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Sub/Amp Package

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That amp is incredibly weak as well as the subs.
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Design and efficiency are key to output. I remember a speaker system that was designed for concert level volumes in a average family room with 10 watts. There was a guy in the 80's who had midbass hitting 130db's with a couple hundred watts.

Personally, the subwoofer speaker is typically limited from one to two octaves of music. But for some reason that's where EVERYBODY puts their money. Weird. Your mid typically plays 5 or 6 octaves of music. Tweeter is two or three maybe? Also, your mid determines the "sound" or characteristics of your subwoofer too. I'd say get two or three cheap subs with low excursion and linear response should be on par with a nicer sub.
 
1800collect is right. You can get alot of noise from very little power, but its mostly to do with the box more than anything. Sundown are very good subs as well but there are rarely as cheap as the RE's from the prices that i have seen. I personally would spend the 100 or so dollars on a good prefab box like i mentioned earlier. As for those Rockford P1's, please yet again stay away from these. I've heard many horror stories and I've owned a set of two tens. On a cold day the cones of these subs will crack on you not to mention in general how bad they are on sound quality for price.

Remember depending on your music theres 3 main choices of box you can do.

Theres sealed which will play the most notes and have punchy bass. These usually have pretty good output but if you want bass, i mean BASS i'd go for something a little more powerful.

Theres ported or vented enclosures which will half some punchy bass with a longer roll off on the notes but it also will play a few less notes than the sealed. This is my favorite and is the one i would choose since they are the midrange between the other two, plus if you have to you can build one yourself. Just make sure to choose slot ports over round ports. Round ports are easy to do but they don't sound near as good.

The last choice is bandpass and there are multiple types of bandpass such as 4th order 5th order 6th order and so on depending on the number of subs and interior boxes. Bandpass box designs are best chosen for competitions. They offer a lot more power but also have a much more narrow set of notes unless you go for one of the lower orders like a 4th order box. Which is why the 4th order is the most common prefabricated bandpass enclosure.
 
Rockford P series are JUNK, the only good Rockford subs out there IMO are the T series, which is what i have, 2 10" T2's and they are louder and sound clearer than my old Kicker CVX 12's
 
I was just recommending higher gauge as a safety. can't run a good system on small wire, and that chart is for "Minimum." as for sony amps, can't agree more. JUNK.

i800, i loved polk. Had their db212 setup (two db 124's in a ported box) and it hit pretty stinkin' hard. Much better than the comp's that's for sure. We also picked out some polk speakers when we were finishing our basement.
 
Thanks for all the replies everyone. It's a lot to take into consideration and a lot of language I don't understand lol.

I'll have to keep doing some more research on the things talked about.
 


Polk is a great audio company for what you get. However i would still pick the RE's are Sundown over polk any day. I work at best buy and we sell alot of polk equipment. We sell the DXi series which is the step above the DB. Those subs are pretty good for a retail sub, but the RE would still put them to shame.

I love polk and as an attest to that for my 2000 dollar audio build im using all Polk speakers and polk amps for my speaker amps. But for subs im going RE and MTX for the amplifier.

ZR1 vette yea bigger wire is better, but you cant always believe what Crutchfield says, ill agree that they are the top online car audio dealer but not all they say is right. The guys who i have had the opportunity to work with at audio shops in my town have won the world championships in db drag and many magazine competitions. So im going to trust what i have learned from them over crutchfield. Crutchfield doesnt even offer a kit for what i am doing and they dont offer the right kits for what you 'need' they offer what they want to sell. Its a business, remember that
 
Honestly, only sub on that list i've experienced is the PS3. I have one in my truck right now, very crisp, not too loud, but it's a slim which is not what you need. I'd wait for i800 or death to chime in with their experience. That sale ends on the 13th.
 


Original solobarics from the 90's are win from everything I hear. I'd say give it a shot. Two subs in a vehicle are always better than one ;)

edit: in case this is construed the wrong way...these are not anything like the original solobarics. I saw them in person.
 
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Thanks 1800.

I think I'm still going to do a little shopping around and more research yet and make sure I'm happy with everything I buy.
 


What sort of money are we talking.

Without a real budget I can't make any suggestions.

So far it just seems like budget subs and budget SPL subs.

What are you looking for?

Loud?

Sound good?

and by budget i want a real dollar amount on how much you'll spend on this.

Not "oh whatever is enough to get something decent" because that means you dont know what your budget is....

Try and buy a porsche that way :D
 
Matt he already posted how much he was willing to spend on the first page. His budget is 300 bucks. Im happy other people are supporting the RE audio stuff. Its never let me down, im on my third RE audio subwoofer not because the previous ones were weak or broken but because the step up is even better still. Hell i still have my old ones and im keeping em just incase i need em. I can say depending on if your going for SQ over power you might want to get one RE SRx 10 instead of 2 RE REx 10,s the SR should be able to handle close to the same power as the two RE's but its gonna have alot better sound quality. The SR is there sound quality subwoofer in there lower model line up.

RE Audio SRX10 10" Dual 4 ohm Car Subwoofer

It says it handles 300 watts rms, but i know it handles more because im running over 400 rms watts through it on a daily basis and it never broke down
 
deathjunior said:
Matt he already posted how much he was willing to spend on the first page. His budget is 300 bucks. Im happy other people are supporting the RE audio stuff. Its never let me down, im on my third RE audio subwoofer not because the previous ones were weak or broken but because the step up is even better still. Hell i still have my old ones and im keeping em just incase i need em. I can say depending on if your going for SQ over power you might want to get one RE SRx 10 instead of 2 RE REx 10,s the SR should be able to handle close to the same power as the two RE's but its gonna have alot better sound quality. The SR is there sound quality subwoofer in there lower model line up.

RE Audio SRX10 10" Dual 4 ohm Car Subwoofer

It says it handles 300 watts rms, but i know it handles more because im running over 400 rms watts through it on a daily basis and it never broke down
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First, majority of all listeners can obtain ~20% distortion levels in their subs before they realize "quality" is missing. Second, the defining factor for "bass" is characterized by your mid-bass response. Although fundamentals might start with the sub, the transients and shaping take place in the mids and even tweeters.

Power is also subjective. I could bridge my a/d/s/ components on a SAX-100.4 and they could handle the power without issues. However, as soon as I dropped my filter below below 80hz I had problems although natural roll off was fine at lower volumes. Since music is so dynamic I'm not a big fan of "rms watts" since it's not even a true variable that defines an amp. "RMS watts" only exists in the car audio world/marketing. The reality is that your speakers probably have a hard time with any constant sine wave and could probably burn up with 25 watts even. Playback is all about tuning and intelligent design!!!
 
400 watts RMS means at least 395 watts of thermal energy have to be dispersed by the sub.

Thanks death for pointing out my blindness. :D

$300 isn't much at all for a modern sub if you have to buy an amp to power it as well.

These cheap clearout subs you find are prolly gonna be the best bet.

$300 for just the sub works though.
 
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