I've never burned an amp in my life. If you keep it below clipping amps should not fail. Warranty replacement is a big issue, it's a huge cost and manufacturers know very well their products are going to be abused.
It sucks that you had bad luck but I'd bet your friend was probably seriously abusing it when you weren't looking. Every time I lend out car audio gear it always comes back broken so I don't do that anymore. Some people don't listen for distortion and push the equipment way too hard. These people will blow up anything regardless of brand name.
I'd be willing to bet the Phoenix Gold amp was just simply a more powerful amp than the cheap ones, regardless of the published power rating, and the amp is no longer the weakest link in his chain.
If you completely ignore the published power rating and compare amps on different criteria to determine how much power they likely put out you'll have better luck choosing an amp for a particular job.
It sucks that you had bad luck but I'd bet your friend was probably seriously abusing it when you weren't looking. Every time I lend out car audio gear it always comes back broken so I don't do that anymore. Some people don't listen for distortion and push the equipment way too hard. These people will blow up anything regardless of brand name.
I'd be willing to bet the Phoenix Gold amp was just simply a more powerful amp than the cheap ones, regardless of the published power rating, and the amp is no longer the weakest link in his chain.
If you completely ignore the published power rating and compare amps on different criteria to determine how much power they likely put out you'll have better luck choosing an amp for a particular job.
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That's one of the reasons I like amplifiers that come with a "birth certificate" that shows that amplifier's individual test results.
Is the OP still around? Curious to know if any decisions have been made, I'm interested to see what a big sub will do out in open water
Gonna throw a wrench in here during this awesome debating...
The last thing I would do is attract attention (120db) to myself on a lake if I was the captain drinking on a vessel with other passengers. Not sure of the particulars (vessel is anchored up/keys out/private lake) but be sure to investigate this and weigh the risks.
The last thing I would do is attract attention (120db) to myself on a lake if I was the captain drinking on a vessel with other passengers. Not sure of the particulars (vessel is anchored up/keys out/private lake) but be sure to investigate this and weigh the risks.
i could share anecdotes about sub builds for boats or talk about live sound jobs at beach bashes but those would be of little use to the OP.
the only thing i can say is that in both cases i have no doubts that water's characteristics do not provide conditions for what most people would consider good/reasonable bass performance.
the only thing i can say is that in both cases i have no doubts that water's characteristics do not provide conditions for what most people would consider good/reasonable bass performance.
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That's one of the reasons I like amplifiers that come with a "birth certificate" that shows that amplifier's individual test results.
Is the OP still around? Curious to know if any decisions have been made, I'm interested to see what a big sub will do out in open water
That isn't free, it's built into the price. And if you are talking about CEA testing, it's pretty useless as it's only verified at 4 ohms, for the other impedance ratings you can still put whatever number you like on the box.
I'd much rather NOT have the CEA testing, not pay for it by having it built into the price, and see 3rd party testing. Or just make decisions based on the things you can actually see, like the fuse and the amp class. Sometimes you can even find info on voltage rails and power supply capacitance too.
I'm not sure if it's referred to as CEA or not, but here's an example of what I mean. Every one of these that I've seen shows power at whatever the lowest impedance the manual says is safe. This old PG is only rated to 4 ohms, so that's what they test it at.
As far as being baked into the price, I'm sure it is...although I'm not sure how much extra it costs for an employee to flop it on the bench and press a button before sticking it in the box.
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Fuse rating can be a tricky thing, while it definitely can prove what an amp is not capable of doing (50 amp fuse on a "2000 watt" rated amp), it can't always prove what an amp IS capable of doing. Some manufactures have caught on to the fact that people look at fuse rating as as bit of a truth detector and have begun to take advantage of that. I saw one example of where a manufacturer had two fuses on the back of the amp, but only one was internally connected to anything!!
I spend quite a bit of time on the SMD forum and some of you guys are not quite judging that community fairly. While it certainly has it share of 18 year old ignorant morons it also has a number of people who are MUCH more knowledgeable than some of you are giving them credit for.
Like what someone else said in the thread (can't remember who), those guys on SMD know their electrical systems pretty well and can tell you what gear "walks the walk" and what gear just "talks the talk". They are getting some pretty sophisticated tools for testing amplifiers.
Here is an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-LlsB8wZwc
Oh and for an example of just how bad some of these budget (junk) amps are, take a look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dKxCtizf7w
I'll agree with the comment someone else made, if you can buy it at Wal-Mart, you don't want it (and for a number of reasons).
Oh hey, there's the 750 D1.
It was me that said the stuff about SMD and wal mart. The problem with wal mart I've found is that in order to offer the lowest price they often make demands of companies to supply items cheaper, which leads to a number of them actually producing a different product that's destined only for wal mart shelves, as someone once told me at a car audio shop. I had jokingly asked him if he'd price match wal mart on a head unit....he told me he would, if I could find that unit on their shelves. While I thought I had found it, the manufacturer part number was off by a couple of digits, despite being exactly the same packaging...with a $20 lower price tag.
And yes, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some el-cheapo amps have dummy fuses. Some of them are so cheezy that they're bordering on white-van scam. I remember seeing one of those one time where they'd just glued a vacuum tube behind a piece of plexi and lit it up with an led.
Anyways.
Absolutely, I'm sure some of the best and brightest are there. But unless you spend quite a bit of time and learning who is who, you just don't know.
If there's one thing they are really good at it's wiring up a car into a mobile power plant. But I don't trust the recommendations on box design or audio products (amps and drivers) too much.
Well, when it comes to their recommendations, you have to consider what your goals are. If you are looking to get loud (like the OP is) I think their recomendations on amps is probably pretty good. Driver recomendations get to be a little more questionable. They certainly know what will hold up to power, but as far as what sounds good....
When its comes to box design, they cause me a lot of frustration. Most of the SMD community has little concern for any sound quality. I do my best to try to point folks there in the right direction, but I can only do so much
Is the OP still around? Curious to know if any decisions have been made, I'm interested to see what a big sub will do out in open water
Yes, still around! No firm decisions yet but the plan is to load up the old BFM T-39 this weekend and see how it sounds. Will compare that against the two 12" ported kickers I happen to have lying around in enclosures. Will let you guys know how it goes.
How did the frequency analysis and high pass testing go?
About 20 posts back I dumped a bunch of links to car audio youtube videos, this one isn't in a car but it shows the levitation principle that I was talking about where people levitate pop cans in their car windows (like a hair trick but with a can).
Somebody just posted this on avsforum and it's really really funny and only 30 seconds, so watch it. Or don't, I'm not your boss.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GYWsQcmYWiI
About 20 posts back I dumped a bunch of links to car audio youtube videos, this one isn't in a car but it shows the levitation principle that I was talking about where people levitate pop cans in their car windows (like a hair trick but with a can).
Somebody just posted this on avsforum and it's really really funny and only 30 seconds, so watch it. Or don't, I'm not your boss.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GYWsQcmYWiI
UPDATE:
Hi All -
Thanks again for all of the advice. We've been using the boat and trying a few things out so I wanted to provide an update and see what additional suggestions you have.
What sounded best: I had previously built a BFM T-39 so i loaded that on the boat in the chosen location and it sounded great! The only problem is that it's way too tall to live there on an ongoing basis. It's actually is higher than the back of the captain's chair to the WAF is zero.
Other tries: I had two kicker CVR-12's which are in separate ported boxes so I've loaded those on as well. While they sounded good the T-39 was noticeably louder and sounded better.
Now What??? I was thinking an SS-15 but at 22" wide it's 2" too wide. There's no way I can compromise as it creates too narrow an opening to access the back of the boat. The space I have to work with is a maximum of 20" wide on the mouth or the mounting location of the woofer, a height of 30" and a depth of up to 30" or so.
What say you experts of low frequency? I really did want to do some sort of horn but must keep it 20" wide or less. I'm also open to bass reflex but not interested in sealed as I need the extra db's. As a reminder, this is primarily to get the girls booty's shaking so it's going to be playing rap, dance music, etc.
Thanks in advance for the enlightenment - I'm ready to make sawdust.
Hi All -
Thanks again for all of the advice. We've been using the boat and trying a few things out so I wanted to provide an update and see what additional suggestions you have.
What sounded best: I had previously built a BFM T-39 so i loaded that on the boat in the chosen location and it sounded great! The only problem is that it's way too tall to live there on an ongoing basis. It's actually is higher than the back of the captain's chair to the WAF is zero.
Other tries: I had two kicker CVR-12's which are in separate ported boxes so I've loaded those on as well. While they sounded good the T-39 was noticeably louder and sounded better.
Now What??? I was thinking an SS-15 but at 22" wide it's 2" too wide. There's no way I can compromise as it creates too narrow an opening to access the back of the boat. The space I have to work with is a maximum of 20" wide on the mouth or the mounting location of the woofer, a height of 30" and a depth of up to 30" or so.
What say you experts of low frequency? I really did want to do some sort of horn but must keep it 20" wide or less. I'm also open to bass reflex but not interested in sealed as I need the extra db's. As a reminder, this is primarily to get the girls booty's shaking so it's going to be playing rap, dance music, etc.
Thanks in advance for the enlightenment - I'm ready to make sawdust.
That's around 10.5 cu.ft. of space, which should be more than enough for TH.
Given the 30"x30" dimension, perhaps something like a TH with an MTH-30 type fold, or even one with a THAM-type fold might work. The MTH-30 type fold will put the mouth at one end of the enclosure, while the THAM-type fold will place it a bit towards the center.
Here's something to start with - a TH with an MTH-30 type fold that uses Dayton Audio's PA385 15" driver. Don't go build this, LOL. Consider it as a starting point for ideas. This box is actually big enough to just squeeze an 18" driver in there - the trick is to find one with the correct combination of parameters to work if you want to try that.
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You can move the mouth to the side of the enclosure without any significant change in output, if you keep it the same CSA.
I suggest copying the parameters to HornResp and then try using different drivers, or modifying the parameters a bit, to get closer to what you'd like to achieve. The response curve of this "off the top of my head" design also suggests that it may be possible to achieve similar results in a slightly smaller box.
Thanks Brian -
I spent a couple of hours today looking at tutorials on HornResp and I'm afraid I won't be able to master it in the near future. Do you or any of the other guys here design "for a fee" (read paypal money so you can enjoy the beverages of your choice on me)? Given the learning curve and my limited use of the skills, getting someone else to design something may make more sense.
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