altoncustomtech

I've found for me on this forum, and this is the only one, that when I post the /IMG code from photobucket that it adds this "~original" part to the code that screws it up, If it get rid of that it works just fine. Examples below. (URL=http_://s889.photobucket.com/user/altoncustomtech/media/C2DA4304-7C55-4DE1-B4DA-0FFEF1AF07DD-4541-0000033E3EAA12E0_zps047c8745.jpg.html)(IMG]http_://i889.photobucket.com/albums/ac98/altoncustomtech/C2DA4304-7C55-4DE1-B4DA-0FFEF1AF07DD-4541-0000033E3EAA12E0_zps047c8745.jpg~original(/IMG)(/URL) When I delete it like so. (URL=http_://s889.photobucket.com/user/altoncustomtech/media/C2DA4304-7C55-4DE1-B4DA-0FFEF1AF07DD-4541-0000033E3EAA12E0_zps047c8745.jpg.html)(IMG]http_://i889.photobucket.com/albums/ac98/altoncustomtech/C2DA4304-7C55-4DE1-B4DA-0FFEF1AF07DD-4541-0000033E3EAA12E0_zps047c8745.jpg(/IMG)(/URL) It works. I've been having to do that for quite some time on every picture I've posted up from photobucket and it doesn't matter where I get the /img code link from they all have it.

I have a lot different tastes than most and much different reasons and things to show off but here's several of my favorites to show off with: Skrillex - Rock 'n Roll -- Fun to listen to with fun bass lines and a great midbass beat. The Black Keys - Gold on the Ceiling -- Awesome midbass, catchy tune, another fun song to show off with. Eric Heatherly - Flowers on the Wall -- Strong and addictive drum beat for a county song. Shiny Toy Guns - le Disko -- Another song with a killer midbass drum beat and catchy and sexy rhythm. Excision - 8 bit Superhero -- Unreal bass lines from LOW to midbass crushing, ultimate show off song.

good question, wonder why you dont see it done more often. maybe pr's are limited to subbass frequencies? PR's basically work like any ported enclosure and that idea has actually crossed my mind with all the space limitations I have in the Jimmy being that I'm using them with the XCON for sub bass duty. The problem I ran across is that PR's are only really useful if the cone area is larger than that of the active driver. That means either multiples of the same size (two 10" PR's with one 10" active sub like I did for example) or one larger such as a 12" PR with a 10" active driver. The problem with using that idea with dedicated midbass drivers in a door is all the real estate that takes up for all those drivers. If you wanted to use a 6.5" midbass you'd need two 6.5" PR's or a single 8" PR and by the time you do enough custom work to fit all that on the door along with the enclosure to hold it you could have pretty well just went with the ported enclosure. Add in the fact it's more expensive because you have to buy the PR's along with the active drivers and it really spells out the reasons why you rarely ever see any PR builds in car audio at all let alone dedicated midbass builds for car doors. Believe me, I've toyed with the idea of a 10" PR to go with the SLS 8's in the Jimmy doors but it would be less work and cost to simply build sealed or ported enclosures for them. Although the cool factor and the matching factor with the XCON's would be awesome but it's just not practical.

I pulled the trigger on one. I figure that if it does nothing but sit in the closet for a few years I can turn around and resell it easily enough.

location is not the problem I have it up front it that I'd like to have more band to adjust the sound. I take it that your not a fan of the kq30. No, what he's saying is that with the digital processors that are available that can be adjusted from the seat you'll be listening to it in at real time then what would be the point in buying something so archaic. If you can't listen to the adjustments you make in real time it's much harder to hear AND know exactly what that adjustment did for you. Given the prices those are going for a DSP just makes that much more sense and with most of the DSP's on the market you have 30 or more bands of EQ for each individual channel and so much more that it can do.

to the forum!

lol, no one wants failed equipment, ever. Don't get me wrong either I'm still training my ears for everything associated from stress in the drivers to what ill effects the installation itself or the settings I've set in the signal chain are doing to what I hear so it could still very well happen to me. My point was really that it's not black and white, running more than rated power isn't necessarily be the direct cause for the drivers failure. I discovered completely on accident many years ago the benefits from running more than rated power to a speaker. Right out of high school I ran a cheap pair of Audiovox 6x9 3 ways rated for 40wrms on a Profile California A600XL which was rated 150wrms x 2 because at the time I wasn't aware of the insignificance of MAX power ratings. The power ratings matched up and I thought it was good to go and in fact that little setup impressed a lot of people at how clear and distortion free it was for what it was and it wasn't until years later I discovered what I had done. I ran them in that setup for several years without ever having any issues and when I would hear a little distortion, or something not sound right I would just turn it back down a notch or two until it sounded right again and went on. That was why they worked so good for so long and really all it takes to use speakers in a similarly overpowered way.

