helotaxi

And other than some pseudo-technical non-scientific based marketing mumbo-jumbo, they can't really explain why it's "worth" that much money, or even why it's really better, with actual measurements that matter in the freq region in question, than a basic set of RCAs that I can get from a company not nearly as self satisfied as Tara Labs for less than 0.5% of the price.

Not that cheap, but would I spend more than $1 a foot for speaker wire? Are you f'n kidding me? Hell no I won't! Resistance, inductane and capacitance. All that matters, and resistance is pretty much the only one that matters at audio freqs.

About 90% sure I want a Tacoma 4x4 with the V6.

Haven't been around in a few weeks; out of town, working like a slave, etc... Found out last week that I'm headed back to Iraq. Looks like I'll probably be leaving next weekend. Don't know for how long yet. Could be a month and a half could be six. The good news is I'll be banking some cash while I'm there and will be buying a new truck when I get back. That means a clean slate for a stereo and extra cash to do what I want. I'll be online regularly while there, so I'll be in touch.

Price break for a local pickup in the Vegas area? Maybe 50% of the shipping cost?

The Altima coupe is very nice but has one major flaw. Same flaw as the new Accord coupe, which is also very nice looking. The flaw isn't power; both have plenty of that. It's not that they're Japanese; I don't care about that. The flaw is that they made a sporty car and put the drive wheels on the wrong end of the car. I currently own what I reckon will be my last front drive car and I'm planning on selling it before Christmas. New for '08 that I like: The Infiniti G37-I've been keeping track of this one for quite some time and finally got to see one in person. Gorgeous! The $4k "market adjustment" being charged here in Vegas for them will keep me from seriously considering one this year. Next is a different story. The Audi R8-I caught the parade of them coming out of LV Motor Speedway the day of the press launch as they were heading down to the strip for a photo shoot. I about laid down my bike while gawking. The Saturn Sky Redline-Better looking than the Solstice and plenty of power. Did I mention that it's rear drive like a roadster should be? The BMW 135i-Love the idea. Great power to weight ratio. The price reflects how very proud they are of it. I'll take a G37 and get a much nicer car for the money. Still like the car. The BMW M3-Great looks, big power, myocardial infarction inducing pricetag. The Nissan GT-R-I'll probably never buy one because I'd rather have a Vette for the kind of money that it will go for and I really don't care to have every ricer fanboy drool all over my ride wherever I go, but still a cool car. The two "new for '08" items that I'm excited about and one of which may well find its way into the garage are the Triumph Speed Triple and Street Triple. It's looking very strongly like the Speed Four will go and one of the naked triples will replace it in the next six months.

Saw that a few years ago. $6-8K (minimum) and your bagger can do that. Personally I like mine a lot better on 2 wheels.

If you want consistent results, you have to get a consistent temp. That goes for testing and competing. Since the speed of sound changes with temp, so will the response of the system. Unfortunately humidity makes a difference (though not as much) and you'll have a hard time controlling that.

The enclosure effectively makes the mass of the driver a time dependent variable. The effective mass of the driver is proportional to the cone distance from rest (for a sealed alignment; it gets much more complex for a ported setup) and inversely proportional to the size of the enclosure. Now the next thing to consider is that the increased mass moving away from the rest position acts as a reduced mass going back toward center. Transient speed is the rate at which the cone can "turn the corner" and in a sealed enclosure the smaller the enclosure the more it assists the transition. If you want to get into straight Newtonian physics and argue about the dynamics of a sub based on mass, F=ma is not the only equation to worry about. Don't forget inertia. The lighter driver accelerates quicker with the same amount of force, but inertia must be overcome to reverse direction. Inertia is based on the square of velocity. If one driver has half the mass of another and they have the same motor (BL) the lighter driver will get moving 2x as fast per F=ma but have 2x the inertia to overcome to reverse direction. The 2x acceleration cancels out the extra inertia. Fixed mass becomes a non factor in woofer dynamics when it comes to transient response. Now you're left with the enclosure determining pretty much everything as DD was getting at.

Well my deployment has been delayed until December. At least that will give me time to figure out what I'm going to do with my car before I go.

The idea is that with the series wiring between subs the current from the amp has to go through one sub to get to the other. Any nonlinearity in either sub can therefore affect the signal going to the other sub through back EMF. With parallel wiring the amp acts as a shunt to limit the amount that the sub interact electrically with each other.

That spindle looks kinda...what's the word I'm looking for...oh, spindly. I guess I'm used to truck parts though. Did the exact same job on my '69 long bed (lowered it while I was at it, too) and the rust was a bitch. Mine was a beach dweller before I got it. Rust everywhere. The rust and the assignment to Japan killed that project off. She's been sitting in Albuquerque for the last 7 years. I'm going down there in 2 weeks to get rid of her. Know anyone that needs a 350 block or the rear and passenger glass or hood from a '69 Chevy P/U?

