altoncustomtech

Just on the preliminary rundown I'm highly doubting anything about this enclosure was correctly calculated.

You're not mentioning any internal length, does the port not turn and L in the back? Also, what was the intended internal volume? Why is the port slanted, wider at the bottom than it is at the top?

I used several Hifonics amps, older Brutus, Zeus and Titan series amps on some older builds of mine and a friends. I was never real impressed with them. For someone on a budget that's not overly worried about the best and cleanest signal reproduction and who's not trying to get crazy I think they can do fine. I sold my Zeus (ZXi6006) and Brutus (BXi2006D amps to a co-worker for his son's truck and they're still working just fine. Like I said, for a person on a budget who's not trying to win big in competitions or shooting for the stars they'll be okay. I just know I won't be using any again myself.

Carefully inspect the motors. It's entirely possible that they got abused during shipping and the motors shifted and locked the coils. It's rare, but it has happened before. It would account for the cone's inability to move right out of the box.

Here's a sample. Finished Enclosure pics without subs: (took a little artistic liberty in the colors) Finished enclosure pics with subs, no lines:

Speaking of which, I'm uploading the finished drawings, cutsheet and instructions now.

Just about any of the battle scenes in Battleship will do it, especially the last one with the old battleship. Also the movie "The Haunting" with Liam Neeson. Badass bass in that movie with the house moving and things.

The Q will performs great for all music types. My pair of Q 12's can dig deep and play the low stuff with authority as well as they can reproduce the tightest bass drum beats and bass guitar riffs (right word? I'm no musician.) without a problem. They're very responsive subs that don't have a problem playing all sorts of music. Their response will depend more on the design of the enclosure than it will on anything else.

Four Type R's? That should get some air moving, lol. Even though you got all the room you need to fit whatever you want, it would still be great to have some measurements. If not for any other reason than to ensure it fits snug in it's location and looks like it belongs there. If I designed one that was 75" wide by 10" deep by 30" tall it could technically fit in the van, but it wouldn't fit well, it wouldn't look good, and it wouldn't be real practical to use. With some good measurements, even if it doesn't need the maximum measurement, will help make sure it looks like it belongs in the van at least. I don't think 30hz would be out of the question for tuning. Tuning in the low 30's generally gives a pretty well rounded response and decent output which is why I believe it's about the most common range people tune to. With four subs output shouldn't be much of an issue at all. Making sure the enclosure has enough port area to keep from having port noise, keeping the subs loaded evenly, and other things of that issue are of more concern.

x2 for me. I use firefox if that makes a difference. I use chrome and firefox on my laptop plus chrome and safari on my iPhone, all of which do the same thing. I kind of figure it's like the fatal error problems that occurred directly after the server upgrade and switch, it's just going to take a little time for it all to level out. I know these guys are on the case and it will get smooth again just like before.

The speed of the site is doing great for the most part. The only problem I seem to encounter now is the occasional "page not available"/SQL server issue.

There was a pair of subs on each side of the enclosure behind those custom pink and blue fabric grilles. The person who did that spent a lot of time on it but my thoughts go DIRECTLY to what could have been done with the money spent and the time it took to put it in if it had been concentrated on making it a great sounding setup instead of a master blaster. It's definitely creative, I'll give it that.

Hey Alton thanks a lot for the warm welcome and all the useful information you have just given me. As far as the X series I honestly was going to chose these subs but after research I was finding out that the FI BL series brings a little bit more sq and spl to the table. However this was only by word not by ear so I'm not sure how true this is. On another note the box I have been refering to is basically a prefab fart box but I would deffinelty like to build my first enclosure. I have seen it done and have also helped with one the only problem I have is the enclosure design, dimensions, and specs like you had previously mentioned. I'm just not sure how tuning the box works and how big to cut the wood etc. Other than that I am quite capable of building my own so any other insight you have on this is greatly appreciated. P.S. I was looking to tune as low was 32 hertz if that would sound ok? ALSO A BIG THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HAS RESPONDED HERE NICE TO MEET EVERYONE! I don't know about more SQ but I'm sure the BL's would have more output per watt applied than the X's would, the question to ask yourself is whether or not that difference is worth the price difference. Otherwise, yes 32hz tuning would be great. As for the enclosure, if you can post up the maximum dimensions your enclosure can be to fit and other important information like the orientation of the sub and port (i.e. sub up, port back or sub and port back) and we'll get you a design made up that you can go build.

