KU40

and you still haven't told us whether you are running 2 or 4 of the speakers If you're running one set, there's no way you can wire them to 2 ohms and use either a 2 channel or 4 channel at its best. It would be silly to wire your speakers from the two sides of your car in parallel onto one channel of an amp. Not only would it mess up your imaging, but it wouldn't give the speakers more power because they'd just be splitting the amp's power anyways. Assuming you are using one driver per door, you can use either of those amps. Either wire them straight to the 2 channel with one side per channel at 4 ohms or get the 4 channel and bridge it and run one set of bridged channels to each side, again at 4 ohms. Personally I'd do a 2 channel for easier installation, but you may want to get a more powerful 2 channel.

It will give you a more peaky response in that small of an enclosure, even if you tune low. If you go ahead with it, definitely add polyfill to the enclosure to help it out.

I've never seen a tutorial on cabin gain. It's different for every car though, so it would be hard to generalize. What do you want to know about it and frequency response?

If you decide to get rear fill anyway, there really isn't a reason to get two 2 channel amps. Just get a 4 channel. Cheaper and easier to install.

I agree with John, separate crossovers on subs is a silly thing to do. One amp for all three subs would be much easier as well.

Not to be a killjoy or anything, but if he's in a tight spot shouldn't he be saving his money for bills that might come up? Also let him know that if he'll want to upgrade in the somewhat near future when he has more money, he should just wait and not waste the money now. That being said, I had a memphis ST amp a few years ago and it was nice. The Alpine PDX line is really good, but out of his price range. Their other lines are just decent.

it's all those stogies. Hopefully not the Strep or whatever my gf has had for the last week.

Drove to work with no bass this morning. When I put my faceplate on my headunit there came a crackle and pop from the sub, then nothing. There also seemed to be a power draw from my electrical system, so it would seem that the sub amp (Crossfire BMF1000D) drew a bunch of current. Hopefully it just blew the fuses on the amp, I didn't have much time to inspect. The pop has happened before, except from my interior speakers. Twice in the last month there has been a real loud pop when I put my faceplate on. But my mid/highs amp survived those times (Planet Audio TT2300), just like my new Kenwood KAC-X40 survived this one, though there was no sound from the interiors this time. So maybe there's some static electricity thing going on or something, I'm not sure. Maybe I'll have to start leaving my faceplate on at night, or find out how/where static electricity is building up. But what I am sure of is that I'm getting tired of car audio. There always seems to be something. If I wasn't addicted to the bass massage I'd give it all up. I've already had two crossfire amps mess up on me before, this could be the third. My first BMF1000D blew, but I bought it used from an SPL competitor so I chalked it up to a hard life. My VR404 blew about 3 months ago, not sure why. My factory speakers that it were on may have blown, but isn't that what the protection circuitry is for? I know I won't be recommending Crossfire anymore. They're underrated, sometimes wildly (I think the BMF1000D was measured to be about 80% underrated at 4 ohms, 50% underrated at 2 ohms, and 25% underrated at 1 ohm), but this is why I've said underrated/overrated means next to nothing. It's the quality of the components that matters.

If you're going to do that, just buy a 3-way component set. You don't need 4 tweeters up front. Heck I turn my 2 tweeters down 4.5 db's on my crossover.

Hey if it was up to me I wouldn't. But like I said- Christmas present.

Plus chicks dig scars

Yeah, cabin gain must be what you're thinking of. It generally boosts the lowend, like 30-40 hz. Those are also generally the frequencies that are loudest to the ear. If you want something that will sound loud on the low stuff, tune to 30-32 hz.

I got an ITouch for Christmas that I got to open early because I won't be home for Christmas. Anyways I try to hook it up to my computer....nothing. OK, I figure my Itunes is just too far out of date (I had version 5, they're on version 8 now, ha). I go download the new itunes, takes about 20 minutes. Try to launch, no go. Says my windows installer is also out of date. ugh, fine. Takes about an hour to update my windows service package. Then takes another hour to load the new itunes. And at first the new ITunes didn't want to accept my itouch either, said there was some error. I was about to get real mad. But luckily it found it after I closed and reopened itunes. Now it's taking another hour to load all my songs into the new itunes because apparently the information that the old itunes had on my files just wasn't good enough so it had to update it all. This is absurd.

