Back into car audio after almost 15 years

[Betrayer00GT 10+ year member]

So, for my first purchase in my first car audio project in 15 years or so, I bought an MB Quart (Reference series) RWE 352 15", dual 2-ohm DVC, cast-aluminum basket, 700w RMS rated driver for $118, shipped.

I plan to put it in a 1.5 - 2.0 cuft sealed DIY fiberglass enclosure in the trunk of my Mustang GT. I would like to put ~300w into it at first, and upgrade to 500-700w at some point a few months down the road, while swapping the first amp to my Polk EX 6X8 coaxials.

I did a search on these forums for MB Quart RWE series driver impressions before my purchase, and though what I found was not inspiring, it didn't deter me from spending my $100 driver budget (pre tax/shipping) on the thing, either. Just wondering if I might have made a mistake, as far as the current thinking of this forum is concerned.

I could have gotten any of these, instead:

Kicker

C154 15" (250w RMS rating)

CVR122 12" (400w RMS rating)

Cerwin Vega HED15 (200w RMS rating),

Infinity REF1250W (300w RMS rating)

RE Audio SR12 12" (300w RMS rating)

Rockford Fosgate

P215S4 15" (250w RMS rating)

P212D2 12" (250w RMS rating)

Did I miss anyone's favorite $100 driver?

I would say the combination of rated power handling, driver size, and the look of the driver when top mounted (the cones on those kickers look horrible, IMO - especially the "chrome" look of the CompVR) led me to go with the 15" RWE series MB Quart for my $100. Not positive on exactly how comparable all those power ratings actually are, though. Probably not very, certainly. I really only considered the Infinity and the Kicker CompVR as true alternatives, to be perfectly honest.

I am not a bass-head, but do like to bump the occasional rap song and certainly enjoy really loud music on occasion. I am more concerned with "sound quality" than "loudness", but those concepts are so vague as to be kind of pointless to talk about outside discussion of real specifics, I know. Based on this, anyone have a different take on things?

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[thegreatestpenn 5,000+ posts]

you can find an elemental designs 13kv2 for that price or less used, sometimes even new. go to http://www.icixsound.com, plenty of people sell them and from my experience they are great subs.

 

[Brian Owens 10+ year member]

The RE SR's are a REALLY nice driver for the price!!

But I should add, if you are not a basshead, there is nothing wrong with the driver you bought. . .

 

[Betrayer00GT 10+ year member]

you can find an elemental designs 13kv2 for that price or less used, sometimes even new. go to http://www.icixsound.com, plenty of people sell them and from my experience they are great subs.

I have no desire to buy used drivers, or any other car audio items off the used market. There are a lot of clueless people that run car audio equipment in a really horrible fashion. They couldn't tell you anything about clipping or damping-factor or any other concepts used in car audio. If some org (like CompTIA in computers) could certify that sellers are not complete morons and probably know how to properly use their equipment, I would be willing to buy from them. I don't see that in the cards though, ya know?

If I had a "friend" with one for sale, that would be different, but my friends haven't been into car audio since High School, either.

I should have mentioned I wasn't interested in used in my post, though. Thanks for the reply!

The RE SR's are a REALLY nice driver for the price!!
But I should add, if you are not a basshead, there is nothing wrong with the driver you bought. . .

Yeah, I had no info that told me RE Audio was a decent brand until earlier today, really. I was familiar with Infinity, Kicker, Cerwin Vega, RF, and MB Quart from back in the day, though. Thanks for the input!

 

[thegreatestpenn 5,000+ posts]

ok, try http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com/shop/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=205

and I forgot about ED's sale

http://www.edesignaudio.com/edv2/product_info.php?cPath=92&products_id=183

 

[Trey803 5,000+ posts]

shoulda checked out the soundsplinter rl-i. Sounds like you want a sq driver but a moderately sized one that doesn't need beastly amounts of power.

 

[thegreatestpenn 5,000+ posts]

^ that's out of his price range

 

[snoopdan 5,000+ posts]

Dont forget about our buddies over at Mach 5 audio, RD Audio, SSA and Stereo Integerity for great cost/value products.

http://www.mach5audio.com

http://www.rdaudio.net

http://www.stereointegrity.com

http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com

 

[528hz 10+ year member]

Welcome back, man. I, like you, have been out of the game for about 8 or 9 years

and came back. I wanted SQ and no more ported boxes. I currently have an SI 15"

Mag on a Sundown 1500D in a sealed box. Let me tell you, I have never heard

anything do what this thing does (especially sealed!) and I should get a vid and pics

up this weekend. No distortion at all, even when the deck is at MAX VOLUME! I

HIGHLY suggest looking into both of the brands.

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

The DIYMA12 seems to be a real popular sub to recommend in that price range these days. I haven't played with one myself yet though.

