altoncustomtech

I have to say I too have always wanted to play with one just for the sake of playing with it. That being said, if the manufacturer doesn't have any enclosure recommendations on which to start from then put the T/S into WinISD and model it to see how it will perform in the airspace the space constraints give it. Once you have that then what you're doing with Torres should be just fine. It seems plenty accurate from the playing around I've done with it. Use WinISD to model it and Torres to bring the model to a set of dimensions you can build with. I'm only being so general about it because this is a driver I highly doubt many have had any experience with. Even so, it's still just a driver, like any other and the process for designing and building an enclosure for it won't fundamentally be any different from anything else. From the grade school level understanding I have of T/S parameters it seems like the specifications show it to be a fairly decent driver.

I second this ^^^. I've never had a sub/port firing forward into the cabin setup work right without sealing around the box. Using old sheets, blankets, sweatshirts, etc. is a good, non-permanent way to test and make sure it is going to produce the results you're looking for. Then if it doesn't work out there's no fuss or mess to trying something different. On that note I've always been a fan of firing forward like that. It's always sounded the most natural to me and it greatly reduces (or completely eliminates depending on the vehicle) trunk and light rattle in the back of the car. As mentioned by Brendan when you seal up around the enclosure be sure to leave your rear deck sealed up as well.

yay....

Happy Birthday brother!!

I agree; thats precisely why I want to know this sub limits. You're asking a loaded question though. Whether or not the sub can take 20hz at full power depends completely and totally on the enclosure design. Every driver has a rated xmax and aside from testing the only way to see that you don't exceed it at a given frequency is to model it. Keep in mind that EVERY change you make to an enclosure alignment compromises something else it does. Making an enclosure that allows full power handling at 20hz would likely kill it's response on the upper bass frequencies, or kill power handling at those frequencies, or simply hinder the output capabilities. The next question is why the hell are you worried about what it can do at 20hz? Unless you're using it for home theater you'll never REALLY have a need to play it that low in the first place. Music, even edited music, just doesn't go that low. On top of that you're modeling the enclosure as being tuned at 35hz per your original post. No matter what sub you choose it's going to unload below that and get destroyed in a big hurry. The reason I am asking is directly related to the fact that I will be tuning the enclosure at 35hz, so at 20hz it will be practically free air however I wont have a subsonic filter to avoid damage on low frequencies so if a certain song happens to have a 20hz tone at some point I dont want to worry about any damage to the speaker. The sub will have 1000w rms; and Ive had other subs in the past that handled more than 1000w rms on free air without bottoming out. I just want to see if someone has pushed this sub to those limits. I have to call complete and total BS on that one. First of all you don't have any idea how much power you were really applying to those drivers, you didn't measure it. Even if you did the results would be dubious at best. Second, even if the sub were to take the power without bottoming out I guarantee you're stressing the spiders and surround so badly that it won't last long doing that to it. If you don't have a sub sonic filter on the amp then buy one, at least something like a Harrison Labs FMOD. You should not run a ported enclosure without an SSF no matter what driver you're using. Doing so is plain and simply asking for it to get damaged.

I agree; thats precisely why I want to know this sub limits. You're asking a loaded question though. Whether or not the sub can take 20hz at full power depends completely and totally on the enclosure design. Every driver has a rated xmax and aside from testing the only way to see that you don't exceed it at a given frequency is to model it. Keep in mind that EVERY change you make to an enclosure alignment compromises something else it does. Making an enclosure that allows full power handling at 20hz would likely kill it's response on the upper bass frequencies, or kill power handling at those frequencies, or simply hinder the output capabilities. The next question is why the hell are you worried about what it can do at 20hz? Unless you're using it for home theater you'll never REALLY have a need to play it that low in the first place. Music, even edited music, just doesn't go that low. On top of that you're modeling the enclosure as being tuned at 35hz per your original post. No matter what sub you choose it's going to unload below that and get destroyed in a big hurry.

um... pre-bedtime boredom.... anyone else? lol

to the forum!

to the forum!

In my worthless opinion, if you're driving a sub to the limits of it's XMAX so hard and so often that you're able to get the leads to make noise on the cone then you probably really need to be using a different driver. Either that or the enclosure design isn't right for the application either. Whichever it may be the driver can't be faulted for the noise or the imminent premature failure that will occur because it was being abused. I call it abuse because if a person is driving a sub that hard that much it's probably not getting loud enough for them. If that's the case then wouldn't something else be in order, not the continued abuse of that driver(s)? At least that's how I see it.

Aside from having any more information, such as the recommended budget, I would toss the Fi X series and SSA GCON's out there as the primary recommendations IMO. They will both work well in sealed enclosures and give more than enough output to go along with the speakers you have. Listing your budget for the subs, the particular vehicle they'll be going in, the reason why the space restrictions exist (could be self explanatory by make and model of the vehicle) and other such pertinent information can really help dial in on what you really need.

to the forum! Having no local place with the skills and knowledge we require is all too common an issue. Thankfully there's this great place with good knowledgeable people who are ready to help.

Happy Birthday my friend!

