New sub box same subs and amp
#11
07-28-2013, 10:31 PM
That particular enclosure sounds like a good alignment to me. I think you'll be much happier with it. Be sure to come back and let us know how you like it.
#12
08-02-2013, 10:33 AM
Well I got my new amp. It is a Sony Xplod ZZR 3301 330RMS@4 and 600rms @2. So far I can tell a difference but the box I built the fourth order ported and sealed I think is gonna go by-by. I think I am gonna take the front of the sealed part off and see if it will make a difference if not I am gonna take them out and put them in the ported box I got from my buddy.
#13
08-02-2013, 11:04 AM
I doubt taking that part off will help, but it's a quick easy thing to try.
What are the specifications on the box from your buddy? If it's not close to the specs your subs need they won't perform to the best of their ability in it either although I would have to guess it will make a noticeable difference over the bandpass.
What are the specifications on the box from your buddy? If it's not close to the specs your subs need they won't perform to the best of their ability in it either although I would have to guess it will make a noticeable difference over the bandpass.
#15
08-02-2013, 05:55 PM
Well put my subs in the new box with the new amp and what do you know.... The Sony xplod did what it's name is. One of them gone. So now I have a delimma. New subs or get the same and not turn the amp up too much. I have owned about 10 xplod 12's and none of them have blown.
#16
08-03-2013, 11:00 AM
That sub shouldn't have blown, unless it was already close to going perhaps.
How did it blow? Did the coil burn up or did it fail mechanically as in a spider/surround tore or the tinsel lead broke? Knowing the reason it blew can help understand what needs to be done to prevent it from happening in the future. That amp should NOT be powerful enough to thermally blow those subs unless they're not truly able to handle the 380wrms they're rated for. What is the LPF setting on the amp/HU going to the sub? Also, since it was a ported enclosure, did you set the SSF to keep it from playing frequencies below the tuning of the enclsoure? That enclosure is tuned quite high and won't play low frequencies very well at all. If the port is in the 4.5" wide neighborhood it's tuned around 45hz which won't get low for anything and make it easy to destroy the subs mechanically when you play stuff that gets deep. If I have the exact dimensions of the port I can figure the exact tuning of the enclosure, but if it's anywhere close to the numbers you first posted it's tuned up near that 45hz.
It seems to me you need a properly designed enclosure badly. The enclosure is everything, it determines how the sub plays, how it handles power and everything about how it performs and lives in the world. If it did blow thermally then there has to be some settings off such as having the gain turned up too high, or the bass boost on the amp, hu or both turned up or having the LPF set too high, bass turned up too high on the EQ etc. as the only way that should have blown thermally is if the amp was driven into clipping and left there for awhile. If a person takes care to set the gain correctly from the start, as soon as you turn up bass boost, bass on the EQ, etc. you're going to drive the amp to clipping when you turn it up and it's going to tear something up. When running considerably lower power than a speaker is rated for allows for some wiggle room in the extra heat that clipping causes. When you're running rated power to a speaker and then start clipping the signal you can quickly overheat the coil and burn it up.
There's a lot of things to consider here but if you want to look at getting a new or a pair of new subs then I can suggest some that will serve you much better than the Sony's, though not for nearly as cheap. As with most things, you get what you pay for and when you pay for hand built American made goodness it will last unless you just flat out abuse it on purpose.
How did it blow? Did the coil burn up or did it fail mechanically as in a spider/surround tore or the tinsel lead broke? Knowing the reason it blew can help understand what needs to be done to prevent it from happening in the future. That amp should NOT be powerful enough to thermally blow those subs unless they're not truly able to handle the 380wrms they're rated for. What is the LPF setting on the amp/HU going to the sub? Also, since it was a ported enclosure, did you set the SSF to keep it from playing frequencies below the tuning of the enclsoure? That enclosure is tuned quite high and won't play low frequencies very well at all. If the port is in the 4.5" wide neighborhood it's tuned around 45hz which won't get low for anything and make it easy to destroy the subs mechanically when you play stuff that gets deep. If I have the exact dimensions of the port I can figure the exact tuning of the enclosure, but if it's anywhere close to the numbers you first posted it's tuned up near that 45hz.
