Brian Hinson

Alright guys I have no idea what im doin when it comes to speakers...

But I just happend to pick up 2 12" kicker L7 solobarics in a ported box, and they came with an Eclipse D class amp but the amp has recently kicked the bucket. I have no clue what amp I need...

I've got an alpine head unit if it matters?

Any help would greatly be appreciated...

matt360

dual 2, or dual 4ohm coils?

youre either going to need something that makes ~1000-1500 watts @ 1 or 2 ohms...ie kicker kx1200, crossfire vr1000, etc etc

keep them ported..those subs sealed perform terribly

fcm

Kicker S12L7s are 750W continuous power handling, [1500W peak] speakers, you have 2 of them, so 1500W of continuous power handling.
Kicker recommends 600W RMS, [per driver] when in vented box, I would look for a 1200W - 1400W RMS into 2 or 4 ohms, [depending on which L7s you have] mono block sub amp.
The Kicker ZX1500.1 will work great if they are DVC 2 ohm L7s and the Kicker ZX2500.1 if they are DVC 4 ohm L7s.

Wiring of the subs, [and VCs] is critical, either ones should be wired series/parallel, wire the VCs in series, then wire the subs in parallel, the DVC 2 ohm will end up with a final load of 2 ohms and the DVC 4 ohm will end up with a final load of 4 ohms. 94

Brian Hinson

Ok I know that they are in a ported/vented box, but I have no clue about the 2 ohm or 4 ohm deal... How can I tell?

fcm

You can meter the speaker terminal on the box, or pull one of the subs and see if there is a label.
Kicker L7s come in DVC 2 ohm or DVC 4 ohm, you will need to know what they are and how they are wired.
This may help... http://www.kicker.com/06/tech-...B.pdf it shows VCs wired in series and in parallel. 94

Brian Hinson

Thanks alot man, I really appreciate it!

thekid03

I'm not so sure you need a 1500 watt amp to drive these speakers. I'm running a pair of 10w7 and recommended power is 600 watts a sub. I'm running an Arc 2500 XXK @ 4 ohms....270 watts a channel and this is plenty for me + to be honest I'm really not too worried I'm under-powering my subs to the point I'm risking damaging them. I will assume part of the reason they want 600 watts to these speakers is the sensitivity of these speakers is rediculously low....83 db/1 watt or something along those lines.

Although you will have more headroom with a 1500 watt amp and I expect it will run fairly cool....I personally don't think it's necessary.....the effective power the speakers sees will be much less than 1500 watts unless you're an SPL guy. If you're an SPL guy, I guess I would recommend such an amp but if you're an SQ guy it's unnecessary.

cujo613

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by thekid03 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'm not so sure you need a 1500 watt amp to drive these speakers. I'm running a pair of 10w7 and recommended power is 600 watts a sub. I'm running an Arc 2500 XXK @ 4 ohms....270 watts a channel and this is plenty for me + to be honest I'm really not too worried I'm under-powering my subs to the point I'm risking damaging them. I will assume part of the reason they want 600 watts to these speakers is the sensitivity of these speakers is rediculously low....83 db/1 watt or something along those lines.

Although you will have more headroom with a 1500 watt amp and I expect it will run fairly cool....I personally don't think it's necessary.....the effective power the speakers sees will be much less than 1500 watts unless you're an SPL guy. If you're an SPL guy, I guess I would recommend such an amp but if you're an SQ guy it's unnecessary.</TD></TR></TABLE>

It's funny to see some of the larger sub power recomendations. 600 on a 10w7

I run Image idqv2 fifteens, plain old basket basic design I run a zapco reference 1100.1 and they just love it

just funny to look at the construction of different subs and then see what manufacturer recomends for power

shadow29485

"ORION H.C.C.A" all the way baby....raw hard power, and great clarity. The older 225 hcca amps are capable of sustaining a 1/2 ohm load consistant, and have been tested to hold at a 1/4, without over heating, with an internal/external coolant fan.

I ran three 12" d.v.c' s in parallel and in mono with a sealed enclosure of 2.0 C.F, and maintained an spl of 152.