I agree with the 3/4" depth to get the gasket flush. I only went 9/16" on mine because I was wanting the rounded edge of the gasket to be just above the baffle. As for the outside cutout, you really don't want it to exactly match the outside diameter of the sub/gasket. If it's too close in tolerance it makes the sub difficult to drop in and take back out. I always try to add ad least an extra 1/8", sometimes more so that there's not any problems with clearance going in or trying to take them out. I went 3/16" larger with my 10" cutouts on the enclosure for my Jimmy and the fit was about perfect for them.

That takes the meaning of "BOOB" style cap to a whole other level.

Aside from LEAP's capabilities, is there any software out there anywhere than can graph, plot, or otherwise visually show a person what happens to the response curve (from a 0dB reference line) when they would apply say an 2.5khz LWR LPF -12dB filter, or even a 3.5khz HPF -6dB filter, or perhaps have 5 bands of parametric EQ each with the frequency, Q, and level to show what the effect those settings have on the baseline. My thoughts is that it might help to show and understand exactly what those adjustments are doing, how much they're affecting, and maybe to help get a healthier understanding of the interaction between all the settings by being able to see it without spending crazy amounts of time graphing it out by hand on graph paper. I've done a little searching around the web only to find there's either VERY little out there with any capability of doing this, or the search terms are just too general to elicit a good return of search items that really fit what it is I'm looking for.

Oh yeah, that's a winner.

You could also loose 1 or 2 dB by moving the box 1 inch closer to, or farther away from, any reflective surface. What does that mean? Absolutely nothing in the world of everyday listening. Your ears are not really ever going to notice 1 or 2 dB. Even if they could, without extensive testing of orientation you'd never know if you lost or gained it in the first place. There are a million more important things to worry about than the loss of 1 or 2 dB from the sub in a daily driver. In competition, of course, tenths of a decibel can mean the difference between winning and losing. One or two whole decibels is a big big deal in that case, but for the everyday vehicle, for the everyday listener, with an everyday music selection it's just not that important. As I had said before, without having already done the extensive testing with the exact same equipment, enclosure and vehicle none of us here can tell you exactly what you would gain or lose with a given orientation and placement.

Man, no one can tell you exactly how much you'll gain or lose with each orientation. Not without them having done the EXACT same setup in the exact same vehicle and tested all possible orientations with a meter. Even then those results wouldn't do you any good because there's no way to guarantee what they did and what you plan on doing would be exactly the same. For someone who's not competing you're awfully hung up on numbers.

There's a very big and easy to see difference between the old UFO style BTL, the N1, N2 and N3 subs. The UFO style is just that, the bottom looks like a UFO, much like the motors on the SSA XCON's. The N's are NEO magnets sandwiched in big blocks on the side of the motor. The N1 having only one magnet slug on the side of the motor, the N2 having two opposite eachother and the N3 having three of them around the motor on the back. It shouldn't take much searching on Google to find pictures of any of the BTL series subs and match them to your's.

Well, I was going into the chat. Not working, says the user limit has been reached with no one inside.

Boredom...

