altoncustomtech

I would also like to add that after sound deadening and other such items get done that the OP may want to go through and double verify that all the speakers are either in phase OR go through the balance and fader to see if he does indeed have midbass from his speakers and needs to wire one out of phase due to cancellations he may be having when it reaches his ears. He mentioned that he had to turn his subs up to 250hz in order for it to sound good. That sounds to me like the rest of the speakers are either crossed over incorrectly and not able to play midbass frequencies or he has some MAD cancellation going on in that truck. Just my .02

I think it's a great idea. I saw a build log somewhere where a guy put a 15" or 18" sealed to the cabin with the aero's coming up through the rear deck like you're referring to doing. He used fiberglass and flushed them into the rear deck so it all looked integrated and turned out absolutely amazing looking, not to mention it was mean as hell. I'll look and see if I can find the build log and post up the link.

When it comes to disassembling something like a remote knob to integrate it into the interior for that one off custom look, it's almost ALWAYS possible. Now, that said, how good the end result functions and works will depend entirely on the person who is doing the work's patience, imagination and finally abilities to execute the job. I think integrating that knob into the dash is a great idea. With just those pics it's really hard to give a good recommendation on where to put it, I'm sure others will help there. I'm a BIG fan of one off custom work, I've seen IR remote integrations, screen integrations and several remote adjustment knob integrations over the years. Go for it man, it will be great.

I think a new basket and recone would be the best route for this. Use the money you should get from the USPS claim to repay the cost of the basket and recone, and have a little leftover maybe. If nothing else, even though it would suck having to spend more money on it, it would be worth repairing with a new basket and recone regardless of the outcome of the claim with USPS.

True, to perform at full potential, but on the same power it should be louder then the BL or Q. So if he already buys the btl he isn't going to change subs later, only amps. I love the "GO BIG, OR GO HOME" philosophy. I almost bought a BTL for the Jimmy instead of the SA-8's for that same reason. In all honesty, the reason I tried to talk him out of the BTL setup is simply because I'm affraid that once he starts down the road to a BTL he might decide to cut corners for cost, difficulty, or inpatience reasons. Then be either unhappy with the results or end up with broken equipment. The bigger the setup the more money AND time it takes to do it right, all of us with experience knows that. If he can get the enclosure built properly then the amp and electrical can come in time, true enough. My biggest concern is that like most younger people today (my little brother included) he'll not want to WAIT for things to run their course and everything be done correctly then be back on here asking why the sub blew or the amp fried. If he's in it for the long haul then I expect the results to be as fantastic as the rest of the great BTL installs I've seen. SAMZ, if you're sure you're ready then go for it.

Assuming you did your homework and ordered the first two SA-8's with D2 coils for a 2 ohm load now and a total 1 ohm load later when you ordered the other two, I think a SAZ-1500 would be your best choice.

For the same reasons I mentioned in your other thread about the BTL I think you should look into some lower powered subs. BTL's really need a stout amplifier to perform at their full potential and a stout amp REQUIRES stout electrical. Now, if this is a car you're sharing you really don't want to sink a ton of money into power wire, batteries and a HO alt just to get your own different car and possibly have to spend that money ALL OVER AGAIN to do the same for the new one. I think you should be looking at subs like the DCON, Daber Audio's, DC level 2's, IA 187's, maybe some SA-12's, something that doesn't require as much power to perform. That means less electrical to keep up with the amp and a cheaper amp too. I really believe this would be your best move. On turning the sub(s) off, if the HU doesn't have the ability built in then just put a simple switch in the remote wire to turn the amp on and off with. On the box, there's most likely someone from the forum nearby who could help you build one, or you can have one custom built by Argent or one of the other companies here.

Save some more and get the pre-order in or find a used or refurbished SAZ-2000 for sale by someone or at Db-r. Trust me, you'll be happier making sure you purchase something you know you'll be happy with as apposed to settling for what you have the money for at the time. EVERY time I settle for what I can afford at the time I've gotten burned by my choice and I try to help others not have to learn the hard way.

Kicker's Impluse series subs? I had a pair of those, did very very well for 150wrms... Wish they hadn't gotten stolen.

If this is your first system I'd recommend going much smaller to start out and get a feel for things. Going with subs like the SSA DCON or Incriminator 187 or the Daber Audio subs would require a MUCH smaller amp and all of these subs have proven themselves to be fantastic performing subs even though they're not real high power subs. Then, if you crave more you can work your way up to something like a pair of BTL's. BTL's, Mayhems and other high power high spl subs are different kinds of beasts. They need lots of power, which requires ALOT of electrical upgrades, expensive amps and enclosures built tough enuf to park a tank on. The amount of money you'd spend on the supporting systems for even 1 BTL, and do it the proper way, would surpass your imagination by the time you got done with an HO alt, batteries, power wires, installation gear, MDF etc. Thats not including the price of the amp or sub. I think you'd be surprised at what you could get out of some of the lower powered subs AND save some money to put toward other upgrades like sound deadening which would prepare your vehicle for the future upgrades. I remember when I was starting out, I wanted all the best stuff too. You younger guys have a great advantage starting out with all the information that's available on the Internet to guide you as well. For that matter I still want the best money can buy, but I still have to settle for what I can afford. I have to say though, that starting out on the bottom and slowly working my way up has taught me alot of things that can really only be learned from experience. Don't get me wrong on what I was saying up there, if you truly have the money, time, support, patience and will-power to do the BTL then by all means go for it, but since you're a beginner I think you'd be better off starting with a more forgiving setup.