It seems to me you need a properly designed enclosure badly. The enclosure is everything, it determines how the sub plays, how it handles power and everything about how it performs and lives in the world. If it did blow thermally then there has to be some settings off such as having the gain turned up too high, or the bass boost on the amp, hu or both turned up or having the LPF set too high, bass turned up too high on the EQ etc. as the only way that should have blown thermally is if the amp was driven into clipping and left there for awhile. If a person takes care to set the gain correctly from the start, as soon as you turn up bass boost, bass on the EQ, etc. you're going to drive the amp to clipping when you turn it up and it's going to tear something up. When running considerably lower power than a speaker is rated for allows for some wiggle room in the extra heat that clipping causes. When you're running rated power to a speaker and then start clipping the signal you can quickly overheat the coil and burn it up.
There's a lot of things to consider here but if you want to look at getting a new or a pair of new subs then I can suggest some that will serve you much better than the Sony's, though not for nearly as cheap. As with most things, you get what you pay for and when you pay for hand built American made goodness it will last unless you just flat out abuse it on purpose.
#17
08-04-2013, 09:09 AM
Well I got almost home when I smelled something odd. It smelled like melted plastic or wires so I turned the radio down and then the subs shut completely off. I unhooked the subs one at a time and one is fine the other has no sound coming out at all but a puettery sputter plastic noise. I didnt see any burning or coils bad or anything broke off of it.
#18
08-04-2013, 10:32 AM
Yep, it sounds like a the voice coil fried.
That leads me to ask, what are your gain setting, bass boost settings (amp & HU), EQ settings, low pass filter settings, etc. on the amp and HU. Unless Sony just makes them things weak you've got enough power on tap now to burn them up with whatever settings you were using before you got the amp.
As an example, lets say you have your gain set properly with the EQ flat and the bass boost off, we'll refer to that at the 0dB reference level at full volume. Now lets say all the music you listen to is all recorded at the same level (not feasible in the real world) and the loudest level any of the bass reaches is -6dB. Alright, at this point you can turn the volume all the way up and the music never clips the amp, you have no distortion. The amp is pushing 300wrms to each of the subs and everything is happy. So, now lets say you turn the bass on the EQ up 6dB because the enclosure causes the subs to have lackluster bass response. Your bass will get louder and still undistorted but you're pushing the amp right to it's very limit, the 0dB reference level. At that point every time the signal asks for maximum output the power supply is giving the output stage everything it has to do what is being asked of it. Let's say that still didn't give you the output you wanted so you cranked the bass boost up 12dB out of the 18dB range of it's adjustment. Now the subs will seem to get much louder but the amplifier will reach it's maximum unclipped output at around 75% of the volume level, not 100%. Also, your ears cannot detect levels below 20% signal distortion so when you increase the volume on up to 100% you may not really hear anything change from the subs. However the signal going into the amp is asking for 12dB above what the amp is capable of producing. The sine wave of the signal will clip before it makes it's smooth peaks and for that millisecond the subwoofers travel is being held at the far ends instead of smoothly going back the other direction. Heat builds up as this is happening, and if it does it over enough frequencies, with enough power from the amp, for a long enough period of time the voice coil overheats and fails. It is entirely a function of time and heat, the other variables such as the frequencies the speaker is playing, the output potential of the amp, etc. all play into the heat side of the equation. You've probably been lucky and never blown one before because the amps you had connected to the subs couldn't produce enough heat in the voice coils to burn them up, even with a fully clipped signal.
That's why what all your settings are is so important as I would venture to guess enough of them were too high and caused the signal from the amp to clip and burn up the sub's coil. You might rebut with the claim that the bass isn't loud enough without the bass setting on the EQ turned up or the bass boost turned up. Yes I understand that but it's not necessarily any fault of the subs or amp. The enclosure not being optimal for the subs is most likely to blame for that issue. If you have the subs in an optimal enclosure (the one they're in now is NOT optimal) and they're still not loud enough then it's time to upgrade.