Okay, so at this point I'm sure you're wondering "Who the hell is 93rd Audio?" and "What the hell is a TCH12D2?". I'd be glad to answer that. 93rd Audio is an up and coming company started by a member of the IAK family. The TCH series subs are the first series of subs to be released. They are built here in the USA, it has a 2.5" coil and will have a 600 WRMS power rating. I was asked by good 'ol Porkchop if I would be interested in testing the prototype for this new company and line of subs. No matter what the deal was I wasn't going to pass up a great opportunity such as this so I agreed and he put the owner in contact with me. I was supposed to have a fair bit of time to test the sub, multiple enclosures, different amps, etc. however life being what it is the time table was truncated and I had to work with what I had on hand already. So I borrowed my sister's single 12" enclosure for her DCON which is 2.25cuft NET tuned to 31hz and mounted the TCH in and hooked it up in the van to the SAZ2k. So let me explain here that my testing results aren't as well rounded as I had originally planned on going into this with. The owner was hoping to have a sub that can take a good deal of power and make a presence in the competition lanes. I believe it can definitely do that and I think that it's going to be a fair sub to compete with the Sundown SA12, and possibly even the GCON and the Fi X series in specifications, performance and price point. With no official experience with any of those three that comment is really only an opinion, but I don't come to it lightly. Me and my wife threw A LOT of abuse at this sub and with 2k on tap to beat on it with and I was generally only able to reach it's limits on the most abusive songs at listening levels that belied a single sub. Okay, now with that explained it's onto the review itself. Avenged Sevenfold - Nightmare -- This song is fun to listen to with a good sub setup. It's hard and fast and can sound like a complete and total muddled mess on anything that can't keep up. The TCH had no problem at all keeping up with everything that goes on. I have to imagine when I listen to the song that the band gets a hell of a workout when they play it, especially the bass guitarist and drummer, and that workout carries on to whatever is playing the song. This sub did it fast, clean and with the power it was being fed I never heard it cry out for mercy even once. Offspring - Hit That -- This is another song whose bass lines are all over the map. It has great low end bass lines with overlapping lines in certain parts of the song. On any system I had before I got the Q's those overlapping lines would sound like either a distorted mess or were just a booming bass line. The Q's showed me how detailed those bass lines really were and it was a whole new listening experience that brings a smile to my face every time I listen to it. I am very proud to say I had the same smile on my face with the TCH. The overlapping bass lines were clearly identifiable and the rest of the deep lines were reproduced with the authority I've grown used to from the Q's. Journey - Faithfully -- The name of this song sets the stage for the reproduction of the bass guitar and the drums from the TCH. It was a fantastic, enjoyable and very realistic listening experience and the sub and my components blended together beautifully. The sub is as much at home doing SQ work as it is making the windows rattle. Limp Bizkit - Behind Blue Eyes -- I love the bass lines in this song. They're nice and deep and it's fun to play this song for people who've never really heard a sub system play like that. The TCH was able to drop down and bellow out the deepest tones without any complaint as long as I kept the listening level just below obscene. If I tried to push it into the obscene realm I could hear distortion from the sub that I attributed to being well past it's XMAX. It was well beyond 70% of it's BL and well into the realm of audible distortion but understand that it was being pushed EXTREMELY hard at this point and was louder than an average person would ever try to get from a single sub. Ja Rule - Livin' It Up -- Another fun song to listen to with bass lines and drums that play in an attractive rhythm. The sub had tons of output to give but with the drums on top of the bass lines I was actually able to reach the subs XMECH and got some noise out of it. I was very surprised when that happened but remember I'm driving this single sub to the same output levels that I'm used to hearing with the pair of 12" Q's that I'm used to listening to. Alice in Chains - I Stay Away -- I'm a big fan of AiC and have about every album they've released. I Stay Away is on my top 10 list of their songs and is always cranked when it comes on. The TCH did not disappoint at all with it's ability to keep up with the note shifts and drums. It was a great listening experience with all the output I could ask for. Metallica - One -- My absolute favorite Metallica song. Any system that can keep up with this song at absurd listening levels is a good one in my honest opinion. There's a TON of musical information being thrown at every component of a system and it is pretty easy to overload it and hear lots of unwanted distortion. The TCH was right on par with the Q's on quality, keeping up with those ultra fast bass guitar riffs and Lars' unreal ability to beat the living piss out of the drums. I had a big smile on my face and listened to it twice. The second time I turned the gain knob up more to give the sub a good bit more stress and it still delivered a great performance. I was limited more by the components in the van than the sub. Staind - Outside -- Another great song it has bass lines and drums that can play havoc on a sub system. The TCH was able to play it quite well at a very moderately high listening level. As before with a few other songs when I went for the limits of the components I found a little distortion from driving it well past it's XMAX. Keep in mind here that we were almost constantly pushing this sub to the point that it was giving us the same output that we listen to the pair of Q's with. Now we don't listen to them at full tilt, the remote gain knob is generally only turned up about 1/3 of the way, however the fact that a single 12" sub was giving us about the same output and in some cases more gives credence to just how capable it is. My wife would have complained IMMEDIATELY if she wasn't getting what she wanted from it. The fact I never heard even ONE complaint from her tells me a lot as to how strong a sub this can be as she's consequently been through quite a few in the 17 years her and I have been together, lol. The enclosure I was testing it in and the sub paired together did a great job giving lots of output that sounded fantastic, but I'm absolutely certain that with a little smaller enclosure tuned a bit higher this thing would be able to excel in output levels and given multiples of the same sub in such enclosures it should do very well in the lanes. I think it's ability to also do such a good job in the sound quality department makes it a super well rounded sub that will be at home in the hands of the average listener as well as competitors. I know the owner was wanting it to be able to handle in the 1kw realm for competition use. I tried to test with some degree of accuracy the power I was applying to the sub only to find that it seems my $300 clamp on meter isn't quite as adept to this job as I had hoped. I've never been one to trust clamp test power results anyway so I wasn't too horribly worried about it myself. IMHO it doesn't matter how much power the sub was seeing during the testing. The fact it was able to give so much output for a single 12 and knowing there was 2kw of power available from the amp it was able to take abuse that a lesser sub wouldn't have. The few limitations I was able to find with it, revolving around being able to reach distortion going well past XMAX and reaching the XMECH limits could very well have been negated with an enclosure change as well. I'm looking forward to seeing these hit the market. I think for the price point the owner is going for these are going to be a great choice for daily listening setups and competitors alike. Though I have to say I feel it's going to be more popular as a daily sub given it's superb reproduction abilities. That too is just my opinion and being a fellow team member I hope he understands that. If you're looking for something new to try when they're released I highly suggest trying it out, I don't see how anyone could be disappointed. I do have some pics to post up of it. I'll wait for the okay from the owner before doing so though.

No time to build a smaller enclosure for it, but the sub is still doing extremely well. It's currently in my sister's Durango living an easy life on about 300wrms @ 4 ohms on her Cadence F100-5. Output on the lower power is still quite good and the sub is pretty much fully broken in. It still tears into the lows in amazing fashion and my sister is VERY happy with it. I'm not sure if the DCON will go back into her truck or not at this point.

Awesome, another Hoosier!!! to the forum!