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Should I keep what I have or "upgrade"?

Not a professional re-enactor, but now that I know there's that option....:laugh:

Liquid...Not sure, it says something like "Street Bass" in guady yellow lettering across the cone. I picked on her when she swapped from the MTX Blue Thunder to that....until I heard it.
 
Cool by chance have you been to any pirate shows? I.e Columbus Ohio on the sante maria? <-- error.
And Liquid i don't even know where to start looking for those items much less know if there subs/amps or caps?? So any help there would be nice. And i wonder where the people that i was originally talking to go? Capre Poon wherdja go?
 
You want some advice that will get you a great amp for not tons of $$ Search for a Precision Power Art series, you'll have to go used, but a wonderful amp.

I got my Orion from a place called www.ikesound.com, it was refurbished, but has sounded great from day I got it, never a single issue. May want to check out what they offer there.

From what I know, Alpine is still a quality product, but have not kept as current on them as some others may have.

I hear JL Audio makes good amps, and they have already told you about Hifonnics (?).

Search around some audio shops, read the specs carefully (RMS, not peak :laugh:) and if you have specific questions about a product, post it up. Just asking "what kind of amp should I get?" jsut leaves too many options, not that we aren't trying to be helpful.
 
silver rocket said:
And Liquid i don't even know where to start looking for those items much less know if there subs/amps or caps?? So any help there would be nice.
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Was it not clear I was responding to the L7 suggestion? And providing some similarly priced, better performing options?

As for finding them -- google is a beautiful thing. Enter about any car audio model number built in the last 5 yrs or so usually the first 5 or 10 hits deal specifically with that item. BTW, those were all model numbers.
 
Wow, I don't know where to start..... Many people here have allready given you quite a bit of good advice. Whatever you do, don't go give the same person $1300.00 who designed your last setup!!! Take your time building your new setup and listen to what some of the knowledgable people on here tell you.... You'll be happy that you did. Below is a breakdown of my system to show you that you don't need a ton of money to design a pretty decent system. Keep in mind my system is fairly old school and was mostly purchased used. I've also posted some links below to various companies you might want to check out. Good luck with the build.

My setup

Head unit: Eclipse ECD-415 "about $75.00 on ebay" Known as one of the best SQ units ever produced by eclipse or any manufacturer for that matter.

Amps: PPI Arts series A300.2's "about $150.00 each on ebay" One of the best quality amps ever produced period!

EQ: Audiocontrol 3.1 "about $125.00 on ebay" EQ with sub control and line driver. The line driver allows you to boost the voltage quite a bit resulting in a hotter/cleaner signal.

Front door speakers: Polk audio momo series 5X7. "I think I bought these new in a store for around $100.00" Pretty decent low end and overall decent sound quality. Good sound quality from the front doors of a contour is probably one of the biggest challenges. I might switch back to a custom setup again soon as I just picked up some nice Peerless 6 1/2" mids.

Subs: I had an order placed for an Elemental Designs sub but it took so long for them to finally finish producing the model I wanted. I put a 12" Kenwood in a sealed box temporarily. It sounds reasonable but definitely not great lol. The ED sub that I wanted finally came out so I might pick that up. Below is a link to their site, they're subs are top notch! Can't really go wrong with JL audio either. You should check out some of the vids of elemental designs subs on youtube.

Wiring: Knukonceptz. He used to be a memeber here but I'm not sure if he's still around. Quality stuff at great prices. Also check out Parts Express.


Here are some good links.

http://www.elementaldesigns.com/
http://www.knukonceptz.com/
http://www.parts-express.com/home.cfm
 