If you listen to Manville Smith of JL Audio, subs should be wired in parallel whenever possible. The coils of each sub can be wired in whatever fashion gives you the final impedance that you need.

As mentioned already, if it's cheap enough a rebuild might be worth it. There is, however, no way that that amp will push anything near 1000W. The power supply might be able to do around 700 and factor in output stage losses for final in the realm of 600 into 2 ohms bridged. The 4 ohm power will be more than the rated power but as the impedance drops the specs get closer to the actual output.

AGU fuses? EWWWW!

Consistent cabin temp will give you consistent results as far as frequency peak and box tuning. What's the point of trying to perfect your box if you don't run it in the environment in which is actually performs best?

I wish my wife didn't hate it there. I'd be looking at getting stationed in Great Falls again.

Based on the fact that the car was a '73 Datsun I'm gonna say that it wasn't a wall but a 6x9 laying on the back dash. The football player otoh probably was hit by his sub enclosure coming from the back where it was inadequately secured. The point of the post is that is you don't build the wall like a brick shithouse and secure the subs into the wall equally as well, they will come loose in an accident and they will find the back of your head.

The USA-25 is rated for 35w per channel @ 1 ohm and 70w bridged into 2 ohms. The bench test I've seen for US Amps from that generation showed the amp to do 50% more than rated power into 4 ohms stereo and a decent bit more than rated on all others loads as well.

Usually you can go under the door sill or right next to it. Have two runs of 0ga in the Neon right there and you wouldn't know unless I told you. There's a channel there for the factory harness with plenty of extra room.

The level of ingegration found in the new Nissans and Infinitis is crazy as well. As jacob mentioned with the Mazdas, the center of the dash is one big piece. The radio is nothing more than a slot for CD loading with an eject button. The controls are all integrated into the car's computer and accessed by a 7" touchcsreen which also displays everything for the car. In the case of my wife's G35 that includes nav functions, HVAC status, radio data, the view from the backup camera and a whole bunch of other stuff. As good as the factory radio is for integration and features though (single disc in-dash, six-disc changer in the trunk, 9Gb hard drive hat you can fill with mp3s that the car will rip from CDs loaded in the front player, compact flash port in the dash for music or video files, video and audio inputs in the center console for a portable DVD player and a bunch of other stuff) it doesn't have the capability to add iPod control without losing satellite radio (which interfaces with the nav system to give traffic and construction info) and it is a Bose system which means the sound is only OK, far from good. I'm beginning to shy away from getting a G37 for myself because of a lack of a way to integrate aftermarket amps and speakers in an elegant manner and the inability to retain all the vehicle integration that's there from the factory such as voice control of the radio and the touchscreen interface. I think that there is a market out there, and probably a bigger one than most people think. It is also wholly untapped so getting the full share of that market would be fairly easy. The problem I see is that each unit is going to be so car model specific in most cases that it's going to almost fall into the realm of custom order to retain any possibility of business profitability. You're also going to have to have solid internals to base the units on (ie from one of the major aftermarket companies) and the best of what both the aftermarket and the OEM have to offer from the perspective of features. Convenience feature such as voice activation (for the luxury market) hard drives, etc. as well as tuning features such as full crossovers with time alignment and EQ functions are going to be a must. Go ahead and through in DVD-A support and 5.1 support as well. Because the volume for each model is going to be small, you'll need to have all the features on every unit for that car if you plan to "mass" produce. Some customers won't use all the features for their particular install but it would allow your company to function and offer models for more cars without getting bogged down with a ton of sub models for each car that won't sell enough volume to make the sub model profitable. If you're going the custom order route, you could simply have a list of available functions and features that the customer would choose from when ordering. The problem I see with the latter route is that you would probably price yourself out of the market. Tooling costs for that would drive your manufacturing costs through the roof. I for one think its a great idea. I think you're going to have some trouble with the execution unless you keep the list of supported vehicles small. I would also limit it to vehicles that are difficult to integrate with via traditional methods.

Any idea when we can expect these bad boys or still looking at "some time in the undetermined future?"

Call it the Surfboard and cram a 100.4 a 250.2 and a 3000d in the same chassis. Charge about $4.5k and send me the first one at half price for coming up with the idea.

If you're after anything resembling SQ go ahead and rule out the Orion.

Pretty sure I've been to Sidney, but refresh my memory as far as where in the state it is. I used to live in Great Falls and traveled all over the state on my way to various places.