As for upgrading I would like to suggest to you trying the SSA DCON's as replacements. A pair of 12's would go with your amp very well and in an optimal enclosure should easily outperform the Sony's. They're 100% made in the USA and rebuildable should the worst ever happen. I would be glad to design you an enclosure for them too.
That leads me to ask, what are your gain setting, bass boost settings (amp & HU), EQ settings, low pass filter settings, etc. on the amp and HU. Unless Sony just makes them things weak you've got enough power on tap now to burn them up with whatever settings you were using before you got the amp.
As an example, lets say you have your gain set properly with the EQ flat and the bass boost off, we'll refer to that at the 0dB reference level at full volume. Now lets say all the music you listen to is all recorded at the same level (not feasible in the real world) and the loudest level any of the bass reaches is -6dB. Alright, at this point you can turn the volume all the way up and the music never clips the amp, you have no distortion. The amp is pushing 300wrms to each of the subs and everything is happy. So, now lets say you turn the bass on the EQ up 6dB because the enclosure causes the subs to have lackluster bass response. Your bass will get louder and still undistorted but you're pushing the amp right to it's very limit, the 0dB reference level. At that point every time the signal asks for maximum output the power supply is giving the output stage everything it has to do what is being asked of it. Let's say that still didn't give you the output you wanted so you cranked the bass boost up 12dB out of the 18dB range of it's adjustment. Now the subs will seem to get much louder but the amplifier will reach it's maximum unclipped output at around 75% of the volume level, not 100%. Also, your ears cannot detect levels below 20% signal distortion so when you increase the volume on up to 100% you may not really hear anything change from the subs. However the signal going into the amp is asking for 12dB above what the amp is capable of producing. The sine wave of the signal will clip before it makes it's smooth peaks and for that millisecond the subwoofers travel is being held at the far ends instead of smoothly going back the other direction. Heat builds up as this is happening, and if it does it over enough frequencies, with enough power from the amp, for a long enough period of time the voice coil overheats and fails. It is entirely a function of time and heat, the other variables such as the frequencies the speaker is playing, the output potential of the amp, etc. all play into the heat side of the equation. You've probably been lucky and never blown one before because the amps you had connected to the subs couldn't produce enough heat in the voice coils to burn them up, even with a fully clipped signal.
That's why what all your settings are is so important as I would venture to guess enough of them were too high and caused the signal from the amp to clip and burn up the sub's coil. You might rebut with the claim that the bass isn't loud enough without the bass setting on the EQ turned up or the bass boost turned up. Yes I understand that but it's not necessarily any fault of the subs or amp. The enclosure not being optimal for the subs is most likely to blame for that issue. If you have the subs in an optimal enclosure (the one they're in now is NOT optimal) and they're still not loud enough then it's time to upgrade.
As for upgrading I would like to suggest to you trying the SSA DCON's as replacements. A pair of 12's would go with your amp very well and in an optimal enclosure should easily outperform the Sony's. They're 100% made in the USA and rebuildable should the worst ever happen. I would be glad to design you an enclosure for them too.
#19
08-04-2013, 10:41 AM
Altoncustomtech is totally right. Im a certified install tech and i couldnt find any specs from Sony on a ported or vented enclosure for your subs. They recommend a sealed box and 1.15 cu ft per sub. If i were you, Id go buy some 3/4" MDF, liquid nails, drywall screws and make a good strong sealed box. Those subs are rated about 300+ watts rms...and thats what I would feed them power wise. Dont believe what you read on amps and subs as far as power ratings...especially on low to mid end electronics. Your amps wouldnt last long at 1000 watts or anything even close. Good luck...
#20
08-05-2013, 01:22 PM
Thanks guys ill look into those subs. I have already had a new box built by a guy I work with that also works at a custom electronics shop here I did not know that. So he has hooked me up ill post pics up of the 2 enclosures I had them in and what they are going in now. Ill also go look what the settings are at and let you know also.