I have 2 memphis 10s and a big memphis belle amp so everything is slamming in my car

 

i would go with 10
i have 2 JL 10s and they do realy good

 

2 10 inch memphis subs and a mtx amp are hittin hard for me...

 

1 12' TC-5200 or LMS-5400 owns all

www.Tcsounds.com

 

4 10' Alpine Type S dual 2ohm in an Isobaric box with a Cerwin Vega 2000w

Absolutly sick.

 

Wow, i havent seen Iso used in about 10 years. There are benefits but extra cost. We HAD to do Isobaric when there were no car audio subs and we wanted to fit prosound woofers in a car.

 

2 12" Alpine R series subs in a small, sealed enclosure. Hits hard and not a single rattle in my RS.

 

Is there anything left of the car?

 

the one thing nobody has mentioned is. A 12 inch sub will respond faster than a 15 inch. If you listen to anything besides rap or techno you will hear the difference. The trade off is a 12 will not play as low as a 15. As far as the space issue go with the kicker solobaric subs very small enclosures. They alos handel huge amounts of power. Stay away from ported boxes. They are one hit wonders. Some notes will sound great and others will be weak. I have competed in the pro audio class for years. These are just my personal opinions based on the thousands of systems I have seen.

 

That is the biggest crock of garbage floating out there... a properly designed 15 will not be any "faster" than a properly designed 12" woofer. now, for cheap, low end garabge subs, this can be true, especally if they're not powered properly. The percieved speed of the subwoofer's response is more a function of the amount of current that the amplifier can dump into the coil to make it move and overcome the intertia that is inherent to every object on earth. A 15" sub will have more mass to move, and require more current to make it respond immediately, which is why it sounds sloppier and slower if it's not amplified correctly. This is where an unregulated power supply such as Tru technology's Hammer and Sledgehammer, or Phonix Gold's old tantrum series shines as compared to a regulated supply such as JL audio's amplifiers, and many other amplifiers out there.

The suspension of the woofer is also important, it needs to be stiff enough to control the cone at any power level, and at any point in it's travel. The FS or resonant frequency of the driver is HUGE, I've had a single 12" that hits 10 Hz, in a small sealed box, and I've had a 15" beyond audio inhuman that wouldn't hit anything below 30 Hz.

Box design is the other key... if you can, port the box as low as possible... I've ported 2 10" subs at 11 Hz, they were phoenix gold QX series 10", and they pounded hard, and dropped lower than any other sub I've ever owned, but the box took up my whole trunk, since it was 6 cubic feet, and had a 21" long port....

thats ewnough for now, I gtg back to work.

 

IT also comes down to the quality of the woofer manufactured. Look at most (even many JL Audio products) out there and you will see that the same motor structure is used from the 8" to the 15" sub. If the motor force is equal in all instances and the effective power handling before compression is the same then it becomes an issue of mass to move. a 15 will have almost double the mass of a 10" and no magic enclosure or amp will correct it. It comes down to dollars, manufacturing a single hunk of iron and the same steel plates, bobbin and VC saves money. The results will never be as good. Some companies will develop the 12" as the base design so a 12 will perform well, the 10" is overbuilt and the 15 is only slightly junk. Most start with a 10 because that saves the most money. Diffeent sizes of woofers look different when viewed from the front and they should from the back as well.

A stock Evo can run 13's (A 10"). put the Evo drive train in a Diamante and it won't go as fast because of the extra weight ( a 12"). Tow an Evo and run the quarter and see how fast it goes (15").

 

That's exactly what I was referring to when I said "a properly built 15" and "a properly built 12" if it's made properly, it will respond properly, if it's built cheap and dirty, it'll sound like ohio-evo's girlfriend.

I like companies that build a specific sub in only one size, it shows that that sub is optomized for it's design. such as the phoenix gold Titanium Elite 12, or the SoloX 18 (even though it's really not that good)

That said, car audio drivers, the good ones at least, are just rebadged raw drivers that are available much cheaper elsewhere, and you can get great drivers and build up your system for a fraction of the cost of buying them with a brand name on them.

 

All i can say is that i used to swear by Cerwin Vega Strokers and Vega series and Memphis HP's until Cerwin Vega went out of business and Memphis dropped the HP. Both were easy to tune and made a hell of alot of noise. Since then ive been shopping around and been building TL and Isobaric boxes to make up for the crappy subs.

Truth is its been alot of fun Nuking Sony subs. Rule of thumb you can never have enough power. The bigger the amp the better.

 

You absolutely can have too much power. There is apoint where any additional power will give no benefit and will only be destructive. Every sub has a point of power compression and are probably only 3% efficient. The heat generated in the energy conversion is a problem in itself and once you reach the point of power compression all you are accomplishing is overheating and potential damage.

Now enough power is another story. There are very few amps that will deliver what they claim. Amps are measured at a steady 4 ohm load and at 1KHz. Who runs a sub up to 1KHz and I have measured impedance curves on hundreds of enclosures and a 4 ohm sub can be .2 ohms to 20 ohms from 20-80Hz. Frequency, enclosure, sub all change impedance. A 4 ohm sub is not 4 ohms out of the box so the spec sheet for an amp tells you nothing about what it will really do. There is no motivation to build a good amp anymore, its about claiming the most power at the cheapest price. So you do need to buy bigger and better crap to get the power you are expecting.

 

Rule of thumb is always buy an amp that has more power then you will ever need then turn down the gain. This way you will always have some in reserve for when you upgrade. And so what if you nuke a few subs. Isnt that half the fun?