The amp was begging for more. I'd be willing to put money on ORIONs products, they've had the power and longevity well before the newer technology came along.....And they still do.

thekid03

back when these first came out I remember guys competing in....oh, I don't know....this is back in the CAN days but maybe around 250watts and under class but according to amp specs @ 4 ohms you'd have a 50 watt system or so but in reality it was much more.

shadow29485

"back when these first came out I remember guys competing in....oh, I don't know....this is back in the CAN days but maybe around 250watts and under class but according to amp specs @ 4 ohms you'd have a 50 watt system or so but in reality it was much more"
__________________________________________________ ___________
"but in reality it was much more"
______________________________________

Now your catching on.

Have you ever heard the terms...Resistance, or impedance?

It's not just a matter of 1500 watts versus 800 watts, and what you read on the cardboard box that it came in, learn the hyp. theory first about it's electrical principals/properties, Then flame me about being ol' school. You'll eventually get the math....from the "CAN" days.....Ready for school? Here's a little education.
__________________________________________________ ______________

Ohm's Law defines the relationships between (P) power, (E) voltage, (I) current, and (R) resistance. One ohm is the resistance value through which one volt will maintain a current of one ampere.

( I ) Current is what flows on a wire or conductor like water flowing down a river. Current flows from negative to positive on the surface of a conductor. Current is measured in (A) amperes or amps.

( E ) Voltage is the difference in electrical potential between two points in a circuit. It's the push or pressure behind current flow through a circuit, and is measured in (V) volts.

( R ) Resistance determines how much current will flow through a component. Resistors are used to control voltage and current levels. A very high resistance allows a small amount of current to flow. A very low resistance allows a large amount of current to flow. Resistance is measured in ohms.

( P ) Power is the amount of current times the voltage level at a given point measured in wattage or watts.

thekid03

Now your catching on.

Have you ever heard the terms...Resistance, or impedance?

&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt; yes, of course I've heard of these terms. Ohms Law....give me a mother ******* break. You think someone into audio since an early teenager could possibly go 20 years w/o hearing this term. You're an idiot.

It's not just a matter of 1500 watts versus 800 watts, and what you read on the cardboard box that it came in, learn the hyp. theory first about it's electrical principals/properties, Then flame me about being ol' school. You'll eventually get the math....from the "CAN" days.....Ready for school? Here's a little education.

&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt; few things here

1. First off there's nothing wrong with reading a box or user manual as long as it has the specs
2. Eventually get the math.....ummm, sure. I went through Calc 1, 2, and 3 + Differential Equations in college. I don't need any help but thanks for offering.
3. Yes, of course it's not just about watts but what I would mainly be concerned with is THD at continuous and max power.


Modified by thekid03 at 9:48 PM 10/7/2007


Modified by thekid03 at 8:23 AM 10/8/2007

fcm

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by thekid03 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> I'm running a pair of 10w7 and recommended power is 600 watts a sub. </TD></TR></TABLE> Actually the Pt of a 10W7 is 500W.

The 10W7 is a 3 ohm sub, how do you have it wired to the ARC amp, are you running the amp in 2ch mode, one ch. to each sub?
Just curious.

thekid03

ya, I'm running in 2 channel mode.....

fcm

So about 2x350-400 watts RMS into 3 ohms. 94

thekid03

Ya to be honest I didn't know these subs were 3 ohms. I suppose I need to take my own advice and read all the specs

But for power on this graph it does look like recommended is 500....I guess center point of yellow would be recommended because you approach red you're in the "Danger Zone"? Or maybe 600 is the upper range of Optimum? Whenever I selected this amp though I figured 270 watts/channel would be plenty to power a couple subs. Prior to the Arc's I had an XTant 1000 watt driving them but to be honest I didn't notice a difference once I switched out amps. But as you said with 3 ohms the speakers are actually seeing a bit more power.

fcm

http://mobile.jlaudio.com/prod..._id=5

They would work with 50W RMS going to them, [and sound good] just not to their full potential, the same goes for any speaker, the term "it's better to overpower a speaker then under-powered it" is misleading, because overpowering a speaker will damage it, under-powering it will do no damage at all, the problem is when under-powering a speaker you run a higher risk of driving the amp into constant clipping, and that will destroy a speakers VC, because music is dynamic, an over powered speaker, [EG; 500W amp on a 300W speaker] will seldom "see" even 300W, and if it does it will be for a very short "burp" and the speakers peak power handling is more then capable of handling that.
Also under-powering leaves little or no headroom.