Why not? Depending on the person controlling the volume knob it could last longer. I've been running the 3" full range drivers in my Jimmy on about 4x their rated power with no issues. The 4x6's I just put in my Olds are on more than 3x their rated power and I expect them to last plenty of time. Hell, Brad (Impious) ran/is running his Bravox CS603CF's on around 4x their rated power and they have done great. The point is that if you know how to listen for stress from the drivers and setup crossovers and EQ's correctly there's not a single good reason that running more than rated power would cause a problem. On that note there's all kinds of good reasons that running 2x or more rated power and the headroom it gives you can be a VERY good thing.

No you don't, otherwise your driver selection and everything would be way different. As with everything passenger/driver is completely install dependent. Your choices state completely otherwise as you are more than willing to compromise.As for the question at hand, the install makes the difference. For me a two seat setup is ridiculous. I always maximize for myself. When listening to music critically I am almost always alone. Side cause of course is also that everyone I've ever put in my passenger seat is in awe at how good it sounds. I just smile though when I realize how much better it is in the drivers seat. That makes the most sense to me. I mean, who the hell am I spending all this money, putting in all this time, blood and sweat for anyway? Myself or the passengers riding with me who don't spend nearly as much time in it as I do? Me of course and because of that I maximize the potential of the system to MY listening position which is the driver's seat. Now, when I want to really show it off to someone I let them have the honor of sitting in that seat while demoing the vehicle to them but as Sean stated they typically tell me how great it is from elsewhere and I just laugh inside thinking the exact same thing. Hell, even if traveling a lot I'm still the one driving and I would want it to sound the best to me the whole time I'm behind the wheel.

It is. Although this vision is fairly minimal in comparison to the build in the Jimmy it's always good to see it come to life. Yes, yes, yes! Though I have to appologize, I've somehow lost the pictures of the actual mounting of the 4x6's but I have a few to share. I do have a small rattle behind the 4x6 on the driver's side that I think is the factory speaker wire rattling on the plastic vapor barrier, or it's just the vapor barrier. Anyway, when I pull the panel back off to look into that issue I'll get some pics of all the behind the scenes part of the mounting, fit, etc. at that point. I grabbed a picture of the door panel back on the car to show it still looks factory and of the finished amp install in the trunk. As you can see, it looks almost the same as it did when I took it off. Here's a few of the amp mounted in the trunk and all the wiring completed. It's nice to open the trunk and not even be able to tell any of it is in there. I've gotten a little bit of time driving and listening to it and I can honestly say those Dayton's are some of the smoothing sounding woofers I've had the pleasure to play with. It's probably got a lot to do with the fact they're being ran IB so there's no ill effects to be caused by an enclosure but they really are wonderful to listen to. Detail and impact without being overbearing or muddy. The 4x6's continue to leave something to be desired but I think there's an ill effect from the installation itself that's lending to the problem. It reminds me of the issues was having with the Bravox components in the Jimmy. The sound is a little dull and lifeless, like they're playing inside a closed cardboard box BUT the tweeters seem to shine fine and the stage/image is actually spot on. Doesn't make a great deal of sense but that's what I hear. Overall it's a fantastic improvement over the factory speakers which almost sounded like a big set of overear headphones mounted to the doors.

