+87

Thanks you saved me a ton of typing. Ya' all better turn in your engineering degrees 'cause you got ripped off!

I would suggest that you select your box first, sub-woofer second, and amplifier last.

There are darn few boxes that will fit in the Z. I went with a Zenclosure and couldn't be happier. The box sets the interior physical volume in which the sub-woofer will fit. I can't find an engineering measurement for "hits hard" or "thumps" but do have the Thiel-Small parameters which the sub-woofer's manufactures provide to toss into a formula which will model your response curve.

With great power comes great I^2R losses ... meaning with the car's low voltage its easier to drive a lower impedance subwoofer ... however ... too low and it's harder for the amplifier to control and you lose transient response. 2 or 4 ohms is a pretty good compromise.

I use to work at a custom car stereo place and I replaced more speakers blown by underpowered amplifiers than over powered ones by a large factor. With an under power amp the owner is going to push the thing into clipping because people who buy underpowered amplifiers can't hear clipping for some unknown reason.

Driving an amplifier into clipping will blow a speaker way before running an extra 50 or 100 watts worth of clean power will. Those high wattage peaks - in music (not rap) last only small slices of time. I run a 720 watt amplifier into my VMPS woofer (200w) at home and even on the loudest wall shaking movies it rarely hits 100 watts.

Don't grossly overpower your sub-woofer, say a 50 watt speaker driven with 400 watts but if you're even half-way sane (and many people don't approach that today) a 300 watt rated speaker will handle a 400 watt amp. If you run the volume at 11 for hours this doesn't apply. If you have critical ears (and most people don't) and pay attention your speaker is going to be complaining way before you over power it.

 

Yes, yes, I've read about this rare and elusive 6 ohm setup before, although I have never seen one in the "real world". Basically, you take the dual 2 ohm voice coils and wire them in parallel for a 1 ohm load. You then take that load and run it in series with itself 6 times, resulting in the 6 ohm load. The wiring can be messy and expensive, but it is well worth it, especially if your amp is only 6 ohm stable!

StreetOC, I agree with all you say but I like to choose the amp first, because amps typically cost more then subs, and the stability of the amp will be required before you can actually buy the subs. So, spec out an amp and find out how low it can safely go, then you can determine the impedence necesarry of the sub.

Who is the moderator of this section? There is more misinformation in this section then I have ever found on any other section / site.

 

I'm leaning towards the Dayton HO 10" after reading on a car audio forum. Just pm'd Zenclosures the specs to see if it will fit in any of their boxes. Does anyone have any experience with this sub?

 

is this post a joke?

 

or you want to save trunk space, print out these pics and take to the local audio shop, they will be able to make one like this. I got this fiberglass box make for $200. Looks much better than anything from Zenclosure... even though a little more expensive, i still got my trunk space and its a clean set up.

 

I'm VERY glad to see you actually looking outside of mainstream brands. You get less performance for your money with big name brands. This is the whole reason many of the audiophiles here won't recommend brands like JL Audio. Not because they aren't good products, but rather you can get a better product for less money invested. But PLEASE NOTE I am not trying to start a bashing thread here, there are already plenty of them around.

The Dayton HO 10" sub is a great sub, especially for the money. The HO would be a fine choice, you would not be disappointed with its performance.

Still my personal opinion would be for a couple dollars more, the CSS has a lower fs and has a considerably higher xmax which should help it move more air than the Dayton HO. And the XBL^2 motor is a monster.

I do still recommend the Rockford amp over the Alpine, if for nothing else it will make your wiring a lot easier with the internal bridging feature. But the Alpine will be a fine choice as well.

@ *ICE*:
That is a very nice looking enclosure.

 

Wow, I love that box. It was actually what I wanted initially but the quote I got was 250 for a local company to build it. Zenclosures has their basic box for 110 shipped on ebay right now so I figured I'd save my money for a better sub/amp.

Street, I'm a little confused about the CSS sub. If I am reading the spec sheet right, it only handles 250W??? That seems really low compared to my two other choices.

But nonetheless, I've got it narrowed down to your CSS SDX10, the Dayton HO, and elemental design's 11kv.2. eD actually has a package price for their sub/amp for 260 so I'm kind of leaning towards that, but still unsure.Need to pick one before tonight so I can order the enclosure at the reduced price. The eD sub actually requires only .6cuft airspace so I need to make up my mind soon so I send the right specs when I order.

 

I was running into a problem finding an amp for the Dayton. It says it takes 600W rms at 4 ohms, and I couldn't find a reasonably priced amp with those specs. Any suggestions?
Should I just quit thinking about it so much and order either the eD combo or the CSS SDX10 with the rockford amp? Someone just tell me which one lol, I'm sick of reading about subs

 

The spec sheet says sealed=250wrms+
The key word here being "continuous". For program material (music), it will easily handle the 320wrms output by that Rockford amp at 4hms.

I don't think you will go wrong with any of the 3 subs your are contemplating (CSS, Dayton, or eD), so I say pull the trigger and make something happen. You obviously know which I personally would go with, but at the end of the day, it's your car.

Good luck and post pics of the finished product and a review of your setup.

 

Thanks for all your help street. Will be ordering tonight sometime but haven't decided yet. I am probably going to go with your recommendation. Although part of me wants to know I have a lot of wattage available, it isn't what I need for 95% of my music. And I am paying extra for an amp with the other choices. Again thanks for your help

 

Decided to go with the eD sub and amp. They have a combo package for 260 which ultimately swayed me. Will be running it in the Zenclosures box with .6 cu ft airspace and 400W RMS @ 4ohms.
Total price- 370