F-Body Ideas - Camaro and Firebird - Page 16

turbocad6 · 10-27-2006, 03:47 PM

oversized helps the bottom end, but makes it a bit boomy & less crisp & quick...

the real problem is, you., like me, want it all... you want to be able to listen to a symphony & have sound acurate, but then you want to listen to the beasty boys & knock down that building over there

in the end it's all a trade-off.... there is no one perfect box....

I would strongly advise you getting the convertable box idea out of your head, especially if your on a budget.... I'd rather see you buy a better amp maybe... if anyone could build a good convertable box, I know I could, & as much as the idea is very apealing, I wouldn't even tackle that again for myself

JasonWW · 10-27-2006, 03:55 PM

Better amp? Come on. I've got 1998 vintage Rockford 225.2's. These babies are all about SQ and do 600w all day. Very fast and accurate amps, that's why I have one on my mids and tweets as well.

Only tricky thing is wiring one amp per voice coil. It's easy enough to bridge the amp and then wire it, but I need to use a VOM to make sure all the gains are set equal. That should be easy, but every time I want to adjust the gains I have to do all 4 with the VOM.

Hopefully I'll get them just right and leave them there.

That's going to be big power, I bet my lights are going to dim for sure.

turbocad6 · 10-27-2006, 05:01 PM

I ment better for the application, IE: one large chanel to run the whole sub..., & not saying you need to, but if you were going to spend on a convertable experiment I'd rather see... oh well, you get my meaning

you know that it's slightly less than ideal running one sub on multiple channels... that's my issue as well, & part of the reason I consider scrapping the mcintosh

JasonWW · 10-27-2006, 05:23 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by turbocad6

I ment better for the application, IE: one large chanel to run the whole sub..., & not saying you need to, but if you were going to spend on a convertable experiment I'd rather see... oh well, you get my meaning

you know that it's slightly less than ideal running one sub on multiple channels... that's my issue as well, & part of the reason I consider scrapping the mcintosh

I see what you mean. I bid on a Rockford 500.2 a while back and had to stop at around $276 as the price kept going up and up. That bad boy does about 1400w 4 ohm mono. In hindsight I could have probably sold 2 of my 225.2's for about $300 and gotten it. If I see another or a 1100a2 I may try and get it, but for now it seems I'll stick with what I have.

I found this on a ebay page about the MC4000M:

Quote:

Very good working Mc Intosh MC4000M, the king of Amplifiers. Conservatively rated at 100x4 and 300x2 into 4 ohms, this beast is capable of 231 x 4 and 547 x 2 into 2 ohms RMS, thats over 2000 watts RMS of CLEAN MAC power! While it does have a few blemishes, it works perfectly. This is a rare amp and is hard to find.

Do you think it really does 547x2@2 ohms? That's pretty healthy. 2 12's or 2 15's may work well in your application. I wonder what the 12" Eclipse LMT subs sound like?

turbocad6 · 10-27-2006, 06:01 PM

I've spoke to an engineer from mcintosh, & according to him, the mc4000m shouldn't be bridged on the 2 large channels.... the amp is not thermally designed for it... the newer ones are though.... it may work, but not within design perameters.... also, when an amp is bridged, the sound quality does go down, don't know if your aware of that... maybe not too big of a deal with subs, but it can actually be noticable at times...

there are 2 trains of thought when it comes to performance in general... you can have something strong & reliable, & have it last & last even when beating it... then, theres what's called "pushing it", which is where you start to push towards the jagged edge... yeah, that's were the real performance max lies, but that also means that at some point it can, & sometimes does goes boom....

this aplies to many things, not just audio, but performance in general.... I don't like bridging stuff unless your talking about cheater amps that are like 1/2 ohm stable.... then I'd have no problem pushing 2 ohms... I like to be relatively safe, because I am hard on stuff & I hate breaking stuff...

I ran my caddy for a few years at the track... always drove it down & always drove it back.... ran a best of 12.90's back then..... everyone wanted me to push it, just an extra 2lb's of boost they would say... but... I always limited myself to what I knew was safe & reliable...I never pushed it past 20psi... no matter how tempting it was..... so while they were swapping out engines & redoing blown headgaskets, I was chilling with a rock solid reliable piece that I know I had more fun with than if I was pushing the jagged edge.....

now in competition, that's different, in competition the guy who wins is usually the guy who can come closest to the line without crossing it..... for a daily driver, I see no need to push the limit.... I'm not a big fan of bridging

JasonWW · 10-27-2006, 10:27 PM

Yes, I'm aware of the potential sound differences by bridging amps, but it's really amp dependant. If your source says your particular model amp shouldn't be bridged, then I'd stick with that. The 225.2 are actually stable below 2 ohms with adequate cooling for around 900 watts, but I don't want to push them that hard.

