nice little speaker upgrade

[1sty]

And where would you like mail your noodle sir.

 

[Treystoys]

1stmp3...

I'm in louisiana...chances are if you sent the noodle, some coon ass'd eat it before i ever saw it ;o)

Anyhow...delima #2...against others suggestions, and my own intuition, I bought a powered Bazooka...their cheap one at that, the EL8A...needless to say, I realize why I always went with a single or dual sub in a sealed box...thats the kind of base I like, not the noise the tube makes. Anyway, I'm going to try it one more time tommorow after work, just to give it the benifite of the doubt. If its still sounding crappy, I'm gonna return it. The hard stuff is done, the wiring with the line level convertor, power, ground, and remote turn on wires. I'm up for suggestions, I did buy this from circuit city, their prices are good, and their is no Tweeter round these parts. They have MTX and Alpine class D amps, in the smaller sizes...I think near 100 watts unbridged config. What do you think of one of these and a single 10 or 12 in a sealed box...I guess this is the route I should have taken the first time! I can get a free 12" with the amp purchase...nothing great, but for what I'm looking for, should do fine with the better amp. Thanks a bunch...once again!!

 

[1sty]

The Alpine MRP-M350 and SWS-1241D would be a nice little combo I believe the City has available.

 

[hambone35]

Hey Treystoys:

I started my sound system with the exact same upgrade (i.e. replaced the stock speakers with pioneers all the way around). I agree with what you said about the improvement. I then wen the next step and added a 4 channel 640 watt Kenwood amp and a 10" Power Acoustick sub in a sealed enclosure. I use two channels to power the front speakers and two channels for the sub (which is a dual voice coil). The improvement over just the Pioneers was incredible. Besides the fact that it is louder, the bass really rounds out the sound. I would definetly reccomend a four channel amp and a sub for your P5.

 

[Treystoys]

That suggestion is a good one hambone...I thought about it, but I ended up just going with a smaller MTX 202 amp and a RT10 sub. The price was only about $20 more than I paid for the powered Bazooka. I feel much more comfortable with this set up, and at the price I paid for the amp, I can get another and do the same as you. For now, I'll toy around with it like this.

MP3...what about box shapes...the guy at circuit city swears that I should have more of a cube shapped box than anything. The box I have the sub in now is just a sealed type just under a cubic foot, and is shapped more like a truck box than anything. I was always under the impression that volumn was more important than shape. Help me here!? Also, in the PR5 I have the sub box mounted against the rear seats, facing up/slightly angled rearward in other words, I have the truck style box laying on its back facing up...is that where I need to be? Building a new box is not a problem, if I do it though, I want to do it right. The speaker is rated at 200 watts RMS, and the amp is running bridged into 4 ohms at manufactors rating of 140 watts at 12.5 volts.

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[1sty]

That suggestion is a good one hambone...I thought about it, but I ended up just going with a smaller MTX 202 amp and a RT10 sub. The price was only about $20 more than I paid for the powered Bazooka. I feel much more comfortable with this set up, and at the price I paid for the amp, I can get another and do the same as you. For now, I'll toy around with it like this.

MP3...what about box shapes...the guy at circuit city swears that I should have more of a cube shapped box than anything. The box I have the sub in now is just a sealed type just under a cubic foot, and is shapped more like a truck box than anything. I was always under the impression that volumn was more important than shape. Help me here!? Also, in the PR5 I have the sub box mounted against the rear seats, facing up/slightly angled rearward in other words, I have the truck style box laying on its back facing up...is that where I need to be? Building a new box is not a problem, if I do it though, I want to do it right. The speaker is rated at 200 watts RMS, and the amp is running bridged into 4 ohms at manufactors rating of 140 watts at 12.5 volts.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Unless the guy at circuit was saying the box needs to be closer to a cubic foot in airspace, HE IS A RETARD!!

Box shape has NO impact on performance unless the sub requires a few inches behind it and you don't give it that. That info can be found in your owners manual though.

You can play around with the boxes directio to see what is the best to you. Every car/sub/box combo will be differnt.
In my MX-6 with my DVC 15" fosgates they were the best facing up but the BA pros were the best firing sideways.

 

[Treystoys]

Thanks guy...thats kinda what I thought too. The box is an actual qubic foot, I'm just subracting the volumn the speaker takes up and saying its less. The only thing that I have noticed from past experience was that stuffing the box with cloth or some other light material made a difference on the way the sub hit. Am I wrong for thinking that?

 

[1sty]

Adding polyfilll or even fiberglass insulation helps to break up the back wave of the sub and I have also always notice a nice difference by using it. I never build a box without it now.

A sealed box is typicaly impossible to tell the difference in sound so long as you are within 10% of the spec. Poly fill can at best make up for that 10% anyways. Tese are not totaly factual but they are true enough to utilize.

 

[Treystoys]

So bass quantity and quality are going to be better with a tight ported box?...correct? I'm pretty sure thats what the graph included with the sub says. If thats the case, how would I go about porting my existing box, does it matter where the port(s) are located, or is just their diameter and depth what I need for tuning?

Thanks

 

[1sty]

A ported box must be designed to be ported, you can't just put a hole in a selaed box. The box must have internal volume corresponding to port volume to achieve the desired effect.

You will typicaly be best off by using the manufacturers reccomended box sizes.

Also a ported box is RARELY called tight, usualy its the opposite.

 

[Treystoys]

I realize the box must be of certain peramiters to be ported correctly. By tight, I meant a small box that was ported. I realize their are frequency limitations on a ported box, and after doing a little reserch the sealed box as I thought, is better for me and the type of music I listen to. I had looked over the data sheet that came with the sub, and saw that they had a "vented high output" enclosure listed, and it is shown with the highest db at 1W/1M over the sealed, vented, and bandpass boxes. The enclosure volumn for this "high output" ported box was the same as the sealed box volumn. In what way would this benifit my set up or ist this strictly for more bass, and not quality?

Sorry for so many quiestions, I'm sure I'm long past being a pain in the arse...but I'm just longing for up to date info!

Thanks

 

[1sty]

The results in sound will depend largerly on the driver being used and the box. I can not guess the results as I have never built that box for that sub.
Normally ported will yeild a higher output but require an infrasonic filter.
How much quality will depend on the manufacturer you are using a what they wanted that box to do. You should call the manufacturer and talkto someone indepth about what you are tying to do and what will be the best setup for that.