Like somebody said, I'd stay away from the square subs unless you want to kiss your trunk space good bye.
My audio history: I used to be like you, but without the $$ to throw around so I started small and used. Which quickly taught me the fundamentals of specs and box building to get the most out of what I had. Then I went through the competition stage, I used a variety of of subs, but always Hifonics amps. Competitions were fun, but for normal driving and enjoyment, it was just over kill. The funny thing was when I got my SVT in '02 I in a sense "retired" from the audio scene. But like a drug, I got pulled back into it because I have such a love for music and sound quality. And as we all know, the contours absolutly SUCK for factory sound. I replaced the door speakers but then wasn't satisfied with the lows. I started small with a crossfire VR300d and a 8" alumapro sub in a box no bigger than a shoebox mounted to my rear deck in the factory opening. That satisfied me for a couple months until it got warm out and I realized I could not hear any low end with the windows rolled down. So I built a new rear deck box that housed a 10" Diamond Audio 10M6 running 1ohm to a JBL Power BP600.1. So once I graduated from college I worked for a place called CIS www.CIS.com where we would handle stolen stereo claims for insurance companies and replacing the equipment. So I was very knowledgeable on what was out on the market.......4 years ago. And working with all the new equipment and being able to get everything for cost, I naturally had to upgrade. So I went to the equipment listed in my sig. About 1.5 years ago I upgraded to the Diamond D612D4, And have been more than happy ever since.
Now, like I said before, companies are constantly bought by better/worse companies in the audio world and equipment will be better or worse than it was a year ago without warning.
The best advice I can give is that the box is what makes the speaker. I like my trunk space because I'm a hockey player and need a place to throw my stuff. So since my competition days I've been an advocate of the small sealed box. I am a huge fan of Diamond Audio subs. Especially the D6 series. Very high quality and its specs only call for 0.5cuft. They are fairly inexpensive as well, through my hookup at CIS I can get them for around $160.
Other than that for subs I would recommend Elemental Designs, Adire Audio (although I just noticed they are shut down). With your bank roll dedicated to a system, the best recommendation I can give is for a single JL audio 13W7. and a QUALITY, true 1500w amplifier or a 12w7 and a quality 1000w amplifier.
For amplifiers, I'd recommend Hifonics, Crossfire, JL, phoenix gold, Xtant, One good used one to look for is a JBL power series or Precision power art series (as mentioned before).

Does anybody know if soundstream is any good still? Also how about Alpine? I know shortly after I bought all my Alpine stuff Alpine started dealing with Best Buy which really limited the amount of product available to its usual dealers and I heard Alpines quality suffered as a result of trying to keep up with demand. Can anybody vouch for that?
 
Funny, I was thinking about both those brands when I made my last post (Soundstream and Alpine). I was kinda hopin' you'd chime in and inform me. :laugh:

A buddy I know also used to have a great amp, but don't remember the brand, just the model I think. I was a Sedona (?), sounded very good.

Phoenix Gold, that was the other brand I was looking at when I bought my Orion, but never knew anyone who had one, so I passed.
 
CarpePoon said:
Does anybody know if soundstream is any good still? Also how about Alpine? I know shortly after I bought all my Alpine stuff Alpine started dealing with Best Buy which really limited the amount of product available to its usual dealers and I heard Alpines quality suffered as a result of trying to keep up with demand. Can anybody vouch for that?
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Soundstream is now owned by Epsilon Electronics - owners of Power Acoustik, SPL and Kole, but AFAIK Epsilon is a successful company, and as of now it does appear they are investing in SS and building some pretty good gear.

Alpine is Alpine. They have their flagship pdx amps going strong right now. Class D, physically small, efficient -- reviews seem to be postive for the most part. Then they have the more standard MRP's.
Type R subs/speakers are popular for a solid affordable SQ line that will get pretty loud. They also have the Type X, but I dont' know much about it except that if it's worth the price it has to be good. X>R<S/E
 
CarpePoon said:
Like somebody said, I'd stay away from the square subs unless you want to kiss your trunk space good bye.
My audio history: I used to be like you, but without the $$ to throw around so I started small and used. Which quickly taught me the fundamentals of specs and box building to get the most out of what I had. Then I went through the competition stage, I used a variety of of subs, but always Hifonics amps. Competitions were fun, but for normal driving and enjoyment, it was just over kill. So once I graduated from college I worked for a place called CIS www.CIS.com where we would handle stolen stereo claims for insurance companies and replacing the equipment, So I was very knowledgeable on what was out on the market.......4 years ago.
Now, like I said before, companies are constantly bought by better/worse companies in the audio world and equipment will be better or worse than it was a year ago without warning.
The best advice I can give is that the box is what makes the speaker. I like my trunk space because I'm a hockey player and need a place to throw my stuff. So since my competition days I've been an advocate of the small sealed box. I am a huge fan of Diamond Audio subs. Especially the D6 series. Very high quality and its specs only call for 0.5cuft. They are fairly inexpensive as well, through my hookup at CIS I can get them for around $160.
Other than that for subs I would recommend Elemental Designs, Adire Audio (although I just noticed they are shut down). With your bank roll dedicated to a system, the best recommendation I can give is for a single JL audio 13W7. and a QUALITY, true 1500w amplifier or a 12w7 and a quality 1000w amplifier.
For amplifiers, I'd recommend Hifonics, Crossfire, JL, phoenix gold, Xtant, One good used one to look for is a JBL power series or Precision power art series (as mentioned before).

