wild, just wild.

One thing that would help would be to give us what troubleshooting you have done so far. Is the amp powering up? Is it going into protect? Did you do anything to the wiring at the sub? Answering these questions and a few more like them can help us help you out, which we'll be glad to do whatever we can.