This amp is rated 40x4 @ 4 ohms at 12 volts, and I think 70x4 @ 4 ohms at 14.4 volts. 100 x 4 @ 2 ohms. I bought it for $189 from woofersetc.com. This amp definitely seems to put out a good amount of power. I was a little worried at first about the 40x4 rating, but it shows no lack of power. I don't have a way to measure it's actual output, but it certainly does more than that. The 70x4 rating seems more correct, if not more. It gets my JL XR components as loud as I need or would want them to go. The amp looks gorgeous IMO, I love the black. I also love the connections all on the one front side, makes for very easy installation, at least for me. Two hex-headed screws hold on a top plate that cover up the controls. This is something I've never seen before. It's not a negative, IMO, it's just different. It could be bothersome if you're constantly changing your levels, but I'm pretty much a set-it-and-forget-it guy, so I may never take the cover off again, who knows. It does make for a cleaner looking install, though. The gain is very clearly marked, unlike most other amps. Most amps just have a "0" at one side and "6" at the other end, or whatever. I believe this one has 0, .3, .5, 1, 2, and 4 marked. The crossover is also equally marked, with I believe 40, 70, 100, and 200. The A set of channels has only the gain and high pass crossover settings, but the B channels has gain, high pass or low pass, and also has a bass boost feature. One thing that's nice about this bass boost is that it's variable from 40-100 hz (instead of fixed at 45 hz like most amplifiers), also very well marked every 10 hz or so. The level of boost knob is, again, from 0-12db and marked every 2 db or so. In short, the options on this amp are outstanding. The amp sounds clean and clear, no problems there. The amp does have a fan, which is not very common for a 4 channel amp. This is the only bad thing I've found about this amp. The fan is a tad noisy. I have an Explorer so the amp is in the same airspace as I am, and when stopped and with no music playing you can just barely hear it. It's not a problem when moving or with music playing, however, and I can't imagine it being audible at all in a trunk. I was a little skeptical at first because it was a Kenwood, but they generally make their eXcelon line with pretty decent quality, and this amplifier doesn't miss the mark. Very solid.

No, the tuning frequency does not drop once you install it in a vehicle. Not at all. Tuning frequency is a product of box size, port area, and port length. That's it, it doesn't matter at all what vehicle it's in. 40-50 cubic inches per sub would be fine.

Yep. That's why I said at least 700. At least in unregulated power supplies, right? I thought regulated power supplies were a little more strict on doubling as impedance halved.

It's not the best carpentry and finish job ever, but I only had about 8 hours to do it all while I was back at my hometown. The amp rack sits partly over the wheel well, and the wires in the picture aren't nearly as close to the Crossfire amp as the picture would lead you to believe. There's a good 2-3" between them. I zip-tied most of the wires together for a bit of cleanliness but that was just to make it home, I could still hide them a bit more. But it was dark and about 30 degrees when I hooked everything up that night so I was just in get-it-done-for-now mode. I'm also going to get a black shroud of some kind to cover it all instead of the blue blanket. My old box was basically as big as the rest of the cargo area. so I trimmed down quite a bit.

