Car Subs.......

[Boscoe]

Personally I keep away from anything car audio, just a rule of thumb for me! Partly because it's very cheap (most of it) and just by judging from my friends 12" car sub they sound awful too! It sounded as if a piece of plastic was moving quickly although you had something stuck in the wheel of your car more than good bass! I mean have a look at THIS video (especially want some feedback on this!) it disgusts me how it sounds!

Anyway one more thing annoys me about car audio while having a look through ebay for some older drivers for another friend I came across a 12" car sub for £35 just out of interest and this was part of the description! It was advising amplifier power!

Minimum 150w RMS is advised - many people do not realise underpowering a speaker will kill it very quickly!
It will run very very happily on 250w RMS and will take up to 400w RMS without problem.

WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE THINKING??!

Okay my rant over is there actually any good cheap car audio? What do you think to this?

[Bill poster]

Elemental Designs do some great subwoofers, very light cones. Their new e3.6 and e3.8 are amazing in a car or home sub. The smaller driver is a bargain, hits like a 10" but is very tight and musical.

http://www.edesignaudio.com/product_...products_id=33

Also the 10" e5.10 in a sealed- it only needs 20 litres f3 46 hz f6 35 very smooth roll off

http://www.edesignaudio.com/product_...roducts_id=818

[AndrewT]

No wonder the SPL/W is down around 83 to 85dB/W@1m.
The weight of the 6inch cone is 50g. That's about 5times what most drivers of this size are.
The 8inch cone is so light they don't tell us.

[chris661]

It could well be better to simply buy something made for home use, then play with eq if there's too much cabin gain for it. It's easy to reduce output, but filling in takes lots of power.
The drivers in the video were almost certainly hitting the stops, which would explain the sound.

The drivers themselves seem to follow some kind of vicious cycle...
You give the cone an interesting pattern (see Kicker, etc), which increases the moving mass (loses efficiency). To keep all this mass under some form of control, they stiffen up the suspension (ever tried to push one in?). This also loses efficiency.
Then they realise the efficiency has all but gone, so they give it a huge motor, with a high power voice coil with lots of vents... Then hope for the best. Usually, people will feed it with a large switching amplifier, and call it good.

When I get a car (now there's a terrifying thought), I plan to get a couple of these MCM Audio Select 8'' Dual Voice Coil Woofer | 55-1455 (551455) | MCM Audio Select , give each one a sealed box and ~100w, and call that good... Lighter cone, softer suspension, higher efficiency.
If I ever get it done, I might come and see what you think

Chris

[Brian Steele]

Originally Posted by Boscoe

Personally I keep away from anything car audio, just a rule of thumb for me! Partly because it's very cheap (most of it) and just by judging from my friends 12" car sub they sound awful too! It sounded as if a piece of plastic was moving quickly although you had something stuck in the wheel of your car more than good bass! I mean have a look at THIS video (especially want some feedback on this!) it disgusts me how it sounds!

You can't and shouldn't judge the sound quality of a subwoofer from a youtube video. Lots of times with those videos, the output from the subwoofer is so high that the audio input for the video recorder is overloaded, and the result is distorted sound.

That's not to say that that many car audio subwoofers sound bad. I'd agree with that, and I think it all has to do with the target audience. And it seems to be getting worse - just follow some of the trends over the years for example - Qts is getting higher and higher and it's not surprising to see manufacturers recommending vented boxes where driver Qts is 0.6" - all in an attempt to get a huge "bump" within the sub's passband.

With most audio stuff, the general rule is: good things aren't cheap - cheap things usually aren't good. Car audio is no different.

Some drivers I suggest looking into for car audio subs:

1. Dayton HO series - feedback on them has been excellent, and cost is under $150 per driver. The ONLY reason why I've avoided buying one is that I know that, based on where I usually locate the subs, the nice black finish on the aluminium cone is going to get scraped up and it's going to look ratty after awhile.

2. CSS Audio Trio12 - my top choice for a replacement sub at the moment (if my Infinities ever give up, or I grow tired of them). Great specs, great reviews.

3. SSA Audio ICON series - lots of good specs for the price, and they hand-build and test each one before shipping. My second choice at the moment (no Klippel data available)

4. Exodus Audio Shiva-X - I've had a good long listen to these - bludy AWESOME in-vehicle. Do you want to FEEL down to 5 Hz? These will do it for you, easily. Just a bit out of my price bracket though, but if you can afford them, go for them.

As for eD, I unfortunately cannot recommend them - the only driver I purchased from them (13Kv2-D4)was waaayyyy out of spec, and another one I measured (13Ov2-D4) was quite a bit off published specs as well. Others have given them good reviews though, and the prices of their drivers are pretty good, so you may be lucky going with them.

JBL and by extension Infinity drivers are usually pretty good as well. I'm a little disappointed in my Infinity 122.7Ws though - Neo mag design with a tough-as-nails cone (nice!), but a little more BL would have made an ok driver into a great one. The 122.7W actually has specs that would make it a pretty good home audio sub. Infinity dropped using Neo for the next generation of subs, so I quickly lost interest in their offerings.

[Bill poster]

Originally Posted by AndrewT

No wonder the SPL/W is down around 83 to 85dB/W@1m.
The weight of the 6inch cone is 50g. That's about 5times what most drivers of this size are.
The 8inch cone is so light they don't tell us.

Ah ok, would love to know of a 6.5 inch 200 watt subwoofer with a moving mass of 10 grams, maybe you cd tell me

[Boscoe]

Okay thanks, but a good driver is a good driver? So is there a difference between good car audio and good home audio?

[Trevor White]

Originally Posted by Boscoe

Personally I keep away from anything car audio, just a rule of thumb for me! Partly because it's very cheap (most of it) and just by judging from my friends 12" car sub they sound awful too! It sounded as if a piece of plastic was moving quickly although you had something stuck in the wheel of your car more than good bass! I mean have a look at THIS video (especially want some feedback on this!) it disgusts me how it sounds!

Anyway one more thing annoys me about car audio while having a look through ebay for some older drivers for another friend I came across a 12" car sub for £35 just out of interest and this was part of the description! It was advising amplifier power!



WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE THINKING??!

Okay my rant over is there actually any good cheap car audio? What do you think to this?

Most of those youtube car audio videos are no good because the microphone and/or mic preamp overloads on loud bass passages

[AndrewT]

Originally Posted by Bill poster

know of a 6.5 inch 200 watt subwoofer with a moving mass of 10 grams,

I suspect such a driver/speaker does not exist.

[kvholio]

A 6.5 inch woofer with a moving mass of 10 grams doesn't need 200 watts
to drive it to maximum excursion at lf, assuming it is placed in a matching enclosure.
The benefit of increasing moving mass and stiffening the suspension
is that you can get bass from a relatively small enclosure.
Major drawback is that you loose efficiency.