Do me a favor, wire your 10W7s in series, for a 6 ohm load, [Re will be 5.5 ohms or less] and wire the subs to the ARC amp in mono, have a listen and see what you think, bass should be more linear, should also be cleaner tighter sounding and any loss/cancellation from running in 2ch mode will be eliminated. 94

nauc

1500x1 @ 1 ohm $487

http://www.soundsolutionsaudio...Id=28

shadow29485

Hey "Kid"......I believe you just hijacked this thread...lol.

I'm just kidding about the picking on ya'. You seem to know your ****, and are knowledgeable enough to help a brother out......

Take care, and don't be offended. I'll leave ya' be.... Believe me, long story.

thekid03

Hey fcm.....when you mention reduced cancellation if I'm running mono can I assume the cause of this is slight phase differences between the speakers when running in 2 channel mode? There's a thousand things running through my head at the moment.

Dispersion pattern of the speaker
Cancellation of sound mid-air versus sound-waves bouncing off of reflective surfaces around the speaker and cancelling each other out totally or partially + the degree to which a speaker is out of phase in these 2 scenarios
Enclosure design and reflections inside the enclosure
Time for an electrical impulse to reach a speaker in my setup

And a question I've had for a while but never asked.........dialing-in a piece of equipment such as the Sinfoni Phaser Pro. Do people actually use oscilloscopes or how do they tune such equipment to remove/reduce phase issues?

thekid03

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by shadow29485 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

I'm just kidding about the picking on ya'. You seem to know your ****, and are knowledgeable enough to help a brother out......

Take care, and don't be offended. I'll leave ya' be.... Believe me, long story
</TD></TR></TABLE>

No problem man.....sometimes I just don't deal so well when I think people are pushin' my buttons so to speak

fcm

Loss/consolation in 2ch mode, [although slight] is due to the signals of the 2 channels not being exactly the same, [unless mixed before input] but there is also the +/- tolerance of components on the 2 channels, the 2 channels of an amp are never exactly the same and not really noticeable the diff. between running sub bass in 2ch mode and mono is definitely noticeable.

The 5 "causes" of 1000s of things going through your mind will effect "output" most can be addressed, like box design, others can not, like time an electrical impulse travels.

Please do not confuse me with an engineer, I have no idea of how a Sinfoni Phaser Pro is dialed in, but then I have never even heard of a Sinfoni Phaser Pro.

The only time I have used an oscilloscope for tuning a car audio system was some years back when the place I was working for got the bright idea that a scope was needed to set the gains on amps, they spent over 7 grand on scopes and equipment for 3 stores, [hardly top of the line] only to find out that in the real world, an installer with a good ear sitting in the car could do a better job, using a tone generator and a scope would get you a non clipping amp, but with relatively low output from the system, with music being dynamic a little clipping at peaks of a signal is acceptable.

Your never going to get rid of clipping amps, or all the phase and cancellation problems in a car audio system, all you can do is minimize them. 94

thekid03

The Phaser is a crossover but adds in the ability to change phase of mids/high/subs up to 180 degrees. I would expect that I'd be able to hear if a speaker was 180 degrees out of phase from the other but for small differences I'm not sure I could...or maybe I could...not sure. I've never sat down and listened to speakers that were out of phase at varying degrees.

Although I currently have no processing other than time-alignment via my HU, when I did have my 1/3 octave EQ I first sat down and listened to a variety of music and made numerous trips from hatch to seat making small adjustments till I got the sound to my liking. Then I went back to my installer and we hooked up an RTA and took a reading. After taking that reading he looked at me and said "dude....let's try a few small adjustments and see what you think but for all intents and purposes there's really nothing we need to change".

Then of course I started playing around with things and pulled the entire EQ out. I'd be interested to see what things look like on an RTA just for grins.





Modified by thekid03 at 10:11 PM 10/18/2007

wrx-killer-Sti-eater

iTrader: (1)

Before anything the op bettery start looking at upgrading his charging system. atleast the big three upgrade.

I just did my o5 navigator. And man was it a big diffrence. Really. The idle is smoother, no dimming of lights what so ever, Air ride charges much quicker and does not flicker the lights when turning on.