glott

Im thinking about putting a pair of 8's in my '04 NHB/Parch NAVI. Ive had 10s and 12 in previous cars, but Im looking for harder hitting SQ bass (I was not impressed with a single 12 in my passat that I traded in for the TSX). Would two 8's+amp out perform a single 10+amp for the same price. (i.e. higher quality 8's compared to middle ground 10). Also, how will the 8's compare in overall loudness??? The key for me is sound quality over overall SPL although I enjoy low bass as well.

glott

I almost forogt, can I get some suggestions for subs+amp. Brands etc...

Bass Mechanic

if your going to use 8's i would reccommend a correctly built bandpass or at the least ported design.
i dont know if you live near plantation FL but a guy from this board has a box i built with a pair of 8's and an MTX amp in a TSX. perhaps you should try to hook up with him for a listen and see if that will fit your needs?

jaydub

I currently have a pair of Elemental Designs e8a subs in a sealed box in my Civic Si, and I like them a lot. They're being driven by an Orion 9002 amp, most people say it sounds like a stock setup with the right amount of bass. I'm also running CDT components.

I do wish that the bass was a bit louder, but having to factor in space didn't allow me to go ported.

Tsx536

I would suggest trying to get some 8's from BassMechanic...He seems to know what's up...AcuraTsx03 bought some subs from him. You might want to ask him what he thinks. He seemed to like them when he first got them. I haven't heard much since though.

elduderino

OK, here we go...

I like 8's for SQ quite a bit... but a Civic Si is a hatchback, NOT a sedan, and the difference in acoustic environment is huge. Most 8"s are great at playing some notes that will never get out of that trunk or through that folding-rear-seat armor plate backing. I would not use 8"s in the TSX for that reason.

As far as SQ goes, I've heard single-12" systems that sound great and have won SQ awards - I understand that the one you heard was not impressive, but I think you're criticizing the architecture a little too broadly. 1 12" can be made to sound great.

You have to differentiate between output, frequency response, and sound quality.

ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL (they never are, but anyway), 2 8" can play LOUDER than 1 10". That said, as has been mentioned many times, loudness is a function of air displacement. 1 short-travel 10" won't play as loud as a 2 long-throw 8"s.

AOTBE, a 10 USUALLY plays LOWER than an 8" Again, you can easily get an 8" that can play lower than a 10, but that's the rule of thumb. Bigger speakers usually play lower than smaller speakers.

Sound Quality is not dependent on size. I have heard systems with 8"s play low and loud and sound really good (not cheap 8"s, though : ). They usually sound tight and "fast". I have heard systems with 10" and 12" that played louder but sounded muddy and "slow" (and many that sounded great, too...). SQ is NOT dependent on woofer size - it's dependent on woofer quality, enclosure quality and correctness for the woofer, power amount, xover point, how good the mids are above the woofer (makes a diff in SQ), etc.


I will say straight out that if you are looking for SQ (and you know what SQ really is) I don't think you want a bandpass box. Bandpass boxes are ways to make 8s sound like 12s... and I don't think you want that. I think you would be better off with a really good 10" or 12" sealed (sealed woofers will have the best transient response and that's quite possibly what you like about the sound of 8"s...) and some power and maybe a good EQ.

If you have heard cars with 8"s that sounded good, were they sedans or wagons/hatches?

Bass Mechanic

ok first of all the size of the driver has nothing to do with how low it can play.
perfect example is my power mouse boxes. the 8, 10, and 12's all play 17-117 hz incar flat responce. the only difference is the cone area as you said you can't get the SPL with smaller subs.

as for sound quality sealed boxes have more distortion due to the fact that they allow the sub to travel more than other designs do using ports. anytime a sub has more excursion it is more suceptable to distortion for a number of reasons.

the fact is you probly havnt heard a correctly designed bandpass. and in general since the bandpass boxes became popular at stores like best buy they did and do usually sound like crap. simply because the subs used in the prefab boxes arent designed to work together.

