altoncustomtech

Typically when I've seen this it's one of two things, a cell(s) is going bad or has gone bad or the alternator isn't charging like it should be. I would take the vehicle to get the electrical system load tested and try to determine which the issue is.

Happy Birthday!

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Time and time again we tell people that increasing power is the least effective way to get louder, and here I think you've provided a prime example. You have to at least double power input to get a theoretical 3dB gain in output which, again, is the theoretical doubling of output. The problem is that even when you double the power due to things like power compression you'll never see that full 3dB anyway. Plus 3dB to the ear isn't twice as loud anyway so it's all a wash. As we've mentioned before, adding power and worrying about those small increases like that aren't a big enough difference to go chasing and spending money on unless you're competing and trying to get every tenth of a decibel you can, and even then there's better ways to go about it most of the time.

I agree with the others, if you're wanting to do a real 3 way active setup there's a better way to go about it. If it were me I would run the subs at 2 ohms until you were able to make the changes necessary to run them at 1 ohm or a larger amp to run them with more power at 2 ohms. I don't think the small gains you would get from running it at .5 ohm would outweigh the stress on the amp and other possible issues that could arise. Of course that's me, I'd rather play it safe than be sorry I had a problem. I'm not sure what kind of experience you have with sound deadening but the application of the KnoKnoise CLD is a bit of a waste. CLD is used to stop panel resonances and if it's not attached to anything like when covering a hole it's not doing anything and it's too damn expensive to do that with. It only takes about 25% coverage of CLD to be effective to stop resonances. To block noise and sound from coming through the door or any body panel some CCF and MLV are much more effective. Hell just the CCF made a tremendous difference in my Jimmy but the MLV is the real product to be used to block noise. I hope you don't think I was being overly critical, I like the ambition behind the build and I'm looking forward to seeing how it all pans out. I think you've got a great foundation in the plans you have and it should turn out to be pretty decent overall.

Again, your attention to detail on this build is astounding. Absolutely beautiful. Quick question though, I saw the bolts through the A pillars and the brackets on the back of the mid pods, but I didn't see exactly how they mount up. I'll eventually be doing similar testing and mounting in my Jimmy and that looks like a great way to mount, aim, and test a pod type speaker mount and especially for temporary testing. The cleanliness of the wire runs and the install in general should be the level we all strive to achieve. I'm really looking forward to your thoughts and opinions on the overall sound when it's complete. It should be quite nice! I can imagine the quietness of the ride as it is now with all you've done to make it quiet is remarkable as well.

They should be marked + and - (red or black) and typcially the terminals are paired up on each side of the sub for each coil on a DVC sub. A few manufacturers have gone to using some proprietary and funky terminals to make wiring them easier, but from all the pics I found of the Type E's they don't have those types of terminals so it should be pretty straight forward. As long as you connect the + and - up as shown in the diagrams you should be good to go.

Here ya go....

Can't be done with two dual 4 ohm subs. They can only be wired to 1 ohm, 4 ohms, or 16 ohms.

What is the voice coil configuration on them? We need to know if they're single 4 ohm, dual 4 ohm, dual 2 ohm, etc. in order to get you the diagram you need.

Doing research for work...... lol

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Even if you can just get the surround, which I don't think would be horribly difficult, you'll still need to follow most of the steps involved in reconing. Once the surround is cut and cleaned off the basket and cone, the cone is going to be able to rock side to side and can be put back together misaligned. You'll still have to take the dust cap off and put shims in the gap to keep the coil centered in the gap while you attach the new surround. I've never done it with an XCON, or anything nearly as large but I've replaced surrounds on a bunch of speakers I've picked up over the years from garage/yard sales, second hand stores, etc. I got the surrounds in kits from Parts Express but those kits don't have the kinds of surrounds these subs use so unfortunately they're not an option to get them from. I wasn't sure how many times you've done things like this and I wanted to be sure you knew it had to be centered up before gluing it.

Anyone?

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Very nice truck indeed.

Nothing going on at work and I leave early today!! Got about 20 minutes before I need to go, so........

Actually the response is better without mid's signal going through the passive at all. It gets downright groovy with the active crossover turned on with a flat EQ, something I just couldn't do with them before. That's why I was ranting about the passive's. It's as if there's something in them that is changing the signal and making the response in that range stronger, probably by attenuating other frequencies, and causing the worst of the issue. I could have run the mid without the passive at all and be happy with the response as it is now, they sound a little better than I remember them sounding when I first installed them. Either way it doesn't really matter, the crappy bastard passive things are coming out and the set is going to be ran active anyway. I'm also afraid there's a tweeter that's already damaged too, that's not helping anything either. I have some Dayton DC28FST-8 tweeters I picked up for another project that got scrapped as I started to learn why multiple drivers playing the same frequencies is a no no. Perhaps after getting things installed and setup for active listening they might be a better choice to use than the original tweeters?

Well, can anyone explain what's happening with the passive crossovers? Let me explain. After I started the other thread about the axis question it was suggested to me to test each individual driver without the passive crossover's connected. I remember when I did that some of the issues I was having with the extreme, ear bleeding midrange went away. I never got a chance to work on that anymore but I was playing with it again yesterday and found that was exactly what happened. I left the tweeters on the passive's during my test and just moved the wires on the mids to the amp inputs terminals and viola, the harsh midrange at around 2-2.5k was much better. Still a little strong but manageable and much easier to listen to. That brings me back around to the question, what could possibly have happened to the crossovers to cause an issue like that? Running the mids full range with no crossover still had some breakup and issues, but as soon as I turned on the LPF to 2.5k it smoothed them right out. Of course it sounded like ass again because there was no teble, but it showed me for sure the passive crossovers are causing an issue. My only question is why. I can kind of see, with a component set that's only rated for 80wrms and having about 50% more power on tap to run them where the heat might could cause an issue over time but it seems more likely it would cause something to fail right away instead of change something in the response. I dunno, I'm just ranting at this point. Also really aggravated with the truck, it's tight quarters, and trying to find a place to hide the Solid 2, lol. I'm really wanting to test the set fully active and see what I can get from them with everything crossed over right.

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to the forum! You've definitely come to the right place to learn.

I still can't drive the truck, but if you didn't mind traveling over to where I work I'd be glad to show it to you. If we don't get a chance to show it to you before, I plan on having it up in Indy on more than one occasion next year and hopefully we can get together then. The sub tested out very very well. My sister is using it right now in her Durango (same enclosure) and is loving it. It lays out the lows just a little better than the DCON and is just as loud on the power she has. He's got himself a good driver IMHO but I've not heard anything more from him about it. I had to give it a break from the van though, the Sundown 2K was going to turn that bad boy inside out, lol.

There's still a lot of tuning to be done (gains, crossovers, etc.) but I think it's stellar so far!

I wasn't going to post this up, but my little brother insisted and I figured I would go ahead and share. Here's a quick little video I took to show him the XCON in action. I played and played and played with the tuning on the PR's until I got it just where I wanted it. To facilitate easy tuning I wrapped a small block of wood in paper towels and inserted it in the enclosure (to simulate the airspace the PR's would take up when mounted correctly) and mounted the PR's inverted so I could add and take away weight until I got the tuning just right. As it is now the PR's are tuned right about 31hz and that little sub can lay it down like no other ten inch I've ever played with before. When I get more free time I'll permanently mount the PR's but for now it's doing fine as it is. So, here it is the first video of the XCON and matching pair of passive radiators.