Jonathan, Kiki, anyone? Need help on a mixed mono setup

71buickfreak · Post by **71buickfreak** » Sat May 28, 2005 4:25 am

yeah, i agree about the 1000 watt thing, I always try to educate the customer about proper set up and usage of a system , so that it will perform better than expected. Mixed mono would would, but like I said, if he has an open-chambered box, all of this means nothing because its all gonna blow up very quickly as the subs will end up fighting each other.

Post by **GlassWolf** » Sat May 28, 2005 10:14 am

suggest he go buy some real subs and stop [pulling old dry-rotted speakers out of old cabinets from Radio Shack's trash bins.
Who would use a 12 ohm sub in a car in the first place?
Also tell him to quit combining various speaker sizes for subs. use one size for subs. if he insists on keeping the 8" drivers, use a notch filter and make them midbass drivers, crossing over the 12" sub below the roll off of the 8"

more isn't always better, and ghetto will never compare to decent gear in a well designed system. I'm sick and tired of people trying to get a great car audio system and claiming they're "poor."
If they can afford to drive a car, pay for insurance, and cover gas, they can afford to save money for something that isn't their dad's old home stereo Tanoy speaker cabinets shoved into the back seat and wired straight to the factory radio.

Yeah I'm getting jaded about this. Do it right or don't bother doing it at all. For all of the effort people put into doing things half-assed, they'd be able to have a splendid system if they'd done it right from the start.

71buickfreak · Post by **71buickfreak** » Sat May 28, 2005 11:25 am

come on Kiki, what you never took the 10" out of a cabinet you bought at a garage sale for .50 cents and dropped in a Jensen 10" and hooked it up to the right-side rear speaker wires of your mom's suburban off the factory deck? what's up with that?
My first car had an all pioneer system in in before it would move under its own power. Then it all got stolen and I had to start from scratch. that's when it go ghetto.

Fishy · Post by **Fishy** » Sat May 28, 2005 1:33 pm

Actually 12 ohm subs work wonderfully for 3 driver setups. You get a nice neat 4 ohm load when paralleled and no he isn't mixing driver sizes, just impedances although there is another guy over there wanting to run one 12, one 10 and one 8 all at the same frequencies. The guy I was trying to help bought the complete box with 3 12w0's already wired in. If they'd all been w0-12's then everything would have been hunky dory, but he had no way of knowing what he was getting. All he saw was three 12" subs that bumped pretty hard in his friend's ride.

As far as JL w0's not being "real" subs I think I'd have to disagree, vehemently in fact. I own a 10w0 in a stealth box at 250w and although it doesn't get very loud it sounds much better at moderate volumes than my ported 10w3's. I just got an IDQ 10d2 FedEx and when I get a chance to drop that thing in the stealth I guess I'll find out exactly how good that w0 was. The IDQ has a good deal more Xmax, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't sound THAT much better. It will hopefully get a bit louder at least.

Oh btw, I did recommend he go buy some better subs, but I really don't know if his financial situation would allow that right away. I thought I'd try and find a way to get the most out of what he had at the moment. Just because someone has a "ghetto" equipment combo doesn't mean that with a lil effort an acceptable sounding solution can't be arrived at. I'm really sick and tired of people who profess to want to help some of these poor newbies imediately blowing them off when discovering they're running Sony, Pyle or other crappy brand or some type of setup that isn't optimal and therefore "beneath" many of these so-called forum experts.

You ever wonder why there are so many "which brand is better" threads on those eCoustics type forums? Its because those are sometimes the only places where these kids can get a straight answer. No one seems to want to bother to help someone make a "Sony" sub sound good. Nooooooooo, the automatic response is "that stuff sucks, get something better". I bet there's a lot of Brahmas, XXX's, and IDmax's out there sounding like crap because no one took the time to explain to some newb how to build a proper enclosure, how to impedance match those $400 drivers to the right amp, or that "bass boost" isn't always such a great thing.

Sry if I seem a bit pissed(I'm not really). Its just that I spend a lot of time over on that forum trying to help people out that don't have a clue and I kind of resent someone implying, even unintentionally that I'm wasting my time. Throwing money at a problem doesn't always help especially when some don't have that much to throw.

Ok rant over. I feel better now.