from a distortion standpoint bandpass boxes when built correctly have far less distortion than open faced woofer designs because the only sounds that are allowed to excape from the port(s) have to be within the frequency responce of the enclosure.
so for that reason your statement is false

the only reason you think smaller subs sound tight and fast is because your mind tells you they should. you figure like most people that dont understand enclosures and sub design that a smaller lighter weight cone will be faster or have better transients.
it's simply not true the fact of the matter is that reguardless of the size of the cone the shortcommings you speak of are so miniscule that you definitly could not hear them from 1 sub to another based soly on the size of the driver.
the only reason that larger subs have been known to play lower than smaller subs is because of 2 factors
1 larger subs inherently have lower free air resonance because of the added weight of the cone.
2. larger subs also more more air and lower frequencies need more energy to be heard. since a larger cone moves more air you can hear the low notes better.
however i can assure you that using a ported enclosure or bandpass to extend the low frequency responce you can get almost exactly (depending on the woofer variences) the same responce with a small verses larger sub. the only difference is the amount of accustical energy or SPL based on the surface area and excursion of the driver. (displacement)

you may have heard differences in sedans verses wagons and hatches only due to the fact that obviously with an unobstructed path from the sub to your seating position you will in fact get more SPL out of the same setup. audio has a placebo effect when it gets louder it sounds better to most people. also in a sedan there are more things to rattle in the trunk to discolor the sound. it doesnt have anything to do with the sound quality. the only other factors would be the sound reflecting back on itself escaping the trunk (cancellation) to the passenger compartment. but this is inherent with any sub design it has nothing to do with the design and everything to do with the environment.

also people who judge sound quality in a car cannot possibly judge the bass proformance of any design accuratly from 1 car to the next. there is a lot more to good sounding bass than the subs. there is a good deal of information octives higher that play a part in the sound of the bass. when judging from 1 car to the next it's almost impossible to say that this design verses that design is better.
the reason is simply because unless you have 2 exact cars with the exact same equipment installed exactly the same way and the only difference being the enclosure there are too many factors to consider that affect the overall proformance of the system.
secondly some peoples opinion of a perfectly tuned or good sound quality system is based on what an RTA says. if the responce curve is flat you get perfect points in that area and that moves you ahead in the SQ competition. unfortunatly if you have ever heard a perfectly flat setup that regesters flat on an RTA 99% of the people would agree it sounds like ass, because it does!
to most people a well tuned system is a little heavy on the high and low end of the scale. this is because to us we dont hear every frequency at exactly the same level.
what allows you to hear sound is directly related to the number and length of the tiny hairs in your inner ear called the cochlea. we arent all the same and we dont hear exactly the same either. therefore what sounds good to you may not sound good to me because we hear the same thing differently.
these higher octives of sound output affect the way the bass may appear to sound. if you were to just listen to bass by itself the only thing you could really say for sure is if one sounds more distorted than another and if it is louder or softer than another. you can also hear and feel the difference in how low a particular sub will play. now in a sound room with no stray sound waves affecting anything you can make a much more accurate representation of how a sub sounds. a car has too many factors as an environment to be of any use in deciding how a sub sounds with any real degree of accuracy.

so to sum it up sound quality is largly ones opinion. the only way to put SQ on an even playing field is to use an RTA and everyone can visually make a comparason to the way a system sounds.

acuratsx03

yes yes, i am the only TSX in the world with PowerMouses in the trunk. Let me tell you, these subs are amazing. The only thing i have to compare them to is my Alpine Type-R 12" sub. And the PowerMouse outperforms it in everyway. It plays way louder than my 12" and it even plays lower. Not only is the bass really loud, its distortion free - pure bass. And they hit way harder. When these subs hit, you cant see anything in the rearview.
Ive gotten very good comments on these subs. I wish the box was clear so that i could show the people that these subs really are 8"s when they question me after hearing them and guessing i have 2 10s. someone even said they sounded liek 12s. and heres the kicker, each sub is only getting half of what they can really handle - 150 instead of 300 watts rms.
I may not be the best person to describe how amazing these subs are because my audio experience and vocabulary is so primitive. but when i say that these 8s are amazing, i mean it. now all i have to do is fix all the RATTLES the subs cause at high volume.


EDIT: these subs are also great for every type of music. i listen to a wide variety including, pop, punk, 80s music, rap, hip hop, live music, and everythign sounds great. the bass lines in 'sublime' can be truly appreciated, the double bass in punk and rock really pounds, and the sound you get when listening to live concert music is phenomenal. these subs are great for any application. they hit hard when they need to, and they play looooww when you want it

elduderino

You like to give me grief saying I'm not consistent. See above.

You are trying to argue with me about a point that we agree on - you're just trying to argue. Waste of time. Woofer size has someting to do with it, but not everything to do with it. That's what I said, that's what you said. Why try to argue about that?

You seem to have a narrow view of distortion. Distortion is defined as changes from the input signal. There are various types.

All boxes act like filters. Both ported and bandpass enclosures model like steeper filters than sealed boxes do, and like steeper filters they cause more time-delay distortion than sealed boxes. Anyone who doesn't think that this is a form of distortion is welcome to read "The Differential Time-Delay Distortion and Differential Phase-Shift Distortion as Measures of Phase Linearity" by Marshall Leach, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, September 1989, and other technical papers.

