My review of the new AA Havoc 18"

[cx-7heaven 7]

Ok, first off, all pictures are in my album, so I wont repost them(saves time). I Bought the sub a few weeks ago, to replace my 4 mtx thunderr 5500 10", powered by a saz-1500d. The shipping box was ok, standard cardboard box with the styrofoam pieces in it to hold the sub. I would have hoped for a better box, as I've heard and seen horror stories with that type of box, but oh well. Build quality seems very nice, not much excess glue, all joints well glued. 2 problems I have with the build quality, small to some, but annoying to me. First is that the terminals are extremely close to the basket, less than a millimeter apart on one side and about a millimeter on the other. My worry with that is obviously shorting to the frame and smoking my amp. second is that the tinsels are not sewn in to the spider. That didnt seem to be a big deal, as there is felt on the back of the cone, but became a problem later(at least to me). The cone is sexy, surround is strong, although it is a foam/rubber compound rather than a full rubber surround. Very healthy sub, wieghed in at 35 pounds.

The first box I built last weekend for it was 7.5 cu ft gross(sealed). It is truly amazing, the kind of low frequency output this thing has. It makes the whole dash and windshield flex, and I dont mean just a little either!! Only thing about that size box is that there is very little upper subbass output. This is where the tinsel leads came in to play. For the first half hour or so of listening and playing around, all was cool. Soon after that I could hear a higher pitched clicking sound on harder beats. Figured it was tinsel slap but wasnt sure, so I kept it a bit lower all last week, because it did sound like a coil bottoming out as well. I have honestly never heard tinsel slap before, so that where that came from. Today I rebuilt the box down to 4.9 net cu ft, and it definitely loves that box!! I also took the opportunity to wrap the tinsels in some fabric pieces I had laying around, and that fixed the slapping problem. My mid-upper subbass came up, and it seems I kept all the low freq output too, so it is a win-win situation. Compared to my tens, it has the classic trade-off: lost punchiness, gained low freq, but overall I am very happy with this sub. I was able to make up for the punchiness I lost by upgrading my front stage to a pair of diamond d971's I installed a couple weeks ago, so it's no real issue to me. If you want to do 20-30 hz with authority... GET THIS SUB!! It is a very clean sounding sub, does keep up nicely with rock and roll drums and bass(in the smaller box), also blends a lot nicer with my front stage than the 10's did... definitely a nice LSQ sub! If I had it to do over again, I probably would go with the rl-p 18 though, only because of the tinsel issue( Yes it is that big of a deal to me!) Seeing as how I bought this sub without ever having heard one, it wouldn't bother me to get the SS to replace it if I ever needed to.

Old box:

http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com/forum/i...si&img=2687

New, smaller box:

http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com/forum/i...si&img=2716

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

Nice review.

[johnecon2001 82]

great review, finally someone put one up!

[cx-7heaven 7]

Thanks guys.. I tried to be as honest as possible with it.