altoncustomtech

Tuned in for the rebuild brother! Let me know if you would like some help or ideas with the upper end of the music spectrum. I'm always available to bounce ideas off of and such.

I have a small collection of guitars, just don't know if I want my wife touching them.... $180 isn't too bad, maybe I'll get one for her to learn on. I thought the price was great, especially after reading the reviews. 134 reviews, nothing lower than three stars (only a handful of those) and 104 of them are full 5 star reviews. I found that fairly impressive and the regular price is $280, 35% off right now. Considering you already play, if you go that route and get it for her I'd love to hear your take on the software.

Anything with a pickup works. Electrics, bass, and acoustics with pickups in them. If it plugs in it works. Drew, follow that link I posted about my guitar. I picked it up brand new from Guitar Center for $180.

Yeah, he's right. It can teach you bass as well, though I've not played with it so I have no information as to how it does it or any limitations it may have. I do know that it has the ability to do it even if you don't have a bass guitar. Somehow it can simulate the bass stuff on a regular six string electric. I've had a lot of fun with it so far, my fingertips are numb, lol.

Alright, this might be a complete and total fail, it could be pure awesomeness but either way I've spent just a few dollars to see if I can do it or not. Growing up I had a blast watching my dad play his guitars. I always found it amazing how such awesome music could be played with such apparent ease. Of course anyone who's ever played any instrument knows that EASY isn't in the equation. While it comes easier to some than to others I don't think even the most natural of musicians could claim easy but I digress. My dad tried several times to show me some basics and in the classic kid fashion it was too hard, too much work and I couldn't stay interested in doing it. As I got older I tried to bring up learning with him on a few occasions for which he was more than willing but life just wouldn't allow the opportunity to happen. Then a few years ago life threw the ultimate curve ball and he's no longer here for me to ever have that opportunity at all. To add insult to injury his guitars were stolen shortly after the house became ours (mine, my brother's and my sister's). So, we move on to 2011 and the release of the original Rocksmith. It gets my attention but not enough make any sort of move on the purchase of the software or a guitar on which to play it. It holds my attention enough though to read up on it from time to time, read up on reviews and actual experiences with it. Finally here in the beginning of 2014 a alignment of planets of sorts finds me with an inside track on a sale on a highly reviewed and liked Squire Affinity Series Telecaster Special electric guitar (in butterscotch blonde no less) and a sale going on at Gamestop of the Rocksmith 2014 edition of the game ($50!). I'm up and running on both for under $250. I've only logged about 3 hours on it so far. I went from knowing basically nothing about playing (I can't remember anything about what little dad had tried to teach me except how to play the first part of the riff for "Smoke On The Water" which could be taught to any five year old) to being able to handle fret shifts (albeit only on the low E for now), playing some basic chords, and playing some neat sustains. Sure, basic shit I know but I figure it's not any less as far along as I would be paying a regular instructor to teach me plus I can move at my own pace. For anyone who's never seen the software I would suggest at least taking a look at it. The number of things it does, can do, and how versatile it can be is pretty amazing in my book. If you have seen it before, or better yet if you've used it before I would love to hear your thoughts on it. Like I said, it could very well be a exercise in futility but I'm hoping it's not. If nothing else I will still have a decent guitar on which to learn from an actual instructor should I feel the need.

Thanks brother!! So am I... Now if only work would cooperate, lol....

I'd love to know more about the enclosure design myself. Just from the measurements on the port it seems a little skimpy on port area. Couple with that the fact you can't be positive what the enclosure is tuned to I'm wondering if the enclosure is anywhere near what you asked for. Do me a favor. Drop in a set of test tones. Set it to 50hz and turn it up enough to see the sub moving a fair bit and start going down through the tones to the supposed 29hz tuning. At 29hz the sub should barely even be moving. If it looks like it's barely moving at any other frequency THAT is what it is tuned to, not 29hz or whatever you requested from the shop. Couple that with settings on the amp that may not be quite right and you've got the issues you're having right now. Reference THIS post as to setting the SSF for your application as well. I have the same sub on the same amp in my Jimmy in a passive radiator type enclosure setup which is all setup more for SQ than SPL and it gets plenty loud and shakes plenty of stuff in the truck. It's definitely not so quiet that a person could say "I forgot we had the sub in here." Hell it flat scared the crap out of one of the guys who I demoed it for. You very well could just have the bass bug and need more but that sub and amp combination should be giving prodigious amounts of bass to you.

Happy Birthday Sean!!

Alright, a few more updates. Got to start working on my idea to mount the 4x6's to the door panel at an angle. I'm not sure how well it's going to work, or fit for that matter, just yet but again I just made this stuff out of scrap so if it doesn't work out I'm not out anything but a little time. I built a small box just large enough to rear mount the 4x6's from the back side and split it into two pieces at an angle to create the mounting angle for the Aura's. As long as everything works and fits they should work out great. I also began to remove some of the factory grill so that it doesn't affect the sound so badly. Once those are done I'll be wrapping them in matching (or close enough to matching) gray speaker grille cloth for a nice finish. Onto some pics. Here's the factory grill. It's a delicate operation drilling out each of those parts of the grill to leave the honeycomb looking reinforcement part of the grille to back the grill cloth. More as it happens.