The fact is you don't have the slightest fucking idea what I've heard.

This is totally accurate.

You seem to be ignoring time distortion, sounds within the stopband of the boxes' design, and the noise made by ports during SPL compression (we can assume that your boxes have very large port areas). Since I never used the word "distortion" at all in this post, I can't even figure out what statement you're disagreeing with.

When you think someone has put words in your mouth you flip out. Back atcha. You don't have any fucking clue how my mind works, or whether I understand enclosures... but you seem to think you are the only person who does.

You can't ignore the fact that with similar cone wall thicknesses and VC weights and cone materials, a 10" cone will weigh more than an 8" You just can't.

This is where you first seem to state that frequency response completely describes how something sounds. This turns out not to be the case.

You quibble with whether or not I heard anything, while pointing out that the principle I'm talking about is obvious and thus apparently it should apply to anyone. You can't have it both ways.

You don't seem to actually use the term "placebo" correctly, btw. The fact that humans hear differences of more than 3dB SPL as volume differences, but differences of less than 3dB SPL as tonal shifts, is broadly understood. Remember, all, that a 3dB increase in volume occurs in a speaker when you double the wattage going into it.

I said that the same sub enclosure sounds different in different vehicles. The logical follower is that some boxes sound better in some vehicles than in others. You may disagree with my conclusion but you agree with my premises, apparently.


WHAT?


Noted in my initial post... and agreed.


It's ludricrous to say that because there are multiple variables, no distinctions can be made. Humans have to make such distinctions all the time. A girl that looks hot in certain clothes, and when I've had 4 beers, may not look as good in different clothes, and when I've had only one beer. But I still compare girls.


There has been much research on this. Human hearing does vary slightly, but can be examined statistically since the variations are not really statistically significant. To see the Fletcher-Munson curve of our sound sensitivity at different volumes, see this: http://www.webervst.com/fm.htm


There are many reasons that some sounds sound "good" or "bad" to someone - but they do indeed have to do with what we are comparing something to. Studies have shown that we have a poor auditory memory for details, but that we can hear things that are hard to measure. However, when your criteria is "realism" compared to a reference, rather than subjective "good" or "bad", studies have indicated that people's judgements and discernments converge and are able to be compared.


Bullshit. Sound quality is NOT largely one's opinion. Your personal opinion about sound quality is largely your opinion, but high fidelity - truth - uses actual music as a reference. Also, since you spent the first part of this trying to say that everyone's opinion counts except mine (because I'm not qualified to have opinions, apparently), from a logical point of view, your peter is flappin' in the wind.

Each person may have sound quality aspects that are more highly valued than others... but sound quality is NOT mostly subjective.

The RTA does NOT capture sound quality! An RTA does not make a distinction between music and various forms of distortion, it does not detect time distortion, or harmonic distortion, or intermodulation distortion, or impulse response. It tells you if there is a sound at that note - if the sound is good or bad, or should be there or not - doesn't matter to the RTA. I will guarantee that I can easily go out and create a system that sounds bad and measures well with an RTA.

How did any of this wamking help the original poster? I dunno. I think we've established that I think BP boxes are good for SLP but not for SQ, and that BM disagrees.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

glott

Great stuff guys...I didn't mean for this to turn into a psuedo-flame, but I think we've covered a lot of good points. The passat I used to have had the similar steel structure in the fold down seats and I was throwing about 400 Watts rms from a Kenwood amp to an MB Quart sub. I was disappointed by the overall quality and loudness of this setup. I agree that 1 10 or 1 12 in the right set-up would be louder than two 8's, but I feel like for the money 2-8's would get the job done better. Also, I've heard that bandpass or ported boxes don't make sense in a trunk because the trunk is already a "sealed" enviornment (althought not completely). Most of the car audio guys I have talked to confirmed this speculation. So again, I'd like some recommendations on some brands for amps and subs that will give me the "hard hitting sq" that I'm looking for. Again, thats for the enthusiasm toward this post, I think we have hit on a few great points; everyone enjoys a different level and "type" of bass, and there are many ways to acheive it. I'm just looking for the most cost effective way to add some nice lows to (what i think) is a pretty nice stock system.


THANKS!!!

jiggaman

Eld and BM, when did this beef start anyways?

