sqguy

Well it might be worth a try when I get to that. Looked at some fostex and TB that seemed most promising. Don't know if their wattage ratings are thermal or travel limited...assume they can take more when bass is not an issue but I was not sure. If I can fit it in there and it works, I don't really care what it is. You mean he ran them down to 250Hz? Seems like one could use more of a sub with them than a woofer, I was figuring I could get up to at least 2kHz clean with a 8" woofer and more with the right one....unless that is not the way to do it. I still have to listen to this more and figure out what is going on....you know let the new system sink in. Trying to verify if the kicker has any problems with quality on the high side at this point. Ran the same front boston comps on an old alpine amp before this and the sound is a little different. That would really PO me; I read up that this was a pretty good amp for the price, and got it so I could do away with multiple amps and mountings. Thought it would be clean at normal volumes. I am always amazed at how different amps sound different, always had to swap them out for what I wanted and that was my largest reservation in getting this 5ch amp. Yes I might have gone too far with the 4 12s, it can really bang my head around when I dial it up. I thought 2 might not be enough so I ended up with 4. Was going to run 4 or 6 10" originally, but then everyone runs 12s and I found a deal on these. I know you will cringe, but if I had the time I would get a set of cheap subs just to try them. For normal listening this setup puts out too much bass and the lighter subs might work just as well. That loaded baffle was a heavy thing, more than I thought it would be. I don't like extra weight. My theory is that with the room multiple low/normal xmax subs will serve fine here instead of one/few more capable ones, and I don't want to attempt big xmax with IB since I have not heard much good about it. Another issue is my limited eq abilities. I have a RF plate eq I can run but would need a rta to use it. Just have the alpine 190 on there now though at some point I will get a better HU to do all that. Thanks again for all the info, it is appreciated.

Did some driving and got to put some time on the system, it sounded different maybe from more voltage of car running? It was brighter sounding, wonder if this is why kicker is called a value amp or what the deal was...it was not a big difference but it was different. I also had to turn down the sub gain more after a while to even it out. Got some brackets to mount the cap and then I can finish the power wires/cables. Working on a cover for end of amp too. Then I will deaden the doors and stuff....later I will figure out what to do with the stage. Pretty busy with summer stuff right now. Looked at 3" full range but most have such a low power handling.

What type of 3" was it? I got it back together tonight and it sounds good. The subs are just plain dominating when you turn them up...I think they re-adjusted my eye sockets and I still didn't have them wot and might never. The high side does not have a prayer of keeping up, but that way I have some room for music that is light on bass or recorded that way. Crossover is set at about 45 LPF and 80 HPF. I'm not sure what the deal with the stage is, need to listen to it more. It sounds good, everything is there but it lacks the stereo separation it seems. The treble is good but if I crank the HU treble all the way it hardly gets louder. If I turn it down it goes away. Maybe it has to do with the Boston passive xovers, they do have an adjustment on them and I think it can go one louder on the tweeters but have to take door apart to do it. The tweeters from the kenwood comps I had in there before sounded better and more detailed. They are not domes, and not metal, looked like black poly cones...not sure what they are I'll dig up the box. They were fairly smooth and about 1". I don't even hear that much roll off if I get down in front of the tweeters to sitting up. The tweeters are an inverted dome type pointing slightly upwards at a level of about the top of my leg almost to knee. The mid is just behind and under the tweeter. Maybe the kenwoods were just brighter and worked better lower like that, but they were not screechy I can't stand that. In fact the junk pioneers in the rear doors have more treble and sound pretty clear compared to the comps in front, I got in back and checked when I put the seat in. Think I will take the front panels off and adjust that crossovers and put some deadening on the doors, seal it up better. Then I will swap the rear speakers and see what I get.

Thanks Crunch1, ///M5 I found a writeup on a Seas 27TBFCG I have scratched down here and it said they had a diffuser that improved off axis response. I can't find them for sale anywhere. Most of the Seas tested better in what I read, most were 27s. So you think maybe a 2" mid and the 8? I like silk or otherwise soft dome 1" best in what I have installed before. I can put the tweeters at the side mirrors and more angle if smaller, maybe about at passenger head. If larger it would be harder to angle them unless I build something. With a mid, I would have to think on that not sure as they would not fit on mirror unless they were neo and then still not sure. Do they even make neo dome mids? Yes I should not violate my #1 rule that front stage should be best equipment or equal quality to anything else in car. Still working on the wiring mess in back. I don't know if my EQ is a line driver but I have the amp sub gain at half and I didn't even turn the deck up that far screwing around and got the roof to move...with the windows down, but had the sub gain on EQ all the way. Could hardly hear the mids....maybe I have too much sub...LOL! Another reason I put 4 in is I had level problems with the single sub boxes. I would turn it up loud and turn the sub up so it sounded nice....then when I turned it back down the sub would be way too much. I ran gains on amp and xover this way and that but could not get a match even swapping out sub amps. I am assuming I had to overdrive the single sub to get the output is the reason....but I never exceeded the sub's ratings or distorted it.

Been super busy but got some things done, I put bolts between the subs on each side and rewired them to the bolts. I will make a panel to cover the top of the amp and wires I think. I have the front half of the car back together now just finishing the wiring in back so I can get the seat back in and pretty close to done now. I cranked it up today and it trashed my battery pretty fast....but I got the 12s moving some and it hammers. Seems to have lots of power, subs are up half and HU is quite low yet....have some rattles in the back of car. Should be different with the seat in however. May need another battery of some kind. Going to swap 6x9 into rear doors and then do some deadening in the front and try to move tweeters to see how that works before I change the front stage out. Been really hard to work on it just too much other stuff to do, and not fun driving around with the car half apart. A Pioneer 880 went new for 275 shipped on ebay today, but not to me. Also the noise issue went away when I put all the wiring in new. Not sure what happened as the old wiring (8ga) worked fine on two different sub amps and one was near as big as this one. It has 5ga now. Maybe it didn't like running only the sub part of the amp.

I'm SO happy to have no box in my car, I need the room and have missed having the thunder of IB subs for a long time. Once they are done I'll try 8s and 1" in front, maybe after that I will get a new HU. Well thats the plan anyway, who knows. I have Boston comps, they sound good but not sure if they are great as I remember the last set was long ago...but my mounting placement is not great either, they are too low. Still think I can't get enough midbass out of them anyway.

Sounds like the old days when Pioneer had the lowest voltage outputs of anyone. We used to put all kinds of filters and caps on the power wires. I think the old cars had more noise though.

Its 4:06 here...

The old school setup in those was 6x9 in the deck, a set of 10" subs IB between them, and as much as you could get in the front ....meaning the 4" dash (or 3.5 whatever they were) you put coax or tweeters in there and 5.25 or 6.5 in the doors. I know you guys will say old school (sorry) but back then you put 6x9 in back for midbass because you could not get enough out of 5.25 and usually not enough out of 6.5. Same problem I have in my car now, you got nothing above your subs in the say 80-180Hz range. I have 4 doors with 5x7 in them and it does not work, but yes I have a lot of sub too. Maybe with some high dollar 6.5 you can. If you use 6x9 that are not bright (tweeters are mellow, usually coax not 3/4way) your front stage will work fine. 6x9 can hit that range easily and if you are not building a full on SQ rig they will sound fine for that fill way in back. A lot of those old cars people just ran tweeters in front if they didn't want to hack the doors. Most 6x9 were too deep for car doors, or they worked well in front. I agree the front stage is where your quality needs to be, just that IMO many average 6.5 and smaller speakers people tend to buy can't keep up with good powerful subs in that range or make any bass without subs when you need even more. For SQ anyway, you usually need the subs pretty low and mids to pick up in that. But thats just my .01. I would never put anything smaller in the rear deck than 6x9 unless I had to...its free midbass the bigger you go and near every car I have ever had was lacking there for SQ when I had big subs. In fact for a while kenwood had 7x10s and I put them in boats one set after another, they worked really well with or without subs. Not huge SQ but great bass and great for that app. That is just IMHO and what worked at the time because some people will not agree...and I still run up on that same problem more since most cars today have smaller than 6x9 speakers in them. Good 6x9s can make bass and this guy said he had a budget. That is why I plan to try 8s in my front doors soon, the same cone size as 6x9. But if you can't make 80Hz and up in front, you have to do it someplace else like in a rear deck. Now there might be certain music you don't need much midbass, then it does not matter.

There have been kickers and hifonics refurbs, and others on ubid lately. I swear some of them are going right over to ebay for more $ as some people were buying 15 at once cheaper than ebay.

I don't want to jack this thread either, but if I were going to look for a used HU reasonable in the future with all the audiophile stuff to run active crossovers, the EQ, time alignment, etc., and I don't care about looks or brands just functionality...would this be the one to hunt for when I get the extra coin? Are the volume/sub controls easy to use on the run?

Dual 1 ohm? Yes that would cause it to do things like that if its not rated for that load. Hook it up in series; into one coil then to the other and back to the amp like he said. I don't know anyone using one yet, didn't even think of it being dual 1 ohm.

I did that with my PC once, I took a magnet and ran it around in different directions and got rid of most of it. The next day it was all gone.