I have the new Mag in an enclosure that's about 1.15 cubes before displacement, so maybe 1.05 after. It's powered by a Crossfire BMF1000D, giving a rated 1000 watts to it at 1 ohm. I must admit that when I first put power to the sub I was a little disappointed. It seemed pretty lifeless. However, you must give it time to break in. After about 3 hours of listening time I was much happier. It sounds excellent, tonality is superb, and it does blend with the mids very well. I must say that it definitely sounds different than any other sub you've probably tried (though I haven't listened to any other XBL^2 enabled subs), and you probably wouldn't believe me unless you actually heard it. At least I didn't realize just how different a sub could sound. The Mag gets about as loud as I thought it would. It's not blow-your-doors-off loud, but it can give things a good rattle and blur your vision a tad. However, as others have said, it definitely cannot soak the power like previous versions. The sub I replaced this with was a 15" v.2 Mag in a ported enclosure, and that sub could take everything my Crossfire could throw at it. But I'm a little timid to say that I did bottom out the new Mag. Let me tell you this- IT GIVES YOU NO WARNING. This sub sounds perfectly linear until you literally push that volume knob one notch too far, and then it will bottom. It is outstanding that it stays linear throughout its entire excursion range, but that's also a cause for apprehension for me. Other subs will let you know that it's getting a little too far by giving audible distortion signals. The Mag does not. It's volume 22: "Damn this sub sounds awesome, it's really getting into a groove," to volume 23: BRAAAP "AAAUUUGGGHH!!!! turn it down turn it down." It scared me a little. This sub sounds like pure sex when I played Def Leppard's "Let it Rock." It will handle The Crystal Method's most crazy basslines with ease and detail you've never heard. It'll play all four bass notes in Young Jeezy's "Put On" in perfect form and without exaggerating any of them. This sub has absolutely 0% distortion. What you are hearing is what the artist put onto the track. There is no overhang from previous notes or boominess. But there are things that will take some getting used to for me. One is the loss of the crazy low end that my 15" Mag had. I loved that thing. It didn't quite had the tonality that this sub has, but it was pure brute force and I loved it. The new Mag is not an aggressive sub. It's punchy, but not as punchy as I would have thought. Don't get me wrong, it's not sloppy either. It's just something in the middle that I can't quite figure out. It's punchy with a laid back theme. I dunno. If you're used to concerts where the kick bass from their loudspeakers snaps you in the chest, this does not sound like that. It also has some.......interesting......quirks. It seems to have a natural attenuation above 70 hz or so, and this may be why it blends with the mids so well. You can still hear the sub, but you don't feel it. Which is another weird thing about this sub, is that you can feel the pressure on your ears but it seems transparent. You can't feel it or tell where it's coming from in medium volume ranges. Which is great, I mean the other day I was driving down the road and turned my head to look for oncoming traffic and was like whoa.......I actually could not tell where the sub was located. It seemed to be emanating from all directions. When you crank it up that goes away, though, but that is likely mainly because it was overpowering my mids and highs. Speaking of cranking it up, I mentioned how you can hear it but not feel it so much at medium volume levels. This sub is different than others I've tried in that regard. Others steadily increase in both feel and hear, but this one really only gets felt in the upper 20% or so of it's output. It will give you a nice massage at about 90% full volume. This is an outstanding sound quality sub, and it will get the job done for any true audiophile. It also has a fairly small mounting depth. However, for me and my Explorer that wasn't really a concern. If I had any suggestions for my own tastes, it would be to deepen the mounting depth to a more conventional design so that it could have more usable throw. A slightly more aggressive sub may suit me better as well, and I kinda miss the lowend monster that the 15" was. But these are my own fault for picking a subwoofer that was not entirely in line with my tastes. I do have a bit of basshead in me. I did want a smaller box (my gf was also pushing for that pretty hard), and this obviously has that advantage, along with weight saving. I forgot to mention build quality, but come on, it's SI. Build quality is never an issue.

PICS

Happppppyyyyy Birfffdayyyyyy!

hmm, my guess is the cap. it may have developed a slow short internally or something.

My only ticket wasn't really my fault. It was for window tint that had been on my car before I bought it. The cop didn't believe me when I said I had never been pulled over for it in the previous 3 years that I had owned it. He measured my driver's side and it was at 13%. I said look, I'm a law-abiding person, my car was broken into last year and they smashed my passenger's side window, which I got replaced with legal tint. I asked him to measure that one, and yep it was 30%, legal. But from inside they both look the same darkness. At least it was only a $50 ticket, but it was in a different county about 200 miles away during the school year so I had no chance to get to the court to fight it, otherwise I would have.