altoncustomtech

That's a great way to spend several $$$$ It looks great. I really want to get a Dreadnought and a couple of Minotaurs and a Leviathan myself. Not because I need them for any particular reason, just cuz I want them, lol.

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At this point I would be much more worried about the enclosure than the amp. The sub could be operated on that amp at 2 ohms as long as you watched your gain setting and listened for stress. What do you mean "equipped" with 8 gauge wire? Is there existing wire in the car from a previous owner? Are you not planning to purchase and install your own power and ground wires?

The amp at four ohms is fine and gives room to upgrade later. However that enclosure isn't the direction you should go at all. Aside from being a bit on the small side there's not enough port area nor is there any way of knowing what it's tuned to. It will work but its kind of like putting a $100,000 race engine in a Pinto. Just far from ideal. A custom built enclosure is the only way to go.

If you're coming from a JL 500/1 and a single 12" Arc sub in a sealed enclosure you sure as hell don't need two 15's to get LOUD in comparison. Also as already mentioned a pair of 15's in a trunk isn't going to be easy to build and will likely require the enclosure be built in the trunk. It doesn't sound to me like you have the experience necessary to take on a build of the proportions you're aspiring to and have it come out anywhere near optimal. That being said, I think you would be VERY happy with a pair of 12" Fi X series subs, SSA GCON's or even some Fi SSD's in a properly designed and built ported enclosure on a 1500 watt amp. It will be less expensive for the equipment, will be easier to build and implement, and won't require the sheer support in the electrical department and sound deadening that a 3500 or 5500 watt system would require. It will cost you less money, gain you some experience with doing the building and installation yourself, and still get WAY louder than what you're currently using. That's just my .02

Don't use the CLD to stop rattles, they're for adding mass to a panel to stop resonances. There is a difference even though both have to do with unwanted vibrations, lol. I would adhere to the 25% coverage rule for the CLD and get a good bit of CCF to stop rattles and noises from panels and such vibrating into each other.

If you're going to recommend a cheaper alternative for deadener then at least keep it a real deadener. RaamAudio's RaamMat BXT II is a fairly good product. It specs in fairly well with other good deadeners, does a pretty decent job and can be picked up for a pretty good price along with their UOI peel n stick CCF. I've got a hodge podge of products in my vehicles including the RaamMat and UOI, SecondSkin Damplifier Pro and luxury liner, and very soon some SDS products for my Jimmy (when Don responds to my order email) though I've put some of the CLD and CCF in my co-worker's son's truck. They all work pretty decent but the RaamAudio products are the most budget friendly without going to the "NOT REAL SOUND DEADENER" products like FatMat and Peal n Seal.

That's where all the ones you care about RIGHT NOW are. Once they're quieted the others will be much more noticeable and annoying. It's an ongoing process, lol.

While doing deadening everywhere is ideal, it is budgetarily difficult without doing a little at a time. I agree with Justin and think you should get back there and press on, pull on and mess with things and see if you can find what all rattles. I've gone so far in my van to completely remove a panel to identify the rattle was coming from it. The plastic interior panel on my van's rear lift gate is huge and I couldn't pinpoint a single point of rattling and when I removed the panel it showed me that most of the panel was rattling, lol. Pressing in one or two spots wasn't going to cut it so the whole thing got uber treatment.

Why not port the Dcon first? I agree. That DCON will surprise you in a ported enclosure.

It took right at five full weeks for me to get my Q's when I ordered them awhile back (3 to 4 years ago). It took about three months to get the passive radiators for my XCON build when I ordered them, mainly due to the fact they work on the extra stuff like recones, passives radiators, and other special order items only when they have an opportunity to do so from all the regular orders along with the fact that it seems like the stuff they OEM for other companies takes some kind of precedence over the Fi orders as well. (that is not in any way FACT, just my observational opinion) It's hard to wait, I know that for sure. I've been bassless in my Jimmy since I bought it, though due mostly to my schedule and lack of time to complete the build, but I would rather wait whatever amount of time it takes to get a hand built to order, made in the USA sub than to use whatever is available on any shelf in any store at any time. There's a good reason why everyone who's used Fi, Ascendant Audio and SSA subs will readily keep coming back to them even though they have to wait for them.

