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<blockquote data-quote="20 hz bass machine" data-source="post: 8722699" data-attributes="member: 678131"><p>First things first, nearly everyone you ask this question will have a different answer. Brand bias, subjective personal experience, and sometimes even misinformation leads to wildly different options. That being said instead of telling you which subs to buy, which amp to get, etc., Ill tell you the few things I've learned during my car audio journey. </p><p>First is what you're doing now, taking some serious time to decide what you really want out out of you system, what you might want in the future, whats best for you. </p><p>When I first decided to go from a daily driver with a small system to a high caliber competition vehicle I decided on 4 15" JLW0v3's and 4 8" JLW3v3's thinking I'd have something special that could hit lows and also have a nice punchy response simultaneously. I even bought all of the subs and amps (something like $3000) and never built the car because I realized it was a bad idea. This along with a ton of other decisions like vehicle choice, power supply, amplifiers, the list goes on, have cost me lots of money that I ultimatelycould have used elsewhere. Point is that I've had tons of ideas that I didn't think through and ended up hurting me in the end.</p><p></p><p>Second is the concept of what actually matters when you're building a system. If someone asked me the 2 things that matter most to get loud id say power and cone area. I know your more geared toward SQ but the idea is still important. DB's is essentially a power measurement. If you want to get more DB there is a mathematical relationship. You can always adjust what you already have to gain DB but when it comes down to it, the only way to get louder is to add subs or add power. Every time you double one of those you gain 3 DB. It doesn't always make it to the meter but mathematically if you double you gain 3 DB. In practice this is important because if you are serious about SPL but want to be as efficient with your power as possible you want to put in as much cone area as you can. Ex: my personal SPL build: we have 4 18s in a truck blowthrough. Those 4 subs are each getting 5000 watts and currently were hitting a 159.4. If we decided we wanted to be louder the only way we could do that is to swap out the 18s for 12s because we can match the cone area in the same box volume but because we have more subs we can double the power and get our 3 DB. Only problem with that is the power upgrades we would need to support the increased wattage. I don't have that kind of money so I opted to go with 18s because it was the cheapest way to fill my trucks usable area. I think you get the idea.</p><p></p><p>3rd thing ill talk about is box type. This is once again heavily debated. Im not a box master, I'd hardly call myself an intermediate but I have learned a few things. I think ported vs sealed already has enough coverage so I'll skip the pros and cons and give my general opinion. Sealed is good when space is limited and/or a tight punchy response is wanted. Ported is good when space is still a factor but less so and a deeper more rumble type sound is desired. If I had to pick between ported and sealed I'd pick ported but honestly I don't love either. Sealed lacks in the efficiency department and ported is bandwidth limited. With ported your bandwidth effectively stops as soon as you hit the tuning frequency and I assume with SQ, being able to play down to 20 hz is a desirable. As of now my favorite box type is 4th order. Just like everything it has trade offs but for car audio I think its the best option. The sealed section gives you a tight punchy response meanwhile having a ported section gives you attributes of a ported box. There is a lot of factors but when designed properly you can have a box that has serious kick and also plays ridiculously low without losing cone control. Im not sure a 4th could be optimized to play the higher notes associated with your choice in music but I would heavily consider it as an option. As a side note, if you do go 4th I'd be happy to design the enclosure, no cost. </p><p></p><p>All in all there are many things to think about before making concrete decisions. Based on your post and my opinionated knowledge, I'd go with 2 lower power SQ geared 12's in a 4th. With roughly 5 cunesnof gross volume you should have the volume you need. The pair won't need tons of power either which is nice for your power supply too.</p><p></p><p>As you can probably tell I'm definitely more of an SPL guy but the mindset and process of system design is very similar. Any other questions let me know. Sorry for the book.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="20 hz bass machine, post: 8722699, member: 678131"] First things first, nearly everyone you ask this question will have a different answer. Brand bias, subjective personal experience, and sometimes even misinformation leads to wildly different options. That being said instead of telling you which subs to buy, which amp to get, etc., Ill tell you the few things I've learned during my car audio journey. First is what you're doing now, taking some serious time to decide what you really want out out of you system, what you might want in the future, whats best for you. When I first decided to go from a daily driver with a small system to a high caliber competition vehicle I decided on 4 15" JLW0v3's and 4 8" JLW3v3's thinking I'd have something special that could hit lows and also have a nice punchy response simultaneously. I even bought all of the subs and amps (something like $3000) and never built the car because I realized it was a bad idea. This along with a ton of other decisions like vehicle choice, power supply, amplifiers, the list goes on, have cost me lots of money that I ultimatelycould have used elsewhere. Point is that I've had tