I wasn't going to post this up, but my little brother insisted and I figured I would go ahead and share. Here's a quick little video I took to show him the XCON in action. I played and played and played with the tuning on the PR's until I got it just where I wanted it. To facilitate easy tuning I wrapped a small block of wood in paper towels and inserted it in the enclosure (to simulate the airspace the PR's would take up when mounted correctly) and mounted the PR's inverted so I could add and take away weight until I got the tuning just right. As it is now the PR's are tuned right about 31hz and that little sub can lay it down like no other ten inch I've ever played with before. When I get more free time I'll permanently mount the PR's but for now it's doing fine as it is.


So, here it is the first video of the XCON and matching pair of passive radiators.

 

There's still a lot of tuning to do on it as far as the gains, crossovers, etc. go but so far it's a stellar subwoofer setup!!

 

Sounds good. IMHO a solid test of a sound systems performance is how balanced it sounds when playing other music besides bassey rap (I say that becuse that genre is made to be intentionally over bassed, nothing against rap). Try playing music in it with a balance of highs mids and lows and see if the 10 produces well with it. My favorite test song (which wasn't that cool to my friends, until they heard it in my car) to play on someone's stereo was The Eagles "Hotel California" from the "Hell Freezes Over" album. It has a great deep acoustical guitar duet in the intro that, if your system is balanced, will impress you. Just my 2 cents fwiw.

 

Very nice! I might have to learn what's all involved in a PR setup, seeing as you mentioned it saves a lot of box space.

 

limp bizket- rollin'(urban assualt vehicle)

 

Believe me, I'm all about balanced sound and SQ. That video was really only for my little brother but when I showed it to a friend who hasn't yet seen any part of the build he said I needed to post it for a couple other people and I figured why I was at it I would go ahead and throw it up on the forums. I hate car audio videos because they're completely pointless. The microphones in just about every mainstream piece of video recording equipment from phones to cameras don't have the ability to pick up everything that's being played worth a damn and then once the video is compressed to post online any possible quality there was to it is gone. There's not a single useful or insightful thing that can be derived about any system from watching one. I'm very familiar with Hotel California and how good it can sound on a good system. I have a whole list of songs I use to gauge the overall performance, balance, staging and imaging of a system and that is on the list. So far the XCON is playing everything in fantastic form. It blends very well, is VERY light on it's feet, and pretty much disappears into the midbass of the front stage.


Well, I didn't mean to come across as it save "a lot" of box space. A simple ported enclosure using a round port like an Aero port wouldn't have been much larger than this one. One with a slot port with adequate port area would have been a bit bigger but nothing serious. The only thing the PR's save on space is the volume the port consumes inside the enclosure. They do have better transient response and better group delay than a regular ported enclosure and if done right will have the flat, tight response of a sealed enclosure with the low end output of a ported. Kind of a best of both worlds setup, but they're not cheap due to the extra cost of the PR's themselves. Getting PR's that matched the XCON perfectly cost me $90 each.

lol, that's right. It was the only CD I had that had anything that really got the sub moving. I have lots of much better music to play on my phone, however I could not have recorded the video with it and played the music at the same time. As it was the phone only picked up about half the movement the sub and PR's were actually doing.

 

I fully understand what you meant, and I agree about the quality of mica. Nevertheless I can still tell that your system is really nice! I may have to revisit your thread soon. After I get all the mechanics back in order I plan on replacing the rear speakers with amped 6x9s and installing my old Rockford Fosgate Punch 10" into it. I just don't know how to make it super low profile.

 

Okay, finally took the time to get the PR's turned around and properly installed. It looks WAY better this way, lol, as you can see by the pictures. Now it's time to get that Focal Solid 2 installed so I can start playing with things in the front actively. It looks as though I'm going to have to just go ahead and make it part of the rest of the amp rack. I still have LOTS of the stand offs I used to lift the 125.2 over the 1500 so I'm going to just do the same with the Focal. The difference being, due to it's miniscule size, is that I'm going to have to make a small frame for it to mount to that will then mount to the stand offs lifting and holding it above the 125.2. Then I'm just going to run the power down and connect it to the XP950 so all I have to run is the RCA's and speaker wires up to the front.

Anyway, onto the pics of the enclosure, sub and PR's finally completely finished.

 

Here's a decent little update. Got the speaker and RCA wires for the Solid 2 ran back to the amp rack. While I was at it I trimmed some more on the interior panel that hides the wires in hopes that it fits in place a little better than after the last time. I built a small frame for the Solid 2 to mount to and adapt it to the mounting pattern of the 125.2 while still allowing plenty of ventilation for it. Then I used the same standoffs to lift the 125.2 up to hold up the frame and got all that mounted. Now I just need to find some 1/4-20 screws and cut them to the right length to screw into the tapped holes in the frame and mount the Solid 2 down. Then it's gravy from there hooking up the amp and working on getting it tuned in.





I designed the amp rack to be secure yet easy to remove in the event I needed to move or remove it for some reason. That, thankfully, worked like a charm to get this little project underway.













Here's the beginnings of the frame for the Solid 2. I found some 3/16" x 3/4" flat stock in a junk pile here at work. I cut it to the lengths I needed for the frame and welded them together. I suck at welding but it should be plenty strong enough for this little job. Working to make sure it's square and true.













All finished welding it up and cleaning up the welds.







Here's the frame with the holes drilled that will mount it to the stand offs above the 125.2







Shot it with some primer.







Here's the additional speaker wires and RCA's ran for the Solid 2.







The first of the stand offs for the frame attached to the 125.2







I got these great and awesome bits that drill, tap and bevel the hole all in one great little bit from GreenLee. Used the 1/4-20 to drill and tap these all at once.







Here's the frame ready to be tightened down onto the standoffs.







Finally, this is basically what it will look like when the Solid 2 is mounted down and into place on the frame.












All I lack now is the bolts to mount the Solid 2 down to the frame, hooking it up and putting the truck back together, lol. I can't wait to get to tuning everything.

 

Well, all that work to mount the Solid 2 is for nothing. On the path to sonic perfection I'm now going straight to using Peerless SLS 8's for the midbass duty and in doing so am now going to have to change out the 125.2 for one of the JBL GTO1004's I have on hand. That means a bunch more work and all the work thus far to use the Solid 2 is pointless as I've also ordered a set of the Fountek FR89EX's and will probably just use the 125.2 to power them. I'll have to figure out how to bracket up the GTO above the 1500 then do it again to get the 125.2 above that. I have a friend of mine who told me about some easy set fiberglass that comes with the resin, hardener, etc. already in the fabric, basically. All you have to do is mold it around whatever it is you're doing and wait for it to set up. I'm gonna get all the information on it and if it's reasonably affordable and available and will do the job exactly as he's described then I'll likely give that a shot to try on the sail panels for the full ranges. I'm thinking if I go the same route on the 8's as I did the 6.5's, for now, that I can get them in with minimal hassle and just build new baffles and trim a little plastic. I've got a lot of work ahead of me, again, but I'm really looking forward to what it does for the SQ in the truck. It went from "eh, this'll work fine for what I need" to "I'd like to play around and see what I can do to make it a little better" to "****'s getting real now!" LOL.....

If I don't watch it I'm going to be a great deal more money and work into this than I had ever originally planned........ LMAO!!