That's ten to fifteen BUSINESS days as well which works out to about three weeks build time PLUS time to ship it. All that is dependent on how backed up they are. Have patience, work on the box, clean up the wiring, wax the vehicle, whatever you can find to do to pass the time. It's worth every minute of the wait.

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Happy Birthday!

It's awesome to hear they weren't hurt and are doing work like they're supposed to be!! Everyone makes mistakes from time to time.

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Yeah I went ahead and ordered the Baltic Birch. $75 + tax + $14 surcharge for handling since it's a special order item. It better make MDF look like particle board, that's all I gotta say about it, lol. Yeah I'm out in the middle of nowhere for sure. I'm also pretty sure that when Chop came down to visit and finally found the house he was expecting to see a bunch of barnyard animals and me walking out the door with a straw hat and bib overalls on, LOL.

Scratch that, they don't have the Baltic in stock at that store. They do have a 13 ply regular Birch.

I dunno about deals, but they do have Baltic Birch. At $75 a sheet I wouldn't call it a deal, but I wouldn't hesitate to spend it IF it's the best way to go. There's not a decent lumber place around here except for big box stores like Lowes and Menards. While we do have some decent places they only carry the commonly used building materials. I was surprised to find the Baltic Birch at Menard's though. Craigslist for my area is useless. I wasn't aware I had a Menards so close though, there's one in Princeton which is only 21 Miles away. That's not ridiculously far for me to travel for something that's worth buying. It's true though, for the most part I'm in the middle of nowhere and at least an hour away from cities big enough to have most things everyone else has ready access to.

Birch it is then. I just hope that what Lowe's has is worth a crap. There's not a lot of other places to go to get this stuff around here.

Landing a job from giving demos? I wish it was like that for me haha LOL, yeah it was nice but it's not happened in YEARS!! It was over a decade ago when I had that setup and it landed me those jobs. Last job it got me was reinstalling a guys setup from his old truck to his new one. A pair of Polk subs on an Alpine amp. Was kind of a neat job as the boxes the store sold him for the subs were WAY too big. He couldn't put his seats all the way back (regular cab truck) and the subs were muddy, boomy and sounded down right wrong. I pealed the carpet back, cut 6" off the top of the box, sealed it back up and laid the carpet back down on it. Subs sounded much better and his seats would go all the way back. I also built an amp rack for him to hold the amp between the boxes because the shop that did it originally just screwed it to the back wall of the cab. The guy wore way too much hair gel in his hair and I got the job cuz that single Radio Shack 12 moved his hair, LOL. "Dude, you just moved my hair. You've got my attention." was his exact words. You know, I bought a second one of those 12's and kept them both on the shelf for years after the transmission took a crap in that car. Lent them to a club member and he's STILL using those damn things! I haven't done a job for someone else to make any profit in years. I help the guys in our club at every meeting usually and the last time I did a job for anyone else was when I put the system in my co-worker's son's truck. I did that in trade for a go-cart he had that I wanted to give to my kids to play on. I miss doing that kinda work for people on a regular basis.

Thanx man. It does suck, but at least I didn't have it almost completely done or anything, luckily. If I had it almost done and that happened I'd have probably completely flipped out, and quite honestly the MDF was a bit old and ever so slightly swelled from humidity from where it's been stored for the last two years, so it's not necessarily a bad thing. I had questioned the worthiness of the MDF in the first place when I started cutting it, now I won't have to worry about its integrity, lol.

I got bad news. Gonna have to start the enclosure over from scratch. The pump for the parts cleaner in the garage got left on and it made a mist that hung in the building. That misted parts cleaner turned the surface of the face of the MDF to mush and every panel was ruined. The only positive side to this is that I can finally try using Birch plywood to build an enclosure. Anybody have any experience with the Tonmik 3/4" Hardwood Birch plywood at Lowes? Should I look at a different a different ply such as the hard Maple or Oak? Some quick help on this would be greatly beneficial as I'm gonna be picking this up this weekend for certain.