Does anybody know if soundstream is any good still? Also how about Alpine? I know shortly after I bought all my Alpine stuff Alpine started dealing with Best Buy which really limited the amount of product available to its usual dealers and I heard Alpines quality suffered as a result of trying to keep up with demand. Can anybody vouch for that?
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Well i looked at the links that other people gave me and the amps only said like 2X250RMS 2ohm and stuff i don't think 250RMS isnt even close to what i want if there are better than that. I looked at the JL 13W7 and the 12W7 those look pretty bad ass. Would you be able to hook me up with a good amp? And i would probably get 2 of those 13W7's would that need 2 of some bad ass amps?
 
Liquid_force said:
outside1.jpg
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Ahh, the old Sedona amps. Very nice amps that were produced in PPI's hayday. They never really garnished the attention of the art series but they were very good amps. I actually have one sitting around at my house. They can be had very cheap on ebay. Hard to beat IMO for the prices they go for. I'm not sure how Soundstream is anymore although they were great back in the day. I remember running 2 soundstream amps back in the day. The reference 300 & 700. They had so much versatility.
 
That's the one I was thinking of.

And Rocket....250 WRMS is a decent amount, esp. when sent to a quality speaker. Just my opinion, but if you can't make it sound good with 250w, then something is wrong. :shrug: Maybe it's just me being old.

What kind of power do the rest of you all send to your doors/sub? I'm doing 50 wrms to doors, and about 200 to sub in sealed box. Am I too old, going deaf, or should I step up to an Audiobahn? :laugh: Sorry.

Are you looking for amps for a sub, an amp for the door speakers, or one amp that can do both?

And that's funny, the Sedona's do remind me of Profile (look wise).:crazy:















Boy, this thread makes me wish I had either of the old PP amps. :ponder:
 
silver rocket said:
Well i looked at the links that other people gave me and the amps only said like 2X250RMS 2ohm and stuff i don't think 250RMS isnt even close to what i want if there are better than that. I looked at the JL 13W7 and the 12W7 those look pretty bad ass. Would you be able to hook me up with a good amp? And i would probably get 2 of those 13W7's would that need 2 of some bad ass amps?
Click to expand...

You are insane if you get 2 13W7's You only need one, trust me! Stepping up to a 13w7 from a Dual sub is like going from a Ford Festiva to a Bugatti Veyron. The box requirement is not small either, but with one, its very managable. I'll post some links to a good matching amp for this sub in a bit.

getsum111 said:
What kind of power do the rest of you all send to your doors/sub?
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100w x4 RMS to my components in the 4 doors, 550w x 1 RMS to the sub. Its not much, but its amazing what a good sub/box can do. The box is built to within 1 cubic cm.
 
I'm running about 75 watts to my doors speakers and around 300 to my sub. CarpePoon & Getsum are spot on about power requirements. What's extremely important is a good install and a clean signal. I have the gain on one of my PPI A300's almost at the minimum and my system cranks at about half volume. Keep in mind I'm using an audiocontrol 3.1 to boost the voltage quite a bit.
 
good new amps (that I know of) for a 13w7 and 12w7. The recommended power for a 13w7 is 750-1000w, for a 12w7 500-750w (sorry, I overstated above)
Remeber that a JL audio 13w7 has dual 1.5ohm coils. so your wiring options are a .75ohm or a 3ohm load. The 12W7 is a single 3ohm coil, thus a 3 ohm load. I would only do a 3ohm load with these in a single sub configuration. If you got to .75ohm your going to be stressing the hell out of your electical system and working up a ton of heat. I don't even know of an amp these days that is rated below 1ohm stable.
JL Audio 1000/1 v2 for the 13w7
Hifonics Brutus BXI 2010D for the 13w7 or BXI 1610D for the 12w7 Maxxsonics Crunch (same company as Hifonics) P1500.1 for the 12w7. they don't make anything big enough for the 13w7
Kicker zx1000.1 for the 12w7 Zx1500.1 for the 13w7
Alpine MRP-M1000 for the 12w7, the next step up is overkill for both subs.

Theres a short list, I'm sure others can add to it.

Your best deal would be on the Maxxsonics brands (hifonics and Crunch).
 
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