Bass Mechanic

Eldude, im not going to even waste my time typing another novel, now you just want to argue, if you hadnt noticed i didnt reply to your post. i started a new one. so if you think any of that was in responce to what you said get over it.
from now on unless you see somthing you wrote in a yellow box i am ignoring you. why would i take the time to write anything to you? all you want is an argument, i can get that at home from my 12 year old for free.
but i will say to this point because honestly i didnt read most of your reply.
i didnt contridict myself about the size go read it again. what i said was that the size of the sub has nothing to do with why larger subs play lower than small. they are both air pistons, they do exactly the same thing but if you toss both in a sealed box which are unaffected by anything else the have different behaivers.
what i said was if you took the time to read it was that both large and small subs can play just as low, a sealed box has no ability to play a flat responce it is always a 6db per octive. therefore with smaller subs they dont have the ability to reproduce the low frequencies. there isnt enough cone areato reproduce then well enough to be heard, they still play them, but because the sealed enclosure is always falling off towrds 20 hz eventually they dont have the output. if you try the same example in a ported application they can play the same low frequencies and then can be heard the same as a larger sub. the larger sub is putting out more SPL overall with the same curve, as a result your able to hear more of it. i can assure you that all subs play the same frequencies, if you send a 30 hz signal to an 8 it will play it no question, but in your application can you hear it?

anyway i wasnt talking to you, and it is once again quite obvious by your reaction that you seem to feed off trying to look like the know it all on this board. when your proven wrong you dont type much, when you THINK your right you go ape happy and type a novel as if to say "see, see, i was right, i was right, neener, neener, neener, i know somthing bass mechanic doesnt know"

as you once said to me ill comment to you, "you sad little man, go breathe in a paper bag"

well i hate to bust your bubble but you my friend dont know what the hell your talking about. but since your the "VP of electricity" how about you stick to that subject, leave the subwoofers to me.. shall we?

how many subs have you designed? how many boxes have you invented? i am not trying to give you my resume, im just pointing out that you shouldnt try to school people that have the credentials to back themselves up.

im not going to argue with you, honestly i dont have the time or patience and we all know its like talking to a house plant with you so why waste the energy?

how about we just leave this thread alone? it's already gotton way off topic. lets let the readers read what you and i have added to this thread and let them decide what to belive. i think they are smart enough to sift through the BS.

oh and merry christmas to you! i hope its a really white one for ya!

Bass Mechanic

let's get this question answered,
i think based on what your after the 8's would be fine you just need a more efficient box to use them to their potential.
whoever told you ported or bandpass boxes done work in a closed trunk was lieing to you.
the only setup in a trunk that doesnt work is if you face the subs into the back seat of the car. doing this in most cars causes cancellation. it happens when some of the audio hits the back of the trunk and reverberates forward again, when that sound wave interacts with the wave in front of the box they cancel each other out at some frequencies, therefore you experience the effect of having less bass. but if you ever hear that again try opening the trunk, usually if you have cancellation and open the trunk it will get louder. this is becase that wave traveling rearwards exits the car and cannot come back to interact with the one in the car.
any sub set up be it sealed, ported BP will be amplified especially at the low frequencies because of what we call cabin gain.
belive it or not the way you face the subs and how they are installed can make a significant difference in how they sound in the car.
many bandpass boxes you could buy at Best Buy as i stated earlier suck. not only that many have their ports on the top of the box facing the trunk lid. this is not a good way to get bass into the car at all. so i am not suprised some installer came to this conclusion.
if you want to know how 2 8's in a trunk using a BP configuration read acuratsx03's post. thoes are his own words.

Bass Mechanic

i think it started in about august when he came to this board announcing he was the "VP of electricity" then he put his foot in his mouth a few times since then. now he just hates me because i made him look bad by pointing out several things that were flawed in his way of thinking.

i am sorry you you have to be a part of it.

jiggaman

no worries, I have no problems with either of you guys, I was just curious how this whole thing started.

Bass Mechanic

ok this has gone on long enough, now that i have some breakfast and am a little more awake i propose a soultion to the war between me and eldude.

Elduderino, this is what i propose. how about we bury the hatchet here and now?
from this point forward how about you dont reply and quote anything i say and i wont reply and quote anything you say.

i think this board can bennifit from both of our points of view be them right , wrong or indifferent.

you answer peoples questions with what you want to say and ill do the same with what i want to say. if we butt heads lets not argue about it. it solves nothing and ultimatly just pisses each other off.
let the readers take the information from both sides and belive what they wish from it.
from this pont forward i will not even read any of your posts. ill offer my .02 to the thread and i reccommend you also dont read any of my posts and just offer your own .02
if we end up typng basically the same answers to people i would rather see a double post than the constant bickering back and forth that always follows and solves nothing.
besides it's causing my blood pressure to go up and i get defensice and make snide remarks, that is really not my personality and quite frankly doesnt solve anything.
so how about you leave me alone and ill do the same.

oh yea Merry Xmas!~

elduderino

It IS pretty funny, isn't it? Neither one is willing to defer to the other... I suspect that each one is willing to say that they are not the most knowledgable in the world, but NOT that the other is more knowedgable. I know that is true for me.