It just wouldn't happen with them. But for my desktop I will definitely look into it. Thanks. I know your dad already ordered a new machine, but you'd be surprised at how fast and eays Ubuntu is to use. Julian is right. I installed it for my mom who plays alot of online games and gets TONS of spyware in her machine from it. Now with Ubuntu the machine runs faster than ever, she still has ALL of her usability on the machine, and she says the Ubuntu is ending up being easier to use than windows was so far. Just my .02

Kind of reminds me of Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Sounds pretty damn good to me.

I just got my wife a Nikon L20 for Valentine's day this year. I like these camera's for several reasons: 1. They run on standard AA batteries, alkaline or rechargeable's that's a great feature as you can get batteries anytime. 2. It uses a standard SD card, which is good because they can be used pretty much everywhere and in almost everything. (printers, picture kiosk's, etc.) 3. 10 (or 12) Megapixel camera, takes fantastic pictures that can be printed to very large sizes. 4. The camera is easy and intuitive to use, doesn't take a bachelor's degree to figure out all the features. 5. It has Anti-shake picture steady technology, so if you're not the most steady person (even bordering on palsy) you can still get great pictures. That's why this camera and most of the Nikon models are on my list of to get.

As the title states, I'm traveling up to Des Moines for some training for work tomorrow. If there's anyone in or nearby it would be great to meet you and see and hear your ride. If anyone's there or interested let me know. Sorry, won't be able to show off my van, will be in the company truck. Eight or nine hour drive one way with factory crap tunes.

Distortion is really more of a product of the amplification than the subwoofer. Harmonic distortions created from cone break up, power compression, etc. from subwoofers is never really heard as distortion in the sense of clipping an amplifier. I can say with great confidence that either sub will impress you, however, the woofer for you will surely be the BL. Yes, it is geared more toward SPL than the Q, but the sound you'll get from it IN THE PROPER ENCLOSURE will astound you and you will not be disappointed IMO.

It would depend on your technical abilities as to how good it turns out, but it's perfectly possible. Check out Parts Express for terminals, it's a good place to start.

Pretty much my thoughts exactly. Whether it was copying or OEM building they look SUPER similar to Fi built subs, except they're asking a rediculously high price.

Much appreciated man! Have a great day Aaron, me and my kids are going to try to get the pool goin' today!

Bass boost is really ONLY so bad because it gets completely abused. The idea behind having bass boost is really just a selling point from days gone by. It was originally used to bring up bass frequencies that were almost non existent in the music of them olden days. Today's music is recorded much differently and the need for BB is just not there, but from a sales standpoint, if you didn't know ANYTHING about car audio (and lets face it, the majority of people out there really don't) and were shopping for amps. If amp A had a bass boost, and amp B didn't chances are you'd buy amp A cuz it seems better cuz it has more features.

I dunno if you've ever tuned a fully active system before, but it has to be done in that fashion. With the gains low, crossover, eq and level settings all have to be adjusted before setting the gains. Even then setting the gains is not done in the regular fashion either.

The subs look VERY similar to Fi Q's, SSD's, and DC's Level 5's. I dunno anything about them, but my personal opinion is that they look like copy cats.

Man I really hate to hear that. Thing is, you may still be in good shape as far as the doors go. As you said earlier it could of all happened during the testing/tuning phase. If you don't notice the cone's moving as though they're out of control (should hear it as well) then most likely the problem was a clipped signal or something along those lines during the test/tune period. I would guess that the amp you have and the Aura's are a great match and the doors are working well as the enclosures for them and that the damage was induced while making adjustments. I would repair/replace the one bad Aura, leave everything just as it is and try running everything again since you're very close to being dialed in, and see how it goes. If you run into problems again then you/we should go over the possible causes and solutions.

Not again.

Change would be bad, VERY bad. If it's a 4 ohm driver it should read around 3.xx ohms DC. No matter what it reads, it shouldn't change from moving the cone.

I'm of the opinion that the amp has a problem. If it just went from playing for awhile to cutting out immediately when you turn it up there has to be a real problem. I'd start looking for a bad spot in the speaker wires just to make absolutely sure there's no short anywhere for starters. (I know you did a fantastic job running everything in this build, but it's still worth a look) Otherwise, yeah the load could be a problem at high power levels but it still seems to me that the amp should be fine on impedance rise. If the impedance was falling out real low then I could see that being a problem, but rising shouldn't cause the amp to freak out IMO. That's why I think the amp may have an internal problem. On the other hand, an impedance matching circuit (I believe it's also known as a Zobel network) would be ideal to flatten the impedance curve, however I'm pretty sure it would require a little retuning AND the worst problem is that in order to build an IMC or Zobel to handle that kind of power requires some very large (high power handling) coil's and resistor's to handle several hundred watts and that could be expensive to build or even very hard to find the parts to handle 300+ watts. I dunno for sure, that's just how I see it.