Trepkos

Ok well I did that and no improvements.

About to check that...

That makes the most sense to me. I actually just reversed the polarity at the amplifier, and played the same song and there was no real difference in output. I did it two or three times to make sure my ears werent tricking me. But I dont think that it is a polarity issue with the voice coils since Ive looked at other pics of the subwoofers and the terminals look similar as in opposite of each other.

That makes the most sense to me. I actually just reversed the polarity at the amplifier, and played the same song and there was no real difference in output. I did it two or three times to make sure my ears werent tricking me.

Yeah thats why I actually took the subwoofer out.

Ok, well, Here is a good overview of how the test run went. First I kept the box and sub woofer inside of the truck and ran the speaker wire from his amplifier which is hooked up in his truck to my sub woofer. With this done there was little to no output from the subwoofer even with the volume turned up and the bass boost also at maximum. Then I proceeded to take the subwoofer and box outside of the truck and sit it on his tailgate and listen to it from there. Same sound, same lack of output(When I say lack of output, I mean just barely hitting if any, and no hitting at all without the bass boost maxed). So then I took the subwoofer out of the enclosure to inspect all the connections and make sure the polarity was correct. Some of the screws actually were drilled directly into the wood but into the carpet on one side of the subwoofer so it may have been a little loose. The polarity was correct then I got an idea on a way to wire it in parallel differently. Originally this is how I wired it in parallel. There are two terminals on each side, correct? Well I wired + to + and - to -, then from the subwoofer to the terminals inside the box from one side of terminals I wired + to the box + and from the other side of terminals I wired - to the box -. So I changed this by wiring the + and - from one side of terminals to the box terminals instead of splitting them. There was an increase in sound, but nothing phenomenal, maybe a slight bit better than before. I think I may be scratching my setup and going with the following: New box, similar size but shorter and around 3.5-3.0ft^3 with two 12" Fi Q's being powered by either an AQ 2200d or a Sundown SAZ-1500d. Also I notieced that the back of the magnet is around an inch or so from the back of the box and on some songs it would hit fairly hard and a loud clap sound would emit from the port.

Yes. Yes. and.... Yes.. Also, a 15 should be wanging in there with as little as a 100 watts like I said before, something just isn't right here... My dads 4 8s off the MMATS DHC2200.1 (600 watts @ 4ohms) tears you balls off when you let it eat in that cab... Enough to make driving difficult due to blurred vision.. Don't give up, that cab CAN be loud... We just gotta fiure out WTF is going on with your install.. I will be conducting two tests later today. One with the subwoofer in its box hooked up to a different amplifier, a Hifonics Txi1008d, the second with the actually subwoofer and enclosure out of the truck entirely to test for loading issues. If the subwoofer plays better on the other amplifier, then the problem is either the amplifier or the output voltage of the x991 SW preouts. If the subwoofer plays better outside of the truck then it is a problem with the loading/and the environment it is in inside the truck. If it plays the same outside of the truck then it'll be an issue with the actual box that the subwoofer is in.

Well, it might be an issue with amplifier but I don't really know how to tell if its an issue with anything else. Its a mono-channel amplifier so it wouldn't sound good through full-range speakers regardless.

Anyways, I'm off to work now. If you have any questions or other bits of useful information, my replies may be sparse if any until 8-ish Central -6 GMT or even later. Thank you all for your helpful responses and information, I hope with the this continuing investigation that this problem may be shortlived.

I am positive. And if I didn't, wouldn't it being playing out of phase? Theres no real problem with actual bass response being reproduced, there is sound, fully and accurate. Just the output is lacking in volume.

Ive listened to a truck with 3x 10"s behind the seat, and one 12" in the passenger floorboard and also a truck with a 12" directly in the middle firing back into the seat. I think I can sorta identify bad imaging and loading issues. What i think I have here is purely a extremely bad/dirty power output.

To clarify on some issues. The signal isn't a problem, I matched up a Y-Adapter to the amplifier and noticed no real difference between the sound. That is with the SW setting on the HU at 0 as well so the pre-out voltage was lowered and probably matched that of the Y-Adapter's RCA ends. This is my theory from my own ears and listening, with each turn of the gains knob, more power is output but the dirtier it gets, I believe this is because of a each turn of the gains raises the THD value. I really think the issue lies in the amplifier. I don't think my simple DMM has continuity or peak hold but it was accurate enough from my pov to display the readings almost in real time with the music and with the gains nearly maxed as in just a slight turn off of their maximum level, peak output during hard hitting sessions was around 11 or 12, most I ever saw was 14 and average was around 5 and 7. The reason I cant really compare the Profile is that the amplifier isn't 1-Ohm stable, and my subwoofer is dvc 2 wired in parallel which could potentially damage his amplifier. Another thing, making me believe that the signal is not a problem is that the HU is a brand new kenwood x991 and the Sundown amplifier works flawlessly. With 0db test tones, the maximum output I could get from the Hifonics amplifier with the gains completely maxed was around 36-37volts. I reached my target voltage with the sundown amplifier with the DMM by setting it a little below a half of the turn dial. Noone in this area that I know has a 1-ohm stable or one channel amplifier for me to test it with but I may try to test with the profile. I really don't think its a sound issue with the environment and the subwoofer. Because I am not listening to it from a random location inside the cab, I am listening to the subwoofer right in front of it, the sound waves being directly repelled from the cone rather than ones bouncing around the cab space. What I am hearing is distortion, not from an increase in volume but an increase in THD to achieve the power output that the subwoofer requires to move effectively. I am going to try and return the amplifier to the eBay store I bought it from under warranty and assurance that it is defected, from that point I am probably going to purchase a new 1200watt amplifier directly from the manufacturer or a authorized dealer and see how that handles the situation.