I think that BM has more experience than I do in building and using software to design subwoofer enclosures. He seems output oriented, not sound quality oriented. I don't beleive that his experience invalidates mine, I don't react well to his condescending attitude about the topic, and I believe that his poor writing coupled with his obvious chip on his shoulder combine to drive him to post rambling, ill-written, argumentative posts.

I also post argumentative posts, and probably shouldn't. I've allowed personal cracks to get into technical discussions, and I know better than that.

However, at least mine are well-written and readable, and when you read them, hopefully you know what I was saying. I've stopped arguing with BM in the past on threads, and apparently it was a Neville Chamberlain-in-the-30's kind of move, as he has decided that he has suceeded in "making me look bad". It hasn't seemed to cut down on the number of PMs I get on system design advice, and I suspect that BM is getting them too, and possibly from the same people.

BM has some real value to offer on low-frequency speakers and system design. Usually that value, if it is present, is shrouded in self-promoting stories about how much he knows, how many things he can get cheap, and sometimes about how all the customers of the car-sound industry are ignorant and buy pretty junk. I find this frustrating and irritating, and I have responded to it when I shouldn't.

Occasionally my posts apparently include some more SQ slant that the reader apparently wants. I think that tuan is the most SQ-oriented poster here, and while I think we differ on some theoretical points, I think he has the most day-to-day and recent involvement with SQ designs (I may catch up soon).

BM seems to have been the only one wound up about the VP Electricity handle. It seems to really have touched a nerve, and I suspect it's NOT all about me. I had a friend who was the head of installation for a regional chain who introduced himself as the VP Electricity in vendor meetings, and I always thought it was funny. If he decides it's a reason to get all pissy, that's too bad - lotta funny handles around here. (I would suggest that anyone who picked their handle out of ego would have picked "President of Electricity").

I started in 12 Volt in 1986. I have been a retail salesperson, an installer, a store manager, a tech support person and a tech support manager at the largest alarm copany in the world, a partner in a high-end car audio shop, a product and market development manager for audio products, a program manager for in-car computing products, the chairman of the MECP Education Commitee and a member of the MECP board, a contributor to the MECP Study Guide (I wrote the section on digital-to-analog conversion, and reviewed the security section but was overruled often by the owner of VSE), and I was awarded a US utility patent for innovations in the second series of Viper Ultra/Python alarms (I won't take the heat for all of them, but a few of them were all mine, and I worked on others withthe rest of the team). I have written for Installation News, now Mobile Electronics, for Car Audio, and for Mobile Office. I have been a speaker at the old Mobile Electronics Show twice, and I have conducted over a hundred training sessions for 12-V installers. For the last 5 years I have been a product development consultant with my own company, and my biggest client has had me defining, testing, and improving rear-seat video products.

I don't think I've ever listed my 12V history in a post here, and I don't plan on doing it again. With that kind of record, I react negatively to misspelled, run-on criticisms of what I say by some guy who left the industry after his business failed. My reaction is partly, who is this guy to talk shit - he can't even make a living in the business! Of course, the flip side of that is, if I have this record and I'm comfortable with it, why do I care what someone on the Internet thinks? If I care, that's MY problem, not someone elses. That reaction was my problem. Like most in the 12V business, I have been trying to be right - and it's more important to do good than to be right, but I forgot. It would be nice if it was the last time that I forgot that, but I suspect not.

But at least he gave it a shot. Most audio businesses are founded by someone who thinks they are right and no one is doing it the way that they would - the right way - otherwise, we wouldn't have any audio companies at all. And some businesses fail. No way around that.

So in that sense BM helped me have a good idea.

After figuring out how this TSX stereo system HU output works, and having so many people, both customers and installers, be misled on what they have to do, I had an idea for an interface for various types of HUs. I looked at the problems in creating a widget to sell and why it's hard to stay in business selling only widgets. I looked at how speaker systems are not optimized for the car they're in.

And I looked at the fact that BM started a business in 12V. Hey, if he can start a business, I can too. If I'm not qualified to start a business, who is? (Actually, my wife was reminding me how much I enjoy helping people with stereo systems, and asking me why I don't have some business tie-in for that. I had no good answer, so I started thinking.)

But traditional 12V retail is hard and limited - no offense to anyone here, but if I had to make a living selling 12"s in a box to 20-year-olds listening to Eminem, I would go nuts. So I am opening a store that specializes in interfacing to OE HUs, upgrading OE speakers, hiding an amp, and no sub box. We will still do custom work, of course, but we are also filling the middle of the 12V store per-ticket average with this new systems. We are aiming at Acuras, Audis, BMWs, Infinitis, Lexus, etc, with OE HUs that ain't coming out.