God I would hate to make that mold lol . A big CNC lathe would whip out any horn you want...or mold. I still think 'tuba' every time I see those. Would like to hear a set some day, they sure do a lot with a little.

Some people are just putting bolts through the box for terminals, no issues with sealing them and they are very HD. The advantage of dual terminals is you can wire them to different ohms outside the box, should you change amps/wiring/drivers/etc. I wire each voice coil out of the box normally, but it is your preference what you want. Often I reuse boxes that is why I do it. I don't see how making boxes is that hard, winISD will get you close and there are others. You do need to build it stout and seal it properly...construction...and there are other issues with proper mounting of the subs and port shapes and locations. If you get it all perfect it will perform very nicely, if you don't use flared ports for example you might get a little noise depending on size and location, etc....but it will still work. Anyway, it is always nicer to have one made for you if you are not into doing that, and yes they should know what they are doing or what you get will be questionable. And if you are really serious about max output or competing/SQ/etc you should have a really nice box properly made for you. Another issue is if the box is inside the vehicle with you not in a trunk, then any noise the box makes (like port noise) will be a problem where in the trunk it is not as much of an issue for casual use. Then there is the appearance of the box; how it looks. I've made a lot of bare ply boxes full of drywall screws that hammered, but they were ugly. It takes a lot of work to make a nice box that works well, looks well, is durable, and fits the application. Just my .02. I just mounted 4 12s IB and it was a lot of work, and I didn't even carpet it yet. The frame is angled to fit the car, I have lots of hours into it and a box would have been a lot easier. But I have a fairly empty trunk now, just waiting to finish wiring to see how it pounds. I have built most of my boxes because I like to do that stuff...when I have time. The ones I didn't I only bought because they were cheap and about half of those I didn't like. They worked like they should, just were not what I wanted in sound...I like big boxes that go low and most bought (factory made) ones are small. That is the main reason I build my own.

It turned off your HU but does not dim the lights? I would check a couple things to see where the problem is. It could be low voltage everywhere or just at your amp...possibly a HU issue. I would put a meter on the amp and play it to see what kind of voltage it is getting. Then I would do the same check on your battery and see where it is at. You might even verify you are getting 12v in your remote wire from the HU when it cuts out. Is there a light on the amp, does it go out when it quits? Double check the wiring, remember you need the whole loop to make it work. So for example if you lay big power cable from positive battery to amp, then you need a big ground to body from amp (not as big as power because it is shorter), but then if you use the body as the ground wire you need a bigger cable from the body to the battery to complete the loop....same deal with the big alternator it needs the full loop pos and ground to the battery. The big issue is that makes for more places a connection problem can develop also. Sometimes under high draw you can feel a poor connection get hot. DC has no problem melting stuff if it can. Another battery is always good but seems like it should work on one with cables and big alternator? How fresh/large is the current battery? Is it bad? Usually then you will lose a lot of power with the car off compared to running. Don't mean to sound dumb, just trying to help....those are the things I would check first to track it down. Sometimes even brand new stuff does not work and makes it harder to find the fault.

I'm not entirely sure I'll like 8s and 1" on front....makes me want to stay cheap just in case and then I can do it sooner, but not sure. Also doubt I will put the whole 75wrms I have into them. Anyway, this tweeter from dayton seems to have one of the best graphs for off axis: http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cf...tnumber=275-075 And I like this 8 but no graph, but has a higher range than most and has coated cone & rubber surround for more durability: http://www.madisound.com/catalog/product_i...roducts_id=8189 There are a ton of 8" woofers that don't do midrange. The response of those full range 1" speakers looks nice for a tweeter but they are such low wattage. I also found a 2" dome that didn't do too bad in the upper ranges: http://www.madisound.com/catalog/product_i...roducts_id=1373 an MB quart on sale really cheap. Not sure how it would work as a tweeter just two way. Don't think I have room for this 1 & 2" combo but it is kind of neat: http://www.madisound.com/catalog/product_i...roducts_id=1482 I also have an old set of kenwood 4" comps I only used for a short time. They seem to use a tiny poly cone tweeter maybe <1.5" and a paper 4". I could use the tweeter I will look at the box it has a graph for them. Normally I hate bright kenwoods but they sounded much better than I thought they would...just no bass with the 4. I used them in a plate in the doors.