The port is actually firing into the side but i cut the panel so theres about 8 inches of space between the port and the metal frame of the truck. No, actually I took a meter to my friend's setup, he had two Jensen 10" in two small bandpass enclosures, and an acoustic 10" subwoofer in a sealed enclosure with a superglued surround, all running off of a profile ap1000 amplifier, and that sounded better than my 1606d amp + fi q matchup. So I took the DMM to speaker ports of his profile ap1000 two-channel amplifier and watched as the voltage increased on hard hitting parts of the song usually only a mili-second behind on the reading, this song was max reading was 22v's. I went back to my truck and played the same song and monitored the output of my amplifier, in the same areas which the profile was outputting 22v's, and I was hitting maxed at 7v's. Only difference in the amplifier settings was that my gains were maxed, his was half-way, I had no bass boost, or anything, he had his turned up half way and +6 on the HU.

Explain to me, potential loading and tuning issues.... And also, I take my DMM off of my amp playing a song which I peak at about 7volts. The amplifier is set with no bass eq, gains nearly at max, HU volume offset, amp bass boost and etc flatlined. I put it on a profile ap1000 amplifier, gains a little over half, bass boost a little over half, and its reading the same song on that amplifier with 22volts on average. Theres a problem with the output of the amplifier i believe. There should be no issue whatsoever with the enclosure or the sub woofer and its tuning.

I did some test on a friend's vehicle who is pushing two Jensen 10" subwoofers in two separate bandpass enclosures. These subwoofers are being powered by a Profile AP1000 2-channel amplifier, with his gains a little over half, bass boost a little over half, and HU bass setting at 6, his amplifier maxed out on most songs at 22 ac volts, and even higher on other songs. Which is a little over the rated output of his amplifier but no real clipping and still got very loud.

Ok, well I did some testing today. I decided to set the gains nearly to max with all other volume offsets, bass boosts, and everything else at their lowest or flatlined and took the DMM out to see how high the voltage raised on different heavy hitting rap songs. This is with the gains set nearly at its highest. The average DC voltage was 7-8volts, the highest it ever rose was 14volts. So according to that, with the volume at 75% and gains nearly at max, on most songs the amplifier was outputting around 50watts and maxed out at 196watts(I only saw the voltage rise over 12 maybe once or twice).

could be a few things... whats that box like? and if i were you i would scratch that ED off the list of things to buy. care to say why you would scratch the nine.1 ? is it some logical reason or is it your biased dislike for the owner of the company? I will be the first to admit their speakers suck period, however they make solid amps that are under rated. Ive been running a nine.1 @ 1 ohm pushing 1200 Wrms for 3 years and not had a single problem with it. I am so satisfied with their amps that I just bought 2 more. a nine.2 and another nine.1, I gave my old nine.1 to my brother who is now running it at 1 ohm with 1200 wrms. Plus they have a 5 year warrenty, id love to see another company come close to that. In my experiance as long as you dont abuse the equipment IE running it below the rated ohm, they honor their warrenty hands down. All your out is shipping. I hear too much good stuff about the NINe.1 to scratch it off the list.

I didnt get a sticker.

Oh by the way, heres a picture of the setup.

Interesting, loading issues? Do you think it might be better off sealed, or both of them sealed in a similar enclosure with a 4.4ft^3 between them?

The problem is that it never seems to get loud enough and starts clipping or bottoming out well below the volume level it should be playing smoothly at. I think it may be the amplifier.

Well, I still don't understand why there would be such an issue with the sound reproduction from the subwoofer like it is. It just sounds like its not playing right at all.

Ok I'll try that, I also decided to step the bass boost back down to minimum and set the gains to where I previously had it set before I did all the test. Where it was set to have 34.6v output peak. Ofcourse there was very little bass so I decided to play around with the phase adjuster on the HU and the amplifier, went from 0 to 180, no change in sound and from normal to reverse on the HU and still no change in sound.

I used test tones to set the gains originally. Here is the process I used. http://www.caraudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=328095 Please read the entire thread if you want to know how I originally started tuning the system, really indepth.

Well, the box meets the air capacity and tuning qualifications, fits behind the seat in a single-cab pick up, so theres not much more I could ask for. Except a decent sounding sub stage and at the moment I am getting what your hear in that video, and thats not mic distortion, thats what it sounds like and sadly no fun flexes or t-shirt tricks or real air movement either... :S