Okay, this little build will be going into my 1992 Oldsmobile 88. I bought the car about 7 years ago right after I started working for the pipeline I'm working for now. I got a hell of a deal on it and got it so that I had a car just for driving to work so my wife would still have the van to drive at home. I only drove the car for a couple of years before I bought the Jimmy and right after that I gave the Olds to my mother and father in law to drive because their car broke down and my mother in law was having to run around to doctors and things for her cancer treatments and such. Well fast forward from then and I find myself with the Jimmy out of commission and my father in law wasn't driving the Olds anymore because he had gotten his own car. So he gave the car back to me so I could have something to drive to work again. Just before I gave the car to him to drive I had dropped an OLD Pioneer CD player I had bought used on Ebay for $20 to put in the car because the factory radio didn't work. I also put a pair of Hifonics Zeus Components I had lying around from another project in the rear deck in place of the bad factory 6x9's. It still sucked but it made music. Now after driving the car awhile again I've gotten fed up with the damned thing. Only one of the mids in the Zeus components are working anymore and the front factory tweeter/mid thing in the front doors are shot. So I've picked up a little bit of stuff I got for cheap and I'm hopefully going to get it sounding better than it is right now. I'm also going to use this little build as an experiment as well on some ideas I have floating around in my head. The equipment going in: Pioneer DEH-X7500HD - Used a discount I had on hand at SonicElectronix to get it for under $80 Aura 4x6 coax's - On clearance at PE. I don't normally mess with oval speakers and such but for their clearance price I wanted to try them out. Going in the front doors. Dayton SD215A-88 - Used a promo code here and got them for $19 each. Going to use the pair as dedicated midbasses in the rear deck. JBL GTO1004 - Already have it on hand, will use it's internal crossovers to run the Aura's up out of harms way and utilize the Dayton's in the midbass range. We'll see how it turns out. It should be a fairly quick and easy build. The goal is simply to get something that sounds reasonably good with better overall response than it has now and able to get more volume out of it than it can produce now, especially without the front speakers sounding like they're going to puke on every drum hit even at low listening levels.

Hey there fellow Hoosier! Who have you talked to so far about it? I would imagine if you've talked to the likes of Mechman or DC Power and there's nothing they can do for/with the alternator then you're just SOL until which time they or someone does have something available for it. Most people who've had this dilemma add at least a second battery depending on the power they're running and rely on the banked battery reserve.

You do understand that the 7-15 days are BUSINESS days right (Your order has been in for 8 business days, 15 business days is three weeks), and why would you cancel payment? Do you realize that even if it's not done and shipped to your door in a month that the biggest part of the work on it, the machining of and building of the motor has been completed by that point. Every driver starts as blank slugs of steel, machined down and created from scratch. They're then hand assembled and have to go through a curing cycle to set all the glues and such. At that point the basket gets attached, the soft parts get gathered and someone hand assembles the voice coil, cone, spiders and such. I believe at this point, once assembly is complete, that then it has to go to a special machine to charge the magnet/motor. They can't be assembled with the magnet already charged. They are HAND BUILT subs from start to finish and it takes time for that process to happen. Factor in that it's tax refund season, with the sales going on with SSA products alone they have more orders coming in than usual. The process doesn't lend itself to speed but it does lend itself to a superior quality product. You should realize that if you cancel your order after a month that all you're doing is giving someone else who ordered the same thing as you after you placed yours their order that much faster.

Thanks man, I appreciate that. I finished the car up yesterday! I got the 4x6's mounted to the bafffles on the door panels and reattached the door panels to the car. I spent a little bit of time tuning it and I'm pretty happy with it so far. It doesn't sound like the van or the Jimmy but it's a VAST improvement over the crap it sounded like before. The Aura's aren't quite as smooth as I had hoped they would sound like but for the money I paid they could sound A LOT worse. The Dayton's however are doing extremely well. They could definitely use a little more power but they have a great punchy sound that's full and natural. I didn't have time for many pictures yesterday, I'll get some more taken today and get them posted up.

Happy Birthday!! Hope you have a good one!

thanks for this info. the next step is to build a different box. im going with a traditional sqaure sealed box just for test purpose. ill change the glue as well. i grew up using liquid nail so its second nature. i agree with all you said though. im not giving up on FI but so far its a first for me to build a box for a sub and have it sound bad. unless FI is a picky whore about enclosure and air space. Is there an air space recommended other than factory requirment you think. Personally its hard to imagine that huge sub sitting in a .75-1 cft box. Nope, I'd go with what Fi recommends. As Brendan mentioned you have to factor in the volume the sub itself to the volume of the enclosure. So say you're going to build an enclosure that is 1.5cuft NET, be sure to add the .16cuft of driver displacement for a total box volume of 1.66cuft total. For example the outside dimensions of a box that size might be 16" W x 16.75" D x 14.5" H, internal dimensions being 14.5" W x 15.25" D x 13" H. Every sub manufactured is picky about it's enclosure. The enclosure is everything to how it performs and the type of enclosure and other details can change just how picky it is. Sealed enclosures are the most forgiving and ported enclosures have to be much closer to the alignment specifications to work as designed. The more complicated the enclosure alignment (such as 4th order bandpass and 6th order bandpass) the more critical the design and build of it is but one major thing is common among all of them and will make or break their success and that's being AIR TIGHT. You said your current enclosure is 1.25cuft. How sure are you of that figure? Is that 1.25cuft including the sub displacement or not? Any chance you can post up dimensions so we can help verify the internal volume? Sorry I'm so inquisitive but the more information we have the more we can do to help you verify with as much certainty as possible where the problem truly lies.