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=32&osCsid=87daf9275937a6ac77d4d08214864116

 

[Betrayer00GT 10+ year member]

The SI and RD stuff looks excellent. Reminds me of the Sound Splinter and other TC-Sounds sourced stuff. I am familiar with that stuff from Home Theater. Nothing like a 8-15cuft EBS tuned Sound Splinter 15" or 18" for HT use. Well, except a pair of them. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

ATM, all of their stuff is rather more than I want to spend. That may change in the future, as I have a tendency to get into things "whole hog", even if I start out with simple/inexpensive intentions. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif I have a feeling that car audio won't suffer from that, since I really only put 8K miles on the 'stang a year - not really in it enough to drop ~$250+ on a driver and the $200-$400 for an amp with enough power to justify the driver upgrade. I might get there, but I don't think so.

The MAW-15 looks like it would have been an awesome choice, I think. I didn't check into what shipping would be, but I bet it would have pushed the purchase price up over $150, just based on what I recall from looking into MAW-12 based HT DIY subs for fiends in the past. I have a spreadsheet with a Bill of Materials (BOM) for a MAW-12 based HT sub because I am always hooking people who hear my HT on the impact of an HT that can really play the deep bass in movie soundtracks. Unfortunately, I was actually pushing my desired total woofer cost just a bit to go $118, shipped for the MB Quart 15" I ordered. Plus, that MB Quart is going to look sexy in there, the Mach5 stuff isn't up to that standard, IMO. Not that should matter, but it kinda does. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/redface.gif.62fdbfe1a101588a808c4cff71bcb942.gif

 

[Betrayer00GT 10+ year member]

The DIYMA12 seems to be a real popular sub to recommend in that price range these days. I haven't played with one myself yet though.
http://www.diymobileaudio.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=32&osCsid=87daf9275937a6ac77d4d08214864116

Holy crap. "Weight: 37 lbs" -> for a

Still, shipping a 37lb driver is not cheap. In fact, it is just shy of 40% of the driver cost. . //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crazy.gif.c13912c32de98515d3142759a824dae7.gif

That one is in the same category for me as the MAW-15, "if only I was spending a bit more" summs it up nicely.

Still, that thing is an awesome value if it is executed properly (sounds like it is, based on community reaction).

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

Holy crap. "Weight: 37 lbs" -> for a
Still, shipping a 37lb driver is not cheap. In fact, it is just shy of 40% of the driver cost. . //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crazy.gif.c13912c32de98515d3142759a824dae7.gif

That one is in the same category for me as the MAW-15, "if only I was spending a bit more" summs it up nicely.

Still, that thing is an awesome value if it is executed properly (sounds like it is, based on community reaction).

LOL wow no kidding, never realized that. Cheapest shipping method is $45 each. Ouch.

Puts it out of your budget, my bad.

 

[Betrayer00GT 10+ year member]

LOL wow no kidding, never realized that. Cheapest shipping method is $45 each. Ouch.
Puts it out of your budget, my bad.

Don't ever apologize for pointing out that driver to someone who didn't already know about it. Most of the time I would be perfectly happy to stretch a bit for something w/ that level of improvement. It is just that I seriously think that I am going for massive overkill vs what I would be happy with already, as far as the "basshead" aspect of car audio goes.

Now I just need the equivalent of that driver as far as 5.25" component sets go. You know, for when I (inevitably) move my Polk EX 6X8s to door-mounted midbass duty, and make or buy some kick panels for a set of sweet-sounding components. My home audio Dynaudio speakers have pretty well spoiled me in that regard.

 

[Betrayer00GT 10+ year member]

Well, I got it into a 1.7L (gross) sealed enclosure I built for it. I don't have my head unit or amps yet, much less all the power wiring done in the car, too. Still, my SVS 20-39 CS-Plus HT sub in the living room is running off a 250w Audiosource mono-block, ATM, and I hijacked that to get a little MBQuart 15" sealed sub action going.

Not bad. It seems to hit a bit tighter than the SVS tube 12" sub (ported in ~3.6cuft tube, and tuned at 16Hz), but the output is peaky and it's difficult to tell what the reach actually is (I found my SPL meter, but not my test-tone disc). It doesn't seem to have the "down real deep" output of the SVS on the same amp, but it is hard to tell what the actual cause of that is when it is in my living room.

Likely it is because I used the power of triple boundry reinforcement by putting it in an unused corner (blocking the front door - lol), and the SVS has had a little bit of effort put into placement for a flat-ish response (+2dB @ 20Hz, -2dB @70Hz - It has a sharp drop after 70Hz, but a 80Hz x-over accounts for some of that I'm sure).

Overall I'm impressed. I am also thinking I might not really want more than ~300w into the thing when I get it into my trunk, based on the living room action I got out of it w/ a 250w amp. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/eek.gif.771b7a90cf45cabdc554ff1121c21c4a.gif

...and I was right, the thing looks sexy, top-mounted in that enclosure. (I am sure I am broken)

You know, I have enough black, suede-style leather left to cover my MDF temp enclosure with it, in case it takes me a while to get to making a fiberglass enclosure for the sub. That might look pretty cool for a while. It would also be rather durable. Hmm... I need to get some more contact cement and give that a try. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/cool.gif.3bcaf8f141236c00f8044d07150e34f7.gif