Why fail? If this looks good to you, I'll finish up the drawings and post up the cutsheet and assembly instructions. 4cuft NET tuned to 32hz with 67.5sqin of port area. 38" W x 15" H x 23.75" D

to the forum and nice intro, lots of information. The BL's are great subs, no doubt, but if you're just wanting to sample the Fi expreience you could save yourself a good bit of money and get something a little more comparable in the X series. They're closer to the Type R power handling and are plenty capable, however even the Type R's can do more for you if you were to build another enclosure and lower the tuning. IMHO 45hz is just too high to listen to music on daily and expect great results. Because of that I don't think a direct swap from the Type R's to ANY of the Fi subs will be all that impressive of a difference. I think before you spend a cent on any other subs you should definitely consider another enclosure. The 2.25cuft volume per is just fine, get that tuning down to 35hz or lower and see what you think of the Type R's in an enclosure like that. Then if you'd still like to try out some Fi subs go for it, and the enclosure will be better suited to them as well. We can help with the enclosure design as well if you need it.

to the forum!

If you have 13" depth available like you first mentioned then you wouldn't have to squeeze the 12" PR in, it will fit easily enough. Parts Express has a 12" Dayton Audio PR available for $34 which isn't too shabby, though I'm not sure how good those are as I have absolutely no experience with those. Getting a little pricier Online Car Stereo has this Boston Acoustics 12" PR for $55 and I can imagine it would perform exactly like you need it to and it can be tuned from the front by removing the dust cap which makes it a fair bit handier than most. Fi doesn't post the prices on the website but they can build you a 12" PR for $90 which is much pricier than you're wanting to go I'm sure. Like was mentioned earlier Sundown makes PR's as well and theirs would match your SA10, but again the prices for those aren't readily available anywhere and you'll have to email Sundown for that. Considering you can pick up a 4" Aeroport from PartsExpress for $14 the PR's are definitely more expensive however that brings about a common point that we stress here alot, car audio is all about compromise. The automobile is the most horrible, hard to compensate for, difficult to control environment a person can choose to put audio equipment in and even more so to put that equipment in and expect it to reproduce music faithfully and do it well. Even for something as simple as your sub enclosure you'll have to compromise between being stuck with a sealed enclosure and it's limited response and output, taking a chance on port noise and/or loading issues but most likely getting the response and output you're trying to find, or spend all the extra money on a more expensive PR setup that should yield the response you are wanting without the other issues of trying to stuff the port in the enclosure. We can give you all the information we can to help you make an educated decision but ultimately the decision on which compromises you can live with will be yours.

The RE calculator is often times WAY off, and this is definitely one of them. There's no way to fit that port in your max 8x13x33 dimensions you posted in the first post of this thread, let alone 8x13.5x29. The calculator doesn't calculate many things right, nor does it account for the displacement of the sub. 13sqin of port area isn't a great amount of port area, it's about the same as a 4" aeroport but without the flares to help reduce port noise.

You didn't post the price you're looking to buy the amp at, so it's hard to recommend you anything else at that price. In my experience it's going to be very hard to find many amps better than the Hifonics for the same or lower price unless you found something used, and you should look and consider that route. There's some really nice used equipment that comes up for sale, you should take advantage of it if there's something that fits the bill. I think the enclosure I posted is about as optimal as it can get, and I'm sure others can chime in if they know a design that would be better. Port area can be increased which could possibly gain a little more output, but it's far too dependent on so many other factors to say with absolute certainty. Can you fit the 18.5" Depth? If not what are your maximum dimensions? We'll help you get it as optimal as possible, but I'm sure if you've never owned a sub of this caliber before you're in for a treat no matter what. Also, getting maximum loudness from the sub is dependent on many of those other factors as well, there's no way for us to say "do this and it will give you the maximum output". The maximum output is dependent on things such as the size of the vehicle it's going in, orientation, power applied, tuning, the vehicles resonant frequency, etc., etc., etc., as well as the enclosure itself. There's just no way to know what's going to give you maximum output without an SPL meter and a lot of testing. The difference between a slot port and an aero port is pretty obvious and can easily be found and identified with a little searching on the web. To put it simply, an aero port is a round tube, like PVC pipe with flared fittings on each end. A slot port is a rectangular shaped port that is most often incorporated into the structure of the enclosure at one end utilizing the walls of the enclosure for three of it's sides typically the side, top and bottom, or in the middle utilizing two, typically the top and bottom. The enclosure I posted above is a typical slot ported enclosure with the port at one end.