The new systems will use some branded product, but the speakers will mostly be branded with our store's brand. The intent there is to have pre-designed-and-configured systems for all newer cars (I already have the OE audio digrams for almost 100% of 2004 vehicles to assist integration). It will be like presented like buying a Bose system - not a lot of decisions to make, just one or two. We plan to sell this to people who are not traditional car stereo customers anymore, but would have been back in the 80's - they are turned off by the box in the back approach. But we don't want it to sound like a Bose system.

So the interface module is under development right now. It should come out to about 4x4x.75 inches. It will have a graphic EQ, a Xover, various input interface types, a line driver, and a subsonic filter built in. It can be used in most architectures, but is set up to support my F stage, no R fill, bass in the R spots architecure in my TSX with the right settings. When I have protos I may ask for volunteers to plug this in and see if they have noise and how it sounds.

The store is set for opening in January. We've had a setback that we're dealing with on the schedule, but I am still hoping for January. We have agreements with some good branded lines and some good-quality self-branded speakers out of Europe, and I really think the processor will set us apart.

So with all this going on, for me to be touchy with the comments made by someone else is silly, and me caring how I look on this board is silly too. Some people my not think I know what I'm talking about. So what? My mom doesn't think I know what I'm talking about, and is waiting for me to get a real job, like a mailman or something.

So I have that going on, and it probably had something to do with being touchy when someone starts talking smack. But I don't have to respond. I still think what I thought about bandpass boxes, etc. but I think that I'll just have to trust others to sort out the wheat from the chaff.

And again, Merry Christmas, everybody.

jiggaman

Tsx536

^^

It's funny because I think half of us don't even understand the topics you guys argue about enough to even know who is truly right. And I'll be honest, when your posts start getting that long and you guys are just fighting...I don't even really try to read them anymore.

Anyway, I hope you guys can get along. You both know your stuff and are both an valuable resources on this board. I bet if you guys actually were to meet each other in person you would actually be able to get a long very well...you both seem to share similar interests and have a similar high level of knowledge about car audio.

Just my guys...

glott

Im new the board so all these discussion doesn't really help me much, Im still looking for some recommendations on 8inch subs + amps.

acuratsx03

read my post!!! i have two 8s in a box made my bassmechanic running off an MTX Thunder895 5 channel amp, recommended by bassmechanic. these are the only 8s ive ever heard, so i cant really help you out that much. but read my post above and youll get an idea of how these sound

elduderino

You still here? : )

From the above, I didn't get that you were looking for gear recommendations, but since you are, I would suggest that you decide a budgetary amount for the subs and amp project first, decide if this will include installation and any other gear, or just two subs and an amp, and decide if you are building the box, or if that is in the budget too. Is the box custom or prefab?

One concern about 8" is that many are oriented towards midbass and others are just gone - sales on 8" drivers for car sound have slowed WAY down over the last 5 years, and some companies have just stopped selling them.

I haven't used an 8" sub for car audio for a while...

I would consider the JL W3v2 series of woofs. I've never heard the Focal Polyglass 21 210mm woofer or the Dynaudio 190mm woofer in a car, but I'd be interested. I think the Dyne would have trouble playing loud enough, but I'm interested in the Focal. I'd be interested in the Elemental Designs 9" woofer (http://www.edesignaudio.com/9kv2_overview.htm).

You can change woofer sizes just to do it, to try something new, but know that you never gain something but that you lose something with that kind of change.

I'd be really curious what you found lacking in the last 12" box you had. That acoustic problem is probably the biggest thing on your mind and should be taken into account - what didn't work for you? I would think that whatever problem that was, it could be corrected.

As far as amps, this also is budget driven and do-it-yourself or shop-install driven. I'd look at eD's mono amp for kicks - it might be really good value. I am also favorable to the JL "slash" series of amps, but I would use a Class AB stereo and bridge it, NOT a Class D mono, unless you can make sure that the Class D in the trunk won't hose your FM reception (the FM amp in the C pillar can be interfered with by some Class Ds). You're really looking for build quality, value, and then what you want to look at - there are reasonings that say you'll hear a difference between two amps with the same power, but you probably won't.

