Hey Guys, I'm working up some concepts for the system in my car and looking for a little input. In all my past experience with subs the goal was make them loud but still clear and to keep the rattles down in the car. I've always used 1, 2 or 3 of the same size subs. New Goal: Make a well balanced system that doesn't blow your ears out but instead gives you a really wide range of tones. My idea is to use a 10" and a 12" sub in two different fiberglass boxes so you get the high side of the 10" and the low of the 12" Questions, Comments, Ideas? Has anyone done this or heard of it? Thanks, Mike

Doesn't seem to make sence to me. You can't hit hard and low at the same time.

If you want some extra bottom end but still want crispness, try porting dual 10's. You can then play with the port length to suit your ears.

I run a single DVC 12" Image Dynamics Q sub (sealed at .88 cu.ft.) and does the job.

I use a set of Bazooka EL10's in a individual sealed box at .62 cu each and they hit HARD with only 500w a piece. I personally like 10's for the responsive nature and I like sealed for the quality and the deep sound. Though in the past I have built a dual 10 and 12 box and the owner was a idiot and cranked it to show off while in the car and started bleeding through the ears and nose. It was loud and did what you want but there is a difference in left/right bass and you should have matching speakers to compliment each other instead of different sound ranges.

The left/right bass was something I didn't think about. Thanks

Because waves get longer as you move down the frequency range, stereo, ie "left and right" becomes less detectable. By the time you get to what we consider bass, there is virtually no difference.

That being said:

Covering the same frequency range with different speaker sizes produces a muddy sound. For that matter, covering the same frequency range with different speaker BRANDS can do the same. The reason it produces muddy sound is that physically different speakers, although reproducing the same frequency, produce slightly different sound waves in terms of time shift.

In theory you could make this work but I would recommend using 10's and 15's or maybe 8's and 12s. The other thing you'll need...and maybe more important...is
kick *** sound processing equipment to shape the frequencies produced by each speaker. This would be extremely time consuming and you would probably always have muddy areas in certain ranges.

Thanks for the explanation srs. So what should I do? The only reason I wanted to do 2 different size subs was because the 10's I have in my other car are ok but they miss out on the real low freqs which, in some songs, are a pretty significant thing. The 12's my friend has in his car make your head feel like its going to explode, but they don't get the highs that the 10's do. Can I compensate for that range that the 10's hit with a normal speaker that would fit in the sail panel hole? Any rough idea of what frequency range I'd be looking for if I got 12's to accomplish the sound I'm looking for?

Mike,

Forst...start with good quality equipment and make sure your amp has decent xover capabilities or buy a xover that will suit your needs. If you go with 12's in the rear you could put 8" subs in the sail panel (I posted pics of this if you do a search). My IDQ 12" hits all the notes, it is crisp and pounds if need be (I feed my one 12" sub 500w ). Maybe look at some ID max 12" subs.

You could also look at some of car audio forums for advise.

caraudio.com
diycaraudio.com
caraudioforum.com

Project is right on track. Quailty speakers and amps are a MUST. Spending big bucks on subs only to power them with a Pyramid amp is a waste. The opposite is also true. Sealed Boxes are best for sound quality.

Start with that and let us know how it sounds. Hold off on the 8's in the sails until you've got the subs done. If it's midrange you're looking for I really think it's worth the work to squeeze a good set of 6.5's in the dash.

Mike,
There is no rule that says a ported box isn't good for SQ. But it takes proper building and tuning to get them there. A ported box can be tune to be loud a one note wander, or, like what you're looking for, they can be tuned to extend the low frequency response.
Don't mix up the subs. There is going to be over lap in the frequency response at the xover frequency. Which is just going to make things a mess.
There is no response you can't get things flat, low and loud with 10s-12s and some 6.5s comps.
Oh, and your ears can't pick up the right left difference at the low frequencies.

... My experience with pyramid amps are alot different.

My pyramid amps have and will out perform other name brand amps in their class. While your at the name game lets look at lanzar and lightning audio or should I say sony and rockford fosgate. Name means little to nothing unless your comparing XXX to explode and on top of that alot of big name brands over rate their equiptment just like the small names.

All it comes down to is product research and proper matching. There is a reason people comment on products and test and rate them. So what if it is significantly cheaper than the name brand, your mostly paying for that name anyway. Electronics all have the same failure rate and a majority of audio equiptment failure is due to user error.