If that's for a single 12 that box at 30x30x15 will be WAY bigger than needed for the sub. For a 2.5cuft NET enclosure tuned to 34hz the outside dimensions will be 30" W x 18.5" D x 15" H (assuming those were your intended width and height) with a 3" wide port. This is more like what you're needing to look at doing.

That definitely looks familiar. tac2137 is the friend who referred you? He asked me about that enclosure back just after Christmas. With that enclosure, the SA12's, and that SAZ1500 I find it hard to see any way that you'll have a problem with the quality of reproduction or the output. I think you're in good shape.

to the forum! I agree with Aaron, you've come to the right place.

I don't think you should be worried about buying the Sundown subs. Worse can be bought for more money but very few better can be bought for less. The SA series subs have proven themselves and earned their salt in the competition world and many customers are just as happy with the quality of their sound as they are their output. If I were going to suggest other subs to look at it would be the SSA GCON and the Fi X series subs. You'll pay a little bit more and wait a little longer for the SSA and Fi subs but they're 100% hand built here the US and are unmatched quality for the money IMHO. You're not going to go wrong with any of them, so don't fret about the money you're spending, you're in good hands. As for the enclosure, you need a good design to build yourself. If you don't already have one then we can help you with that as well. No matter what subs you decide to go with, including the Type R's, the enclosure is what will decide how well they perform. I almost want to recommend getting the R's and get you a kick ass enclosure design for them so you can rub it in his face, lol, but I won't. Stick with the plan you're working on so far, it will work out for you.

I'm currently working on a PR setup myself. I'll be using a 10" XCON with a pair of matching 10" passive radiators. A few notes I've learned in the process of getting ready to do the setup. Passive radiators are tuned like a ported enclosure by adding or removing weights to the back of the cone. They offer the great low end extension of ported enclosure without the problems that can be associated like port noise or compression. One major drawback is that like a ported enclosure the driver will "unload" below the tuning frequency but will do so much faster with the PR so tuning your SSF (sub sonic filter) is even more important. The cone area of the passive radiator needs to be greater than that of the driver. You've got one 10" SA10 so you'll need at least either a 12" passive radiator or a pair of 10" PR's to get the full benefit of using a PR in the first place. It's not a good idea to mount the PR's facing upward. If your vehicle requires that arrangement then you should reconsider finding a way to port the enclosure. The initial tuning weight of the PR is calculated by taking the PR's Sd (cone area) as the port diameter and calculating the equivalent port length. Then calculate the volume of that port and figure the mass or weight of the air. Passive radiators are a little more complicated to figure for and are a little more expensive (compare the cost of a PR to a port tube) but are a great solution to utilizing a subwoofer in an application that won't allow for a proper ported enclosure or where the port's length is too much trouble to stuff into it. If you can and decide to use a passive radiator setup, we're here to help. Same as we are with the standard ported enclosure.

These kind of comparison threads won't do you any good. You're talking about two completely different setups in two completely different cars, there's no real comparison to either unless you're talking numbers on a meter. FYI it makes a HUGE difference on what cars and enclosures they're in. Now, given the quality of the Sundown subs and the fact they'll be in a custom built enclosure that's to specifications (or close enough) on a higher quality amp I'm sure they'll perform very well, get plenty loud and sound very good. Given that your buddies setup is two prefab boxes of different types with a cheaper amp and in the trunk of a car with half the seat down I can imagine he's having response and cancellation issues amongst a multitude of other smaller issues that are giving the lackluster performance. The enclosure determines ~90% of the performance you'll get from a sub. Put one of his Alpines in the proper enclosure and compare it to one of the SA12's and the playing field would be a little more even, but only a little. There's so many variables to consider when comparing stuff like this and if everything isn't apples to apples then the comparison doesn't have any real value. Be confident that your intended setup, by all the information you provided and just doing a quick and dirty estimate, should easily outperform your buddies setup. That by no means is a guarantee, nor is it scientifically based on facts, it's just an opinion.