The OP is misusing the terms plain and simple when he says "key importance is sound quality, clarity, and accuracy". What you're really looking for is a setup that sounds good with as little distortion as possible. SQ, clarity and accuracy are great goals but the fact that you separate out the terms clarity and accuracy from SQ tells us that you don't fully understand the terminology to begin with. SQ encompasses all the adjectives you can think of to describe quality. I'm not trying to be an ass, or be insulting but having a stereo that has low distortion and keeps it's composure at higher volume levels has little to do with real SQ. It's also much easier and cheaper to accomplish. I agree with Sean that you should ditch the idea of dropping in all four 6.5" speakers. Not only will it hurt the overall sound but it's money you can put to much better use in other aspects of the build. Number one on the list of things to worry about is the locations you can put the speakers in the front of the car. If you have good fabrication skills and experience then this is a much easier part than it would otherwise be. If not and you're limited to factory locations then it's important to know that to help you optimize the installation for those locations as much as possible. The next thing to worry about is sound deadening. Properly deadening the vehicle will make a much bigger difference than you can imagine and coupled with a good install can easily whip systems that cost much more that were just thrown into the vehicle even when using less expensive products. At this point I would assume that all you've ever used were the coaxial speakers that fit the factory locations in the vehicle and an amp and subs. Starting out with a decent passive component set, coupled with a great installation will serve you much better than just grabbing whatever speakers fit all the holes and filling them.

What do you want us to tell you? You placed an order for an item, they took payment and are in the process of building the item you ordered. It takes 10-15 BUSINESS days when things are moving and clicking along in good order. If they're behind because of being swamped with orders (which happens a lot at tax time), short on some part, or some other problem prevents them from getting it built as fast as possible then it can take longer. Some people have waited as long as 30 business days but fortunately that's not real common. Take a deep breath, work on the enclosure design or something and have some patience.

JL manufactures and sells some great amps, I'd never argue that but that XD800/8 sure as hell isn't nearly as budget friendly as the Zapco.

I sure hope it works out to make it this year!

Believe me brother, I know EXACTLY how that goes.

Multiple 2 channels would definitely be more versatile, hell even multiple 4 channels as Sean had mentioned. When I run across this my thoughts were simply that it would simplify the setup for such a system with only one power and ground to mess with, only having to find room for one amp, things like that. My thoughts when I posted it was solely for the 2 way + sub type setup. I definitely agree it wouldn't be enough power for a 3 way + sub.

The dimensions are 2.25" H x 10.75" W x 24.5" L according to the manual. So yeah, it's not real small but essentially not much larger than two of the P900.4's end to end.

Ran across this on the eBay and thought it looked like a great buy, especially for someone looking for a simple all in one solution for an active setup. The Zapco I5100 is a seven channel amp that is rated for 50wrms x 4, 25wrms x 2 and 400wrms x 1 all @ 4 ohms. By bridging the 4 channel section you get a rated 175wrms x 2 plus the 25wrms x 2 and the 400wrms x 1 and the sub section is rated 600wrms x 1 @ 2 ohms. In my mind the 2 x 175 would be great for a mid, the 2 x 25 would be great for tweeters and the sub section great for many subs on the market. It seems like a fantastic solution to simplifying an active setup as far as the amplification is concerned and at $270 it seems to be priced great as well. Here's the link to the listing - Zapco I5100 $270 Just tossing this up for discussion and comments. I'm sure since it's the Zapco I series amp it's not the same quality as their reference and competition series but I can't see it being a bad one either.

Yes it will, everything like that affects the tuning but it this particular thing won't have a huge affect. If the design said you were tuned to 38hz with E12's then you might be up as high as 40hz but I doubt it. Even the 38hz is way above where I would want it though.

Yes, you're correct in how it's wired for the final 1 ohm load which is why I mentioned the occasional mix up during manufacturing. If one set of terminals was accidentally swapped it would look like it was wired right but it would in fact be out of phase. When you set the sub cone down and look straight down at the motor the + and - terminals on each side should be opposite each other (on left side + on top - on bottom, right side - on top + on the bottom). If it's not like that then one side was built swapped. Again, it's super rare but it has happened.

Double check the wiring on the coils of the sub and make certain you don't have them wired out of phase. On rare occasions the black and red terminals can be on the wrong sides. It doesn't happen often but it has happened.

Happy Birthday!

Worked =) I owe you BIG time. Awesome brother!! I'm glad to hear all the goodies are unlocked for you now! So is it just like the settings in the book for the CZ? I think it's really crappy they don't have any of the details about the crossover, DTA, and other audio settings in that book for the NX. I can see how it would be really easy for a person to miss that part of the initial setup and not get the good controls unlocked. On top of that with no details on how any of that works how would they know what settings they could use? Clarion really dropped the ball on the manual for your unit for sure but if the settings really are the same as they are in the CZ then that manual combined with the one for the NX should guide you through it all pretty well.

Hey man, let me know how it turns out there Senchez..... I'm interested after talking to you in chat about it whether or not it has all the exact same controls as the CZ as it was reported to have had to me.

Thanks, and neither can I! It's not going to be anywhere near perfect. Cheap speakers, cheap HU, no DTA, etc. but that was never the goal anyway. It should be worlds better than it was and with any luck it will actually sound pretty decent.

Congratulations!