Bass Mechanic

nice resume Eldude, i would just like to make one comment..

as for my business. you can call it what you like but i think it was anything but a failure. i have a great product and the feedback from every single person that has seen and heard it agrees 110%
i think to say a busness has failed would imply that your product sucked or that nobody wanted it. maybe it failed because there was a design flaw or you infringed on a patent and as a result went bankrupt because of the legal ramifications.
let me make this clear. my business did not fail, it would still be running strong today if not for these facts.

i have enjoyed caraudio since i was about 14 years old. i started off doing installs for all the older kids that could drive and had cars. its always been a fun and exciting hobby. as a result i spent the better part of my beginning employment history doing just that. i ran several shops by the age of 25 i decided that it became too much work and not enough fun anymore.
have you ever heard that old saying about doing a hobby for a living makes you hate it? well i left caraudio i thought for the last time in 95.
i got into other things and started new carrear paths looking for what i wanted to do with the rest of my life and what i was going to use to make an income with.
among other things i was a copier repair tech certified on over 150 models including $50,000 digital printers when they first came out. i maxed out my salary in 3 years and realised i was in a dead end job.
then i got into IT as a software test engineer. i thought this was it, unfortunatly if you know anything about IT since about 2000 its been going down the toilet ever since. i got laid off from worldcom and lost a significant salary.
about a year before that happend i had begun development on the power mouse thinking it was more or less a hobby untill people started asking me to sell them to people.

i perfected my design and figured since Information Technology wasnt going anywhere i might as well go into business for myself. to be quite honest my business surpassed my biggest expectations. everyone loved my product. even the most skeptical people i knew that you would consider to be self proclaimed audio and sound quality gurus loved the product. i was actually thinking about expanding into the home theater market in the future.

however because good help is so hard to find i decided to undertake all this operation on myself. i was up till wee hours of the morning either on the net selling my product or in the workshop building it. i became a slave to myself. then i realised my favorite hobby was turning me into a mad man. i have 2 girls that needed my attention more than i needed to be spending my time building boxes, packing and shipping them all over the US.
i decided this was no way to live a life and decided to pull the plug for the sake of my family. i knoew people would view me as a failure but i cant help what people think. they never saw anything from my side of the fence.
so i got into insurance.
i still work formyself except now whenever i feel like it i can leave the office on, well lets just pick a day. how about TUESDAY!
if the weather is good i call up my friend (also an insurance agent) and at about 9:00 am usually we go back home, change clothes pack up our dirt bikes and head off to the mountains to go play for the rest of the day. i let my secretary handel my calls and i just leave whenever i want to.
man i cant tell you how cool that is to be able to do whatever i want when ever i want!
who would have thought? just pack up and go screw off for the rest of the day, dont need anyones permission, i just go!

in about 5 years from now i will be semi retired with the income from my agency. i will be able to travel and spend time with my wife and kids which i never did with my dad when i was a kid.
i decided that now age 34 there are more important things in life than carstereos and making bass. but i enjoy it more now that i dont have to rely on it for a living. thats what makes a hobby fun and not a job.

so just like all the other successes in my life includng my agency that continues to grow by leaps and bounds well beyond my best expectations. i would say that the Power mouse or my involvement was not by any means a failure. i didnt fail in the 12 volt industry.
what i did do was realise that there are more important things in life and better more rewarding ways to make a living. not to mention the fact that what i sell is not a toy.

what i sell is insurance, that is somthing that can bring comfort to a widow and her children, put kids through college, provide for a family who has lost their parent, mom, dad or brother.
i also do financial planning and after i get my securities license hopefully by next month i will be selling a lot of other financial services.

on that note let me share with you a few sentances from a poster i have hanging on my wall. it will give you a really good idea of why i chose this industry to make a living.
here goes.. (i sell more than life insurance BTW)

I SELL LIFE INSURANCE
Other sales people are limited.
they sell furnature, appliances, cars, or shoes.
i sell thoes things too.
And, I sell many things more.
I sell meat, bread, and milk for the table of a family deprived of a mother.
i sell cancelled Mortgages so that a mother or father and the children can live comfortably.
i sell college educations to give youngsters better oppertunities in life.
i sell the little extras-
ice cream cones, roller blades, movie tickets and a dress for the Prom.
i make life worth living.
i sell time with grandchildren, golf clubs, fishing tackle, exciting trips, retirement income and self respect for latter years.
i sell all the necessities and good things of life, because life insurance is for the living.
yes i sell life insurance, and pardon me if my pride is showing.

Author not known.

Tsx536

twizta

i was just wondering when i was reading this post... what are the audio systems yall have setup in your cars (Eld and BM)??