:)

-Fishy

71buickfreak · Post by **71buickfreak** » Sat May 28, 2005 10:09 pm

well, you have a viable point there. Nobody ever wants to help a kid with a jensen su sound good, because if it can be made to sound good, then why would he have paid $500 for a sub? and its just plain beneath them. I admit, I am guilty of this too in the past, but I also have realized we have all grown into our systems and most of us started with crap. I know I did. I just learned what was better and I also learned how to make cheap stuff sound like it cost a lot more.

Fishy · Post by **Fishy** » Sun May 29, 2005 9:21 am

Yeah I'm defintely not endorsing spending any money on those brands, but if you already have the stuff there's no reason why you can't try and get the most out if it.

When I first got into this hobby you didn't see subwoofers or electronic crossovers. The ultimate system was an Alpine tape deck with separate bass and trebel controls(woohoo!) and a set of JBL T540 6x9's in the rear deck off a mediocre 50x2 amp. The real audiophiles had a set of JBL 6 1/2's up front as well. Even though those T540's did pretty good below 50 Hz even a piece of poo Sony sub/amp combo would blow them away today for a lot less money. Those T540's went for over $200 a pair which was a whole bunch of cash circa 1981.

Everything is relative.

:)

-Fishy

Post by **GlassWolf** » Sun May 29, 2005 11:53 am

first, I never bought jensen anything at a yard sale, so no, I'm afraid I didn't get to revel in that enjoyment.

second, I'm used to 6 ohm subs for three-driver setups, but with modern class D amps, a 12 ohm driver is pointless unless you're running six subs from a single amp.

third, the reason people buy crap or buy good gear and install it poorly with bad results isn't MY fault or anybody elses' but their own. THEY don't take the time to do their own research and learn WTF tehy're doing so THEY screw it up. I don't take the blame for that. They're in a hurry, and they claim to be too broke to afford anything better than jensen, pyramid, and rockwood. They don't take the time or spend the difference to do the system right, and they don't get very "straight answers" from most of the people on eCoustics or CAF or SoundDomain anyway. They might get 3 good answers if they're lucky, mixed in with two dozen people who don't know shit from shinola (see Feandil) and twenty others who're happy to just sit there and flame them regardless of WHAT they bought. The biggest problem is this: The person asking for help, who obviously doesn't know what he's doing, is not going to know who falls into which of those three catagories either.
Look at CAF. Most of the asshats there worship some of the biggest morons on that board, and when someone does post good information, if he doesn't have over 3,000 posts to his name, they'll flame the post and spend 5 pages making futile attempts to slam the person who was being helpful.

Yeah a lot of people with Jensen head units want help. Most of the help consists of the following:
I need wiring color codes for my (stolen) stereo/amp/whatever!
Why do my speakers distort? (you have the bass all the way up on 4" speakers?)
How can I connect my iPod to (whatever the hell I have)
My (cheap) amplifier stopped working and smells funny. why!!!!???!?!?/111
similar questions I got tired of answering before my post count hit 7,000+ on that forum.

There are affordable products that work, sound god, and last. Sony's subs aren't the worst thing in the world, but they aren't super. Sony's amplifiers and head units have the reliability of a rubber crutch. Same thing goes for pyramid amplifiers.
Ya know why I don't help most of the people with that sort of gear? Because most of the ones dumb enough to buy that stuff after being told not to, are too dumb to follow any help given to them. That's experience talking. Some people just don't listen, and have to do whatever they get into their heads regardless of all the sage advice they're given by many people with experience.
I help the ones I think I can really help. Ones I feel will benefit from what I offer. I choose my battles in that regard instead of just charging windmills like Don Quixote.

I'm sure that sounds mean and rude or unhelpful or cruel or whatever, but not all people are equal. In reality they aren't even all created equal. You can't solve every problem for every person. Do what you can where you can and let it go at that. Hell, it's not like any of us are getting paid for this anyway.

71buickfreak · Post by **71buickfreak** » Sun May 29, 2005 6:40 pm

O.u.c.h.

Post by **GlassWolf** » Mon May 30, 2005 7:11 am

I just get tired of people telling me I don't do enough, or anything to help people, or that I should "do more" or do it differently.
I just went through this in a similar thread here not more than a few weeks ago.

71buickfreak · Post by **71buickfreak** » Mon May 30, 2005 8:17 am

well, in my defense, I didn't say you didn't do enough. I was being sarcastic.