As some that makes a living repairing electronics, I have to disagree with that. I'm not saying that you don't end up pay for a name some times, but cheep stuff tends to be cheep for a reason. I do agree that in car audio, people spend a LOT of time blowing there stuff up because they don't know what they are doing, or know better and still do it half a.. . The grounds on Pioneer RCA outs comes to mind.

Pop the back off a Pyramid and then pop the back off of a PPI and tell me there's no difference...

Both of my Pyramid amps are in the same good working condition they were in when I bought them more than 3 years ago, more than I can say about the Alpine amp I had in my other car.

I will agree with the Pioneer pre amps going bad on anything they make. I have had several head units go out and a home theater set go bad for that same reason and its always the sub out. When I installed for circuit city I would have to install so much over rated crap that I know they would be back to collect on the warranty (kinda feel bad for them now). I remember when a Kenwood system was all the rage and some of the hottest sh*t you could get, now if you have a full kenwood system you have a sub par system that if you paid retail you got ripped off. Most manufacturers will jack the prices up insane amounts just for a name and if you look at a sony amp and then compare it to the lanzar equivilant you will see a huge fifference in price and no difference in performance.

Read consumer reports and ratings on electronics before you pay and if the good out weights the bad them most likely its a good product. If you go blindly in and buy just on the fact it says some big name then it doesn't mean its a good product maybe better than some but not night and day difference.

Only happens if there is a bad ground in the system. Bad grounds = bad install.

But this is getting off topic.
A good quality 10-12" sub in a good quality box (read: home made, not q-logic) should be able to give you solid lows and pay play up to and blend well with a good set of 6.5 comps. Ported boxes can be tricky if you're looking for flat response. But a well designed and built (read: tuned) ported box can have nice flat response and extend the low frequency range of the sub.

smooth detour but no

Pioneers had bad cold solders and are prone to fail on the pre outs that would go out at anytime for no reason at all.

Thanks for Playing

Before we totally hijack Mike's thread... Mike, have you been talked out of mixing sub sizes? Not that it's impossible to get good sound doing this, but it's not easy.


"Pioneers had bad cold solders and are prone to fail"
Not for years. Open fuses on the RCA grounds, yes. Unless we're talking about units like 10 years old or more. If your Pioneer did have bad solder connections I'll eat crow, but unless its an old unit, its not at all likely. Looking back and reading some posts about grounds from the last year I'd like to go over this. There is need for a refresher on the importance of grounds.

If you build a ported box properly and get a good quality sub, you can have the SQ you are looking for. Digital Designs comes to mind for a good SQ sub. The 1500 series in either an 8", 10", or 12" in the proper box can get very loud, get low, and sound great musically all at the same time. It's all of matter of doing things properly and using the proper equipment.

And as far as Rockford Fosgate is concerned. Their amps may be a little high priced, but you definitely get your moneys worth. Every Fosgate amp I have ever owned has always been very underrated and have always lasted me for the longest time. Plus Rockford has great warranty service and great customer service. They take care of their customers and their products are still some of the best to date.

Oh and if you are worried about your car rattling, pick up some sound deadener and identify where the rattles are. Put the sound deadener on every spot that rattles and then you'll be good to go. Personally for quality I'd go with Second Skin Damplifier Pro, it is a little pricey, but you will only have to use 1 layer of the deadener whereas other brands may require 2+. If you are on a budget, take a look at Raamat, good stuff but you may need 2 layers. Pretty decent price on it too

For sound deadening I like the Dynamat Xtreme. It's a little pricy but is one of the best on the market, works fantastic and is light weight (36 sq.ft. only weighs 21 lbs.).

As for pyramid amps.......

at brand whores that get spanked by a $100 amp!

When I see a Pyramid amp win an IASCA event ........then I'll be impressed.

Lets see if we can get some tech content back before this gets locked. The original poster hasn't been back back in some time. Hopefully because we've talked him out of mixing sub sizes. Mike89, if you have any more questions please post up.

On to the grounds on Pioneer HUs. Bad solder connections on the grounds are not that common on Pioneers, and haven't been for some time. By not that common, i mean like less then 1 in 100 bad RCA grounds are from bad solder connections. What is common is an open ground fuses. Some time back Pioneer moved to a star grounding setup. The first year they did this people where burning up the new smaller ground traces left and right. So they added a small SMT fuse in the ground path so it would open and stop damaging the PCBs. The only way a this fuse can open is there is a difference in the ground potential between the HU and the amp. If the amp and HU grounds are at the same potential there can be no current flow on the RCA ground. You do NOT what ANY current flow on ground. Ground is zero, zero must be zero.