Have you considered a 3ohm load? The JBL GTi's are dual 6 ohm. One of the TC Sounds LMT's are single 3 ohm, but they really need power to push them so it may not be the best choice. You could run the JBL with one channel per voice coil for about 420 watts per channel, added up that's over 800 watts to the sub. If I got one it would drop my total 1200 watts down to about 900, which is also pretty good. Something to think about.

JasonWW · 10-28-2006, 10:39 AM

OK guys, here is the latest plan based on a JBL 15" GTi sub in a sealed 2.5-3 cu ft box. I'm waiting to hear back about what size would be best, but I think I'm close. How to finish the fiberglass box has been bugging me as I've thought about carpet, vinyl, vinyl over thin foam, etc... I think I should just make it, get it thick enough, cure the fiberglass, add bondo to smooth it out as much as I can and then take it to a body shop and have it professionally painted gloss black to match the car. I have the dark gray charcoal interior so it should look great in there. What do you guys think of that?

redls1bird · 10-28-2006, 02:50 PM

It looks kinda cartoonish being so big. Also, aren't you afraid of theft with that gigantic speaker just chilling under that big display glass? Even if they cant see it, they are going to hear you coming... Overall though, the design looks good with the forward facing amp with the glass and all.

JasonWW · 10-28-2006, 03:51 PM

A lot of cool looking things seem cartoonish. The Alpine Demo cars for instance. http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Alpine+demo+car
I think this would be pretty impressive looking. Also, seeing as how I've never seen an install like this it should be memorable for those that see it.

As far as theft, I'm not worried about it. Plus a black box with the black JBL cone would be very difficult to see through a dark tinted back window. Now if I went with the Rockford T1 sub with the shiny polished aluminum cone it may be more noticable, but I don't let people around my car nor do I show it off. Any location where the security is out of my hands I make sure and not attract attention such as by blasting the stereo right before I park someplace. That's just not smart at all.

At work (night time) it is in a controlled situation and at home (daytime) it is always watched. Hell, we don't even lock our cars around here. I do, but I'm a little paranoid. So with any luck I'll be OK.

Also keep in mind that you can't really steal the parts out of the car. The big thing I'm worried about is a total theft of the car. With lots of time and the right tools the stereo parts can be removed. The worst thing would be a tow truck could swoop in and pick my car up and hual ***. That's why I always back in the driveway. The back tires are locked, but they can bust the window if they think about it and take the brake off and take it out of gear. At this point you want to use the lojack and hope the cops can locate it. As far as someone breaking into my car at home or work, the only thing I can recommend to a theif would be to wear a bullet proof vest. He'll need it.

So technically I am worried about theft, but I have my bases covered to the point that I'm cool with this type of install.

JasonWW · 10-29-2006, 06:16 PM

I was searching fiberglass enclosures and ran across a box that is somewhat similar to what I have planned. It's in the back of a 350z and is only using a single 12, so it's not that draw dropping, but it does look good with all the paint work finished.

turbocad6 · 10-29-2006, 06:36 PM

I think that can look real sweet, & work great, & still give you the storage well... sounds like a plan to me

JasonWW · 10-29-2006, 06:53 PM

Yep, and 5 extra dB for when I want to crank it.

It was suggested I make a plug of the top curvy part of the box, then a mold and then pop the final product out of the mold and epoxy it to the base. This sounds pretty good to me and reduces all the final sanding of a "stretched fleece" type box (which I don't like the shape of).

turbocad6 · 10-29-2006, 07:19 PM

that's a good idea I guess if you want to be able to duplicate the box, but sounds like more work to me for a one off piece I think...

I hate to do fiberglass work..., part of the reason I keep putting off my box...

JasonWW · 10-29-2006, 07:32 PM

I doubt anyone would want a copy of this enclosure so I'm assuming it will be a one-off design. Most folks won't want to lose the back seat or run a 15 in the back. Now if I shortened the front so the back seat still fits, decreased the air space to 1.5 cu ft and made the speaker opening a 12" then someone may want to buy one.

I seem to have a bad case of wanting to do things the hard way.

I'm going to do a lot of searching online to find the best products and best techniques to make this thing just so I don't end up ankle deep in bondo dust. I will more than likely get it as close to finished as I can, but let a body shop do the final smoothing out and all the paint work.

I have thought about another color. Maybe a dark red or blue or even a carbon fiber look finish. Oh, oh! I forgot about a faux wood grain finish. Those can look awesome. Check out the painted airplane below.

redls1bird · 10-29-2006, 07:42 PM

Yeah, the design looks great! Obviously youre worried about theft but i guess we all know the cold hard truth. If they want it, theyre gonna get it. Besides that, i think its gonna work out great. My buddy and I put a single 15 in an Eagle talon facing the rear hatch glass and it sounded great. We didnt have near the math in it that you do, but it was a vast improvement over his previous twelve facing directly at the rear bumper...