I have been plagued by this site and now the once dead and gone car audio bug has arisen. But now I am in the classic quandary of what sub and amp should I go for? What I have done is removed my torsion bars (im in the process of compiling instructions, but see http://www.acura-tl.com/forum/showth...threadid=43331 first), and now I am pondering fitting a 10" sub on the back deck, hoping that a sub fired into the cabin will sound better than one inside the trunk. Now its easy to say a W7 and some monster amp, but lets be realistic, if you fired a W7 into the cabin, would that be over kill? (if there is such a thing) But as most things in life money is my limiting factor, so I am putting a cap on the total of $500. While that is as much as I would like to spend, if there is a sub you think gives better bang for the buck let me know...ive got a lot of research ahead of me.

 

Keep in mind your strut force will wear down a bit after installing it.
The hole in the rear deck is 9" Are you planning the increase it for a 10" sub? There is not much room because of the middle seat belt tensioner. For the best SQ, I think the best bet is to physically seal the sub to the bottom of the deck using closed-cell polystrene insulation as a collor between your box and the rear deck. If there is a gap in there I don't know how much you've gained versus just sitting in the trunk. I have a CDT MS80 in a .45cf sealed box attached to the underside of the deck firing thru the stock hole. Pure SQ and gets loud enough for me, but I don't listen to rap/hip stuff.
The best bang for the buck is a 12" Adire Audio Shiva sub($125) in a 1.3cf sealed box with200-400 watts. Also their Brahma (10",12", 15") is in the super sub class with the W7 and others at a far cheaper price and has better SQ due to their new XBL2 technology. I have two Shiva's in my home audio system with only 150W each and they are tight and hit hard when needed. I can assure you they will compete with like subs costing 2-3 times as much. Adire has cheaper prices because they don't advertise like most other brand names. They are well known in the car audio forums and are developing a cult like status among those in the know.

 

Hey Todd, I'm just waiting for Austin to chime in how JL blows everything away in any class/price/category.

 

Brewboy, thanks for the info, I did some research on Adrie Audio and they seem very popular with the 12 volt crowd, but I went to check out thier web site and it looks like a fourth grader did it. Now I know that they are Car Audio people and not web developers, but it made me weary.

So after doing much research, I am leaning towards Audiobahn...to be specific the AW1008Q Sub and the A1300HCQ amp. Has anyone heard anything about this company good or bad? Thanks in advance.

 

splitz,

Check out www.ampmanaudio.com

And more importantly www.teamamp.com These guys love Adire...and Rainbow...and Brax....it goes on and on....

 

before you buy any subs wait about 3 months for my new W7 killer subs. they will have a 3.6 inch xmax (about 34mm 1 way) they will have 50 pound magnets and handel about 1500 watts RMS. the first prototype will be a 12". i am expecting the release date to be in about 3 months.
these subs will be the officially highest tested xmax measured by Dumax Period!

 

So your the one! Are you using the XBL2 tech from Adire? I hear Adire is protoyping an 18" with 45-50mm xmax and XBL2.

 

NO TC sounds builds my subs. they have had the record for the highest xmax for the last 4 years. i dont know anything about the adire sub. but i would be suprised if they have that much linear travel.

 

The 12" Adire Brahma did 32mm one way. Pretty damn close. And way cheaper than JL.

 

If your getting a mono amp to run one 10"sub, I would reccomend the JL Audio Monoblock 250

Im runing one kicker comp vr 10 and it sounds great, much better than the infinity amp i had powering it previously.
Should be around $350