Foo - Who Knows Anything About Subs And Amps!?

Hopping to get a set of subs, enclosure, and an amp this Friday. I'm getting Xplod 12'' subs. An enclosure, and an amp made by Xplod. Apparently its a super deal, I know Xplod makes speakers that are ok, but idk about this amp. Will it work good with the setup? Details of them aren't out on their site yet, but thats the Black Friday ad. Thanks for your interest.
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google "car audio forum" for a real answer. This is a bicycle forum

Car audio sounds terrible. Subwoofers make it worse.

Minesbroken is the master of car audio. Might want to PM him.

Subs are made to transit underwater. They are remarkably quiet and are built to remain very difficult to detect. They are either powered by diesel electric engines, or nuclear power plants. They generally use passive sonar and are capable of deploying divers, torpedoes or missiles. U.S. Navy submarines will not get underway if their ice cream machines are not functioning at 100%

Anything else you wanna know? :p

The Xplod subs are not that great. Yes the deal is eye catching but you are better off getting a decent amp, speaker, and box. If the amp does end up going it wont be hard to replace. Upgrading later would be pretty easy because you already have the enclosure, you would just need 2 12's and an amp that wont under power the subs. Also make sure to use at minimum 4guage wiring for the power.

In the end you get what you pay for. Sometimes you can find quality and value click here http://www.edesignaudio.com/edv2/index.php these folks make great stuff at very fair prices. Do it right the first time and you won`t be sorry.

alrighty thanks everyone

MMmmMMM........Subs......AAAGGGHhhhHH (Homer gargle)

run away from Sony audio, ESPECIALLY car audio. Their amps don't put out nearly the claimed power, they catch on fire, they sound terrible. The speakers are shoddy quality.

One Adire Audio Brahma 10" will outperform both those sony woofers. You can get decent speakers without spending a ton, trust me. Mmats, Kove, Digital Design, Adire, many others

For Amps, I'm not as clear. I used to be into car audio and knew the good amp builders. I think HiFonics was a decent cheap one. Phoenix Gold are decent. Kicker is decent. MTX is supposed to be OK.

Arrrrgh... subs and amps! :rolleyes: Any schmoe can make their car go thumpa-thump with bass. What are you doing for mids & highs?

You know you've got a good system when it will carry an Entwisle bass line loud and not fall a part.

EEWWWW....dude, get a single 10" Kicker Comp VR (8ohm coils, paralell wire them into the box), and run it off a bridged amp of up to 400x1 wattage. Go for a quality amp, like a JL audio, MTX, JBL (I'm a fan of JBL amps, nice price to performance)....and so on.

That 10 has more power than you think...it will rattle a 2004 Sentra something fierce, and sound reasonable while doing it.

If you want sound quality, get some Audax, Dynaudio, or Tang Band woofers and build your dream sound quality box..but I warn you, it's going to be very expensive...

Oh, and get yourself a set of components for the front and a decent amp (I got for no less than 1/2 the wattage of the sub, and no more than equal wattage). I'm a fan of Cerwin-Vega components myself....I used to use what was known as the "stealth" series in my old SQ Mustang installation.

What no one has touched on yet is that you need to get a box that is designed for your vehicle. You cannot put a truck box in a Camaro and expect it to sound good. The boxes are designed to move a certain amount of air within an enclosed area. If you do not get the correct box, even the most expensive subs will sound like pure ass.

My personal preference is Kenwood.
I've had two kenwood amps, and used a couple kenwood head-units... I've loved them all.
The kenwood amps I've used were both 600s.

What no one has touched on yet is that you need to get a box that is designed for your vehicle. You cannot put a truck box in a Camaro and expect it to sound good. The boxes are designed to move a certain amount of air within an enclosed area. If you do not get the correct box, even the most expensive subs will sound like pure ass.

It's still possible....it's just the sub has to match the box, and the sub/box combo has to match the acoustic properties of the car. I've used a single 8" truck box in my old Mustang hatch with fantastic results (the box was laying on it's back, bottom of the box was facing the taillights...box was hardmounted to the chassis using steel brackets).

For a trunk install, a 10" is enough, for a hatch, two 8s or a single strong 8 is enough (Tang-Band makes some sick 75wrms 6x9 subwoofers that can fit in really strange places)

For a van, move to two 10s or two 12s....that's as big as anyone needs to go anymore, period. Anything beyond that is just to brag about how loud it gets.

What no one has touched on yet is that you need to get a box that is designed for your vehicle. You cannot put a truck box in a Camaro and expect it to sound good. The boxes are designed to move a certain amount of air within an enclosed area. If you do not get the correct box, even the most expensive subs will sound like pure ass.


+1 - it really depends on what you're looking for - if you're after a cheap, quick fix to get some more thump the deal is ok. From the picture, not sure if that box has the optimal space for two 12's - but I can't say for the real dimensions. I'm guessing that the amp is a 2-channel amp to drive just the subs? Whta kind of speakers are you currently running? It'd be helpful to share what kind of sound/improvements you are looking for, and possibly what type of music you tend to listen to.

I ran two 12's (Image Dynamics) in a custom enclosure ported through the center armrest which was set up for pure SPL. After a year, SQ was more important, and ended up redoing it to one 12" (Planet Audio) in a custom sealed enclosure in the spare tire well -

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