Alright got some updates again. I got the amp mounted and wired up and the HU installed in the dash but I'll have to get pics of them taken and posted. I had too little time working on it yesterday to take the time out to take pictures. I tested the Dayton's for operation and I have to say I think they're definitely going to do the job. Good and tight response and they have good enough output for what I'm doing with them. I was able to get to the doors this morning and they're almost completely done now!! I got the baffles trimmed up to fit the door panels properly and still clear the connectors for the power window controls. I glued them to the door, got the grille fabric attached to the factory grilles and the grilles reattached to the door panel. It's time to attach the speakers to the baffles, hang the door panels back on the doors and tune it all in! Here's some pics from the progress this morning. I missed this picture on the last updates, both the grilles drilled out. Here's the baffles test fit and outlining the parts of the panel that need trimmed up. The panel all trimmed up for the least amount of interference with the speakers. Grille fabric on the first factory grille. Here's both door panels with the factory grilles all finished up and reattached. Not much left to do now!

I would definitely say that requires further investigation. There's not a normal reason for there to be any cross talk between the channels, at least not at any audible level.

I'm looking forward to seeing the build progress for sure.

Yeah I'd definitely call first and it will do more for you than just let you know if they have a way to demo speakers for you or not. Explain to them your situation, how far away you are, what you're looking for and to do. Ask them about the brands the sell and the experience they have. Ask them if they have an install log book or photo album of work they've done and lastly ask if there's any vehicles there to get a demo in. Now, it's been my experience that if they're a decent shop they'll have the photo album and a vehicle or two to demo in but the biggest thing is that they will ask you what it is you're looking to do and achieve. Now that kind of question is two fold as it is their job to sell equipment and they will want to try to sell you some but here's the catch. A good shop will do that, make some suggestions, etc. but give you space and let you talk and explain stuff, your vehicle, experience, blah blah blah. They'll spend some time without expecting much. The worst shops I've run across ask up front what you're interested in, how much money you're going to spend, and will either push as hard as possible to make sale or not spend any time with you because you're really only looking and not that interested in spending money with them. Both of those traits turn me away in a hurry. I travel a fair bit for work with training, meetings, etc. and have spent lots of time walking into shops to just check things out that I in no way planned to spend any money and I'd let them know that up front as soon as the first employee asked if they could help me. The local crappy shop and a few others I've visited in other cities practically turn you back out the door which I've never understood the thinking behind that. You'd think they would want to try to at least keep you coming back in. The best shop I ever visited was in Tulsa, OK and I've not found another one as good as it yet. They had the best sound room setup I've ever experienced, a fantastic photo album of the work they've done, and were the friendliest and most polite people you could ever ask for. When I explained why I was there the salesman introduced me to the owner, showed me their shop and the work they had going on at the time. He also showed me both of their demo vehicles and I was there over two hours just talking audio with him and the owner. Damn I've rambled on forever, lol. The point is, call first and verify that they have what you're looking for/to do and try to ascertain whether or not it's worth your time to go there or not. If so then go and listen to as many speaker sets as they have available to listen to. Keep in mind that a sound board will sound completely different than an in vehicle installation but you should still be able to get a fair idea of what you like and dislike about the sound. Then come back here and explain your thoughts on it.

You're not the only one who has that problem. There's only two shops within 20 miles of my house. One of them is the BIGGEST ripoff, scam artist owned shit hole anyone could ever walk into and they think Planet Audio rules all. The other one is actually a fantastic shop with an owner and two guys who work there who actually know a REAL thing or two about audio but the place is so small they have no sound board even. Hell for that matter the place is nothing more than a large garage but they do great business and can pull off legitimate custom work too. The nearest Best Buy or city with any other audio stores is around 50 miles to the North or South of me so trust me dude I know the boat you're in.