Bass Mechanic

you know, on my way home i was just thinking of the irony of the fact that my TSX is still stock. with the access to anything i could possibly want at wholesale and the fact i have the skills and equipment to build a totally badass system why havnt i done it yet?
i guess because i am so busy i just dont have the time for my own car. and coupled with the fact i lease and trade in my cars every couple years it seems pointless to install one just to take it out in a few years.

but some of the nicer systems i have had in the past used 2 Hifonics amps i have had since 1990 a hifonics Hercules and a Jupiter

my best system was probly back in 1995-1998 when i had a 93 honda civic, i fiberglassed 2 enclosures on either side of the trunk and ran a pair of JL 12W6's in what looked almost totally stock trunk. the sub boxes were glassed into the sides of the trunk making a basically square trunk with a removable floor that swallowed up the spare and jack along with an optima battery and 18 disk changer. all totally hidden under the floor in the spare tire well. the amps were in a custom rack just below the parcel tray and fan cooled with 3 fans that i added to the internals of the amps.
i had a top of the line clarion HU and clarion EQ that i modded so that it could be removed easily. it had a separate faceplate and was held in place with a couple magnets attached to the back. the faceplate was positioned just below the dash in the center console normally used to hold a factory cd player
going further stealth i also retained the OE HU and used the faceplate of the OE unit to hide the clarion unit after the detachable fase was removed. i went the extra mile and fabbed up a circuit that would flash the red antitheft light on the OE HU faceplate. so when i stuck the OE faceplate over the hole it looked totally stock and the light blinked. even a good theif couldnt tell there was a 700.00 unit behind it.
i cant remember what brand of mids i used but i remember that i fabbed my own xovers for the separates and i hid the tweets in the sailpanels on either side of the front doors where the side mirrors attach to the car. i covered the tweets in black grille cloth in such a way that even if you were looking directly at the tweets you couldnt tell they were there.
i really like stealth. i got ripped off once and since then i vowed never to allow that to happen again.
you could look all through the car and really couldnt see much of anything in the car. but it had enough bass that it knocked the rear view mirror off the W/S on 3 separate occasions. eventually the mirror cracked the W/S in a square shape around where the mirror mounted to the W/S on the inside glass layer. (that sucked)
i never SPL tested that system but based on the ear and butt dyno i would guess it was hitting at least 147db

i put all that equipment into my next car which was a 98 prelude type SH except i went with just 1 12" sub

before the civic i had a 89 pontiac grand am with 7th order bandpass and 2 hifonics 10's in a plexiglass box complete with clear plexi ports. the floor and walls of the box were carpeted to match the trunk and you could see through it when the seats were folded down.

here is a link to some of the smaller projects i did about 2-3 summers ago. the biggest job was the honda S2000. it took me 3 days to do that install. i wish i had taken pics of my civic before i got rid of it i really liked that install.
anyway enjoy!
http://216.71.119.227/pictures_of_stuff.htm

jiggaman

Damn BM, you got skills bro! Thats some clean installs. Do you think something like this would work in the TSX trunk?

jaydub

I spy a GTI door.

Bass Mechanic

gee thanks man, keeping in mind thoes were quickies i did in my garage a couple summers ago. as i said i didnt spend more than 1,2 or 3 days total on any of them.
yea it is possible to do a glassed box into the trunk of the TSX and i keep threatening to actually make a mold of one someday and sell copies of it. i could make a lot of money i am sure of it. dont know if i want to spent the time and have a repeat of the last subwoofer box business i found myself in.

Tsx536

Make one that is 1.25 cubic feet..that mounts in that side location ^^ ...and I'd buy it in a second....

jpswanberg

A number of years ago, Jl had a great little sub called an 8W1, I had on in a box from them called a Microsub. Car Audio and Electronics measured one at 119 db, if I remember correctly. There was also a microsub 8.2 with two 8W1's and a microsub 8.3 with three 8W6's. If you could find them on the secondhand market, any of them would work great. The Dynaudio MW 170 (8") can be used "free-air", so if you can figure out how to replace your 6X9's with a pair, you would be done. The Dynaudio MW 180 (10") and the MW 190 (12") will also work "free-air". They are expensive though. There is another solution I just found, www.genesis-ice.co.uk has a 6 X 9 "subwoofer that would just replace the p.o.s. that are in there now. Evidently they come in both 4 and 8 ohm models and can take 100 watts each, so any good amp that can supply 200 watts into 2 or 4 ohms should work well. I have no idea who imports them though. There is a nice write up about them on the web site. jps

elduderino

They are imported by the same guy that imports Brix and Helix amps from Germany. He is in S.F. check them out at http://www.theautophile.com/

I am dubious about that 100-watt rating just because any free-air sub has problems at lowest freqs free-air... I've installed a lot of them. Your best result would be acheived high-passing any free-air sub with an active filter at around 35 or 40 (depending on speaekr size).