A better HU is on the list but will have to wait. Going to dig around here and find a relay and see if it is coming through the trigger. This is a middle of the road Alpine cda 7837 and has good quality, not really sure why I'm getting this noise other than the amp. Running a crossover on it too that I know is clean and since its gain has no effect I am thinking maybe it is not in the RCAs. I had two other sub amps on it with this setup and have used this HU in another car with amps no problem. I am collecting info on good HUs. I'd like an EQ, good D/A converter, time alignment, crossover, and would prefer a knob for the volume or at least better controls than this slow alpine. I have an old Sony that has great button controls compared to this. Also the tuner is not so good. Sometimes I go out in the sticks and the stock one was much better. But I'll do the 8s in front before the HU if I can't get the current ones to work, because this HU plays CDs nice and that is mostly what I use. It plays burned CDs ok, though sometimes it searches for a bit on the later tracks.

Also thanks for the info on the 8s. I was just looking at tweeters and 8s until my eyes hurt. Got the subs sounding better and think they will work out, but not sure until I get some power on them and the seat in. Have the power cable run into the cabin now, but have to pull the HU and change out RCAs and stuff and didn't have time to do that tonight...the biting bugs shut me down. Still not sure why I would get CD noise in subs, it rumbles until the player finds the start of the song. Strange. I turned the amp gain way down and the crossover up and it helped a little but it does not seem to matter much where the gains or HU volume is at. It is hard to notice at all when driving, but when still it is obvious.

I messed with the gains more and got rid of some of the rumble, its not that loud but should not be there. It is the CD player finding tracks. Can't hear it during music not sure if it does it then. It hammers though I didn't crank it too much. Wonder if it has to do with the amp at 2ohms, but its rated 420 at 2 and 210 at 4. Could wire it for 8 ohms but that would kill the power. It seems tuned higher than I thought it would be, still lower than the sealed boxes I had in there. Of course I don't have the seat in right now either, that will change it significantly. I burped it a little and it has the thunder. Also before I had a box in the trunk and might not have noticed feedback with a smaller amp....but I did test a bunch of boxes outside the car and should have seen it then.

I just temp hooked up the kicker for the subs and I am getting some kind of noise out of it. When I change or FF the CD track it thumps and there appears to be a rumble only on the CD in the background. Didn't do this with a 150rms or 300rms sub amp I had hooked up to the same wires. Changing the volume or gains has no effect. I'll check the wires quick but am replacing them anyway. It thumps but I can't beat on it with 8ga power for both amps...just playing it to keep up with the 30x2 alpine on highs and thats not that loud. Gain at about 1/3. Hard to drive around with 4 12s and not have any subs to listen too. Hope this amp is not a pos.

Getting real close on the IB install but not running yet, been working on it a lot the last couple days. Here are pics from yesterday still have to wire it. Yes thats temp wire on the subs have to get something better and do it right. One sub is newer and lighter color...I'll keep an eye out for one that matches to swap it. Trunk shot is from top of bumper. That board was pretty heavy loaded with the 12s and amp... Been wondering today if I can space the top of seat out a little for a gap, or if it would matter. But have to get them pumping first after I lay the power cable and put the eq in front. Maybe I can get some done tonight. This was much, much more difficult than a box. They don't build cars square.

IB=Infinite Baffle, meaning huge sealed box...your whole trunk. It also means you can use your trunk to haul stuff around if you need to. It is like mounting subs in the rear deck of a car, the right ones hammer good too. You get a smooth roll off in Hz down low so you can hit low tones easily, but you have no box to help control the speaker if over driven. Once you hit xmax you are done and can't use more power (unless you want to trash the subs)....unless you add more subs. This would not be the hot setup for spl usually, you may not need as much power as a box though. And it will not give you a bump in output like a box can for higher Hz high spl. The right subs can make great SQ, and they will move a lot of air. I almost have 4 12" installed into my back seat IB. If it meets your needs it can be great, if not use a box.

How much of your trunk do you want to use, what cubic foot?

Hmmm, I could have kept the old linear power and coustic amps I once had my hands on. These were the old square black coustic amps, they were close to a LP....and the original black/alum LPs. I know who still has some of them. And yes I could have bought that stuff back then reasonable and kept it. I have an eclipse SW6200 NIB that I will get rid of soon, never used it and don't see myself trying a single sub again anytime soon. Lol, I just bought a hifonics it was too cheap to pass up. I'll have to try it out. I just do SQ so I don't usually beat the stuff to death anymore. But in reality amps are so cheap today; you take a look at the original price of the linear powers back in the 80s/90s and add inflation and you will be amazed how high they were. Now you can buy a big kicker/etc and get a fairly good amp for way less, even some of the really good amps are cheaper today. Amps used to be gold; they got ripped off all the time and I didn't dare park my car over night in an apartment complex or in town back then. I bolted them in so if anyone tried it would be a lot of work to get them out. They would take subs and HUs too. All of my early cars had a stereo in them worth more than the car, in a few beaters it was a lot more. We would get winter beaters for $100-200, you could buy a couple for the price of one amp.