It all comes down to how it's done. I prefer having the sub and port firing directly into the cabin as you're wanting to do OP. The thing is they have to actually fire INTO the cabin, not just facing it in the trunk, and the cabin needs to be sealed off as well as possible from the trunk after doing so. To me it sounds 100 times more natural and the best part is that pretty much all the rattles that come from the trunk/rear of the car are gone. As for the port noise, if the correct size/port area is being used no audible noise should be produced by the port itself. If you are hearing port noise then your enclosure design wasn't done correctly by calculating the vent Mach/port velocity and making sure it's within respectable limits.

Also, it may not be the tweeters. The biggest problem with most component sets is that the passive crossover point typically lets frequencies play right through the point where the mid starts beaming and/or causes cone breakup. That was the issue I found with the Bravox CS60K components in the Jimmy but it was so bad that no amount of EQ could smooth it out and the music still sound right. They're doing great as dedicated midbasses crossed over at 300hz but I found through playing with crossover settings and such that anything above 800hz they started the ear splitting, almost screaming at me kind of problems. Even though the frequency it was happening at was lower than most tweeters play at everyone I showed it to also thought it was the tweeters as well, it just sounded like a higher frequency. There was an article on this problem in CA&E that explained the issue as to why it's the mid and not the tweeter in great detail. I'll see if I can't hunt that up from somewhere. A quick way to verify whether or not it's the tweeters that have an issue or the mids would be to disconnect the tweeters and listen for a period, then do the same with the mids disconnected and the tweets playing alone. You'll find out real quick where the problem lies.

Well you didn't say it was it a sealed enlcosure, just that it was 1.25cuft and not within spec so I assumed it was a ported enclosure because 1.25 is right in the middle of the sealed recommendation. Since it's a sealed enclosure AND it appears to be unloading the sub at high volumes I would still highly suggest going over the enclosure with a fine tooth comb to make absolutely certain that it doesn't have any air leaks. Any kind of air leak affects the performance of a sealed enclosure. Surprisingly I've found over the years the most common places for air to leak from is where the sub mounts to the enclosure and around/through where the screws go through the frame to mount it and around/through terminal cups when they're used. Enclosure carpet doesn't always work very well to help seal where the sub or terminal cups mount. I've also seen air push right through cheap terminals and through the sub mounting holes when the hole was cut out with a jig saw and a little ob-longed. Hell, on the enclosure I built for my XCON it had air pushing right through the screw threads. I had to pull all the screws and put sealant on them to keep the air from pushing through them. It's a sealed enclosure, there's not many more things to check. Just because you put the sub and it's current enclosure in another vehicle and it did the same thing doesn't mean the sub is at fault. If nothing else, with that you've proven it wasn't an issue with the amp or settings and have pretty well singled out the enclosure or the sub itself and my money is still on the enclosure. The best way to test whether or not it's the sub itself is to try it in another enclosure. Also you said you used liquid nails when building the enclosure which I've never had luck with. Titebond II is the only glue to use when building enclosures in my opinion. You also wouldn't believe the number of times I've heard someone complain about the noises coming from their subs thinking they were the problem only to find out what they were hearing was a panel on the enclosure knocking against another one because it was poorly built. I'm not saying that's the exact problem with yours, but more often than not when it comes to an issue like the one you're having the enclosure is at fault and not the sub. Fi does make fantastic subs however the people who HAND BUILD these things are still human and can make a mistake. There was a thread not too horribly long ago of a person who had an issue and it turned out to be something with the leads, or coil but it had to be one of the first times I've ever actually seen a manufacturing mistake. Take into account the shear number of subs they sell through the Fi brand and the brands they OEM build for that have rarely ever had any problems at all and I think they do pretty damn good myself. Testing in another enclosure is the sure fire way to know for certain. If it still does it in another enclosure then the likelihood of the sub having a problem becomes much more prevalent, if it plays flawlessly then you know there has to be an issue with your enclosure. That will be the fastest way to tell what's really going on.

I don't know about their speakers but their UL12 subwoofer was reviewed by CA&E magazine as the best sub ever (not the exact words). Of course that's a HUGE statement but I do remember the Klippel curves sure were sexy. Very linear on all fronts if I'm remembering correctly. I probably have the issue with the test and results in the closet, but I digress. Even if they produce some of the "best" equipment I can't see how it could even begin to carry those prices, they're as bad as Rolls Royce. Then again I don't get the price tag on those Morels either and I'll readily admit I'm no authority on any of it so take my opinions for what they're worth.