AQ HDC3 Copper Coil VS Aluminum.

[thorshammer1 10+ year member]

I know that mine have never had anything but copper and have had up to an Atomic 7k on ea. 10. Currently I have 1 5k on both but will be adding a 2nd 5k soon.

 

[SPL140.2 5,000+ posts]

there is no sound quality difference

According to IASCA'S SQ champ lewis brood, there was a slight difference in SQ compared to the copper vs. aluminum, at least in his application. His kia suv sounds amazing. Maybe his trained ear can tell the difference but I could never tell the difference but im not an sq guru.

 

[SPL140.2 5,000+ posts]

I know that mine have never had anything but copper and have had up to an Atomic 7k on ea. 10. Currently I have 1 5k on both but will be adding a 2nd 5k soon.

and there wasnt much spl gain from the hds copper to the aluminum hdc's, maybe a tenth or so at that power, I think the aluminums would of gained more if the spider pack would of held up on the hdcs.

 

[sundownz Pro Seller]

I know that mine have never had anything but copper and have had up to an Atomic 7k on ea. 10. Currently I have 1 5k on both but will be adding a 2nd 5k soon.

May be louder with aluminum.

I had two 3000s @ 1/4 each on the copper and had them at 1/2 each on the aluminum and was over 2 dB louder with aluminum.

 

[thorshammer1 10+ year member]

May be louder with aluminum.
I had two 3000s @ 1/4 each on the copper and had them at 1/2 each on the aluminum and was over 2 dB louder with aluminum.

Thanks Jacob! I'll look into it! Don't know if DJ will make me a set of Aluminum coils for my HD3's(or more correctly if he has any left from yester year) LOL

I bet the NS-X will have aluminum though

 

[sundownz Pro Seller]

Yes, it will //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

I am sure DJ can help you out.

 

[Tinted 10+ year member]

alum will be slighly louder, but not 2 db louder unless something was wrong with the copper coil sub.

I've had both versions of AQ and I can tell you that the loudness is not audioable to human ear. you will only see it on the meter and it wont be a heap of decibles.

alum coils just like more power, that is all.

 

[Kyle_Keating 10+ year member]

According to IASCA'S SQ champ lewis brood, there was a slight difference in SQ compared to the copper vs. aluminum, at least in his application. His kia suv sounds amazing. Maybe his trained ear can tell the difference but I could never tell the difference but im not an sq guru.

there is a major difference in TSP's, i would really question what was being measured here. It doest take an electrical engineer to realize they are simply conductors... its not the current moving thu the copper is going to decide to all of a sudden conspirer with the other distortion components of a driver and tell them to stop!

my point is... why would copper sound better? in fact, i can outlay a few reasons why it wont…

#1 about 2dB lower sensitivity

#2 higher inductance

#3 higher flux modulation

#4 higher power compression due to lower sensitivity

having said all of that, the fr response and TSP's are going to be very different which will be a significant change in what you hear, FR response arguably plays the largest role in these "SQ" competitions

my 2 cents.

 

[Kyle_Keating 10+ year member]

alum will be slighly louder, but not 2 db louder unless something was wrong with the copper coil sub.
I've had both versions of AQ and I can tell you that the loudness is not audioable to human ear. you will only see it on the meter and it wont be a heap of decibles.

alum coils just like more power, that is all.

depends on the mass of the softparts, if the softparts make up a lot of the moving mass, then the copper will have less of a sensitivty loss, if the softparts are ligher... it will be much more. rule of the rule of thumb, coil is about 50% of the mms. give or take.

 

[sundownz Pro Seller]

This is the copper coil I was using Kyle:

-----

Tinted,

You may be right - it may have been 1.4 dB - I was looking through my photos of scores / setups in the Jeep and I may have looked at the single 3000 test instead of the double 3000 test on the copper coil. It was a very significant difference though.

The copper coil I used may also be much heavier than what AQ uses - they may be using a shorter coil or a coil with less copper, or something like that. I am sure DJL coil chime in and let us know if his coil is lighter than the ones I was testing with. That would make a difference for sure!

I have found a very large difference with added mass, though. Simply a heavier paper cone dropped 0.4 dB in my tests. More power would not make it up, either.

 

[PSturmer 10+ year member]

May be louder with aluminum.
I had two 3000s @ 1/4 each on the copper and had them at 1/2 each on the aluminum and was over 2 dB louder with aluminum.

what was the power difference clamped at?

 

[sundownz Pro Seller]

I never got to clamping the power on it, unfortunately! I need to go ahead and order that power clamp I want to make it easy:

http://www.extech.com/instruments/product.asp?catid=27&prodid=108

You don't gain a whole lot dropping to 1/4, though, unless you had a high impedance rise.

 

[sundownz Pro Seller]

I went ahead and bought that meter - so I'll be able to tell you guys exactly next time //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[thorshammer1 10+ year member]

Jacob

This is one of my coils. Can't get you proper wieght with the spiders and part of cone on there but you get the idea.

 

[sundownz Pro Seller]

Looks like a 4-layer round - probably lighter than mine by a good bit.

Just one set of wires coming up for each coil ?