Be honest with me.

[nos4blood70]

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/pictures ... ture_id=-1

Looks tempting. Looks... Interesting.

Help me bass wizards. My 6X9s are great, but they can't put out the LOW low notes.

OH, and how much power can I realistically sap from Penny's electrical system. My current amp is an old 4 channel Kenwood that has about 80 watts RMS per channel. I know all the formulas and stuff but I wanna know what you guys have installed and what has worked without adverse side effects.

[nos4blood70]

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_383 ... undle.html

I have a very small ported 10 box that will gave me. So.... :O



Only issue is, it doesn't have a little gain knob I could mount somewhere up front.

[mylittleblackbird]

Well. I'm most certainly not a pro like most of the other guys that frequent this section, but I'll impart what I know.

If you have the funding, go bigger on the amp. You can always turn it down.

My first subs were a pair of 10" kicker comp vr's and a sony xm 1002 hx.

I then got a pair of planet audio 10's and got rid of the comp vr's.
Then a relative of mine gave me a couple of pioneer 10's that I added on and powered in with the multi-channel of the sony amp. It hit hard but it wasn't enough.
I then added a pioneer 760 watt amp and two more 10" memphis subs. All of these were relatively low watt subs and amps.

I have since gotten rid of all of those.

I have now had a JBL BP1200.1 amp(1200w rms) and two 12" Rockford Fosgate Punch HX2's in a 4' 34hz tuned ported box. I bought the amp and subs in 2004 and have not regretted it. They get plenty loud, hit harder than the 6 10's I was running, and sound infinitely better in terms of sound quality.

Get a large enough amp and a sub or two than can handle it, and you will not need a gain knob after you do the initial tuning at the amp. When done right, you won't need to do anything except hit the power button.

Above all, remember this. Underpowering the sub is among the worst things you could possibly do(from what I know). I'd rather run 1000 watts rms to a 500w rms sub than the other way around. When you start upping the gain on the amp, it will pick up the line noise a lot more and try to play it through your sub(s). Static in the lines kills subs. Cranking the gains and bass boost to get the desired bass increases the static that is fed to the sub.

Box size and design also plays an important part in your bass tones. Typically, you'll get a tighter bass response in a sealed box, however, ported boxes can perform quite well when you have the amp to control your sub.

Maybe my understanding is off, but the closer the box size is to the top range of recommended specs for your sub(s), the more efficient it will be.

Of course, that's my understanding and experience. I'm sure someone with more knowledge will set the record straight.

I'm not sure on Penny's electrical system, but I did tack on a 1.5 farad cap(shoulda gone bigger) to help with my light dimming issues when using the 1380watt RMS amp I have now. It helped in my T-Bird when I had it in that car, and it's even less noticeable in the bonne.

[Alpine_jake]

It all depends on what you want man. If your looking to rattle peoples windows in their house going down main street.... better stick away from what you had listed there lol. if your just looking for a little boom for about 300 bucks total it wouldnt be bad. like previously stated, go good on the amp. Its better to get an amp thats nice if you plan on going bigger later.

Like lets say the amp is 1000 rms mono block-ok prob looking at lets say 300 for a decent one.
(not an actual amp just numbers to get an idea)
1000@1ohm
500@ 2

You could go on the cheap for a set of SVC 4ohms 250rms subs and run it at 500@2ohm

Then maybe you want to go a bit nicer a year later and get some better subs.
Now maybe some DVC 4ohm 500 rms subs. Then run them at 1000@1ohm.

Moral of the story. Get a nice amp to start. feel like i got side tracked and didnt answer your question lol
all i know is i bought several small amps before and if i would have just got a bigger one to start i would have been better off

[crash93ssei]

If you are looking for just a some nice added bass, without going overboard and killing the neighbors or worried about SQ, that is a great deal for $110. It won't win any awards, but will definitely give you what you are looking for.

[redzmonte]

i have a MTX 1000D (1000watt) in mine along with the stock bose amp and no problems. if you get light flickering then a 1 farad Cap will take care of that. I had 3 amps in my Monte w/ a 1 farad cap with out issues, Alpine 50x4, 2 Crunch 300x1 (replaced with 1 MTX 1000D later)

[Jfridge92]

I'm running an 820w amp in the Buick with no cap (given it's only been 2 days), the battery is 4 years old, and I haven't had any issues yet *knocks on wood*

As said, that's a good budget setup if you aren't looking to shatter your windows, it just all depends on what you want. I just got my amp for $102 and it's a really good amp, and clean as far as the signal goes. If you have a good amp, that will make or break your system.

[nos4blood70]

What I'm trying to do is get a little more bump in and fill in the lower side of the note spectrum. Nothing too crazy, like pissing off the neighbors or whatever. I wanna feel the music a little more.

[Jfridge92]

No need for an overkill setup then. My old setup was a Kenwood 12" with a dinky 300w max amp from autozone. It didn't hit super hard by any means, but it definitely filled the lower end where the rest of my system lacked. I'm using that same sub with a Pioneer now, and it hits freaking HARD if I want it to, but is very tame and sits perfect in the mix when I don't want the sub overpowering everything else.

[swampthing]

As far as the power goes, if you get a class d amp they are way more efficient and draw less current then a non class d. At one time I had the Bose amp, a two channel crossfire, and a 1000 watt Kenwood class d amp and the electrical system handled it fine

[yourgrandma]

My sub section cost roughly $150 and is pretty respectable in terms of SQ and output.

The trick is to figure out where to cheap out and where not to. Or rather, where the best bang for the buck comes from...

Heres what I did: Craigslist netted me 6 or so Image Dynamics IDQ12s. I think I paid about $30 or $35 per driver. Some werent in great shape, sold them for what I paid. Kept the best two, one to put in the car, one as a spare.

So used driver with a good reputation. Not best buy junk. Thats very important. You might spend more or less here, but the point is to get a driver that people in the know actually like.

Rather than build my own box, I found a deal on parts express on a single 12" slot ported box. .750" mdf with a 1" baffle for $30. It came with a humungous slot port that was very short. The math said it was tuned at over 60 HZ. So I modeled it for a smaller, longer port to tune it lower. I basically plugged most of the stock slot and extended the prt up the back side of the box and ended up with about a 30hz tune.

So were up to $65-70 or so with materials.

Then for an amp, I was lucky and snagged a Memphis M class 1000D a while back for $100.

Granted, these are all pretty good deal prices, but the point is that with a little searching its pretty reasonable to put together a good setup for less than youd think.

[nos4blood70]

Thanks for the tips guys. Yeah I'm a SQL kinda guy. So time to scour the used section of Craigslist.

[Zeik75]

I don't have muh to add in picking peices for it, just that a good box goes a long way towards SQ. also in my car soundproofing the trunk helped a lot. Road noise killed most of the bass once i got to about 30, and it was like i didn't have a sub at highway speed. Keep in mind my car is 25 years old though and probably doesn't have the stock soundproofing that the 2000+ do.

[nos4blood70]

*Blows dust off*

Alright. So I've found myself a decent sub for cheap thanks to the wonderful world of online shopping. But now I must ask the question of box selection. I don't know whether to go with ported or sealed. I've read up on Google and various forums but I wanna know your guys' opinions.

I understand that a sealed box is just put the sub in and make bass. But a ported box requires tuning.... which I may or may not be able to accomplish by myself.

Thanks.

[Jfridge92]

I haven't used many ported boxes for subs, but I do have experience with it in the guitar amp world. Hands down, I've never heard a bass guitar amp sound better with a sealed speaker cabinet than a quality ported cabinet, so I'm going to vote for a properly tuned box.

[yourgrandma]

Tuning a box is pretty easy on a basic level. If you start with a slot ported box its very simple. Changing volume is always a little tricky though. Stuffing can be used to a certain extent.

Parts express has that cheap goldwood box I bought and it was very simple to retune. I added a pound or so of polyfill(pillow stuffing) to make the box sound bigger and used 2X2 scraps to reshape the port.

WinISD is an invaluable tool to figure out what youre doing.

[crappiefisher]

Sealed box= better frequency response, and tighter/punchier bass. Not very efficient though. Ported will net you more output but at the cost of some SQ(depending on the tuning of the box.) You'll want to make sure that your box is within +/-10% of the subs manufacturers recommended airspace. Too big of an enclosure and its basically free-airing, too small and the speaker is having to work harder to produce the same sound. Most reputable brands will list ported and sealed box plans on their website, and they are generally the best for SQ.

[yourgrandma]

I have to differ with you about ported boxes having worse frequency response. A box with too high a tune will suck in general, but if you tune low with the right volume you'll never have a problem.

People like to rag on my large, low tuned philosophy, but I've never hears a bad word about how any of my boxes have sounded.

[nos4blood70]

Alright. Well then I think I'm going to go with ported. Expect me back for tuning help. lol

[swampthing]

I don't know what yourgrandmas boxes are tuned to, but I agree as a general rule you want the sound focus to be below 40hz because honestly that's where most of your sound is.

I don't know what my sealed tube enclosure is tuned to exactly but when I build one for the bonne it will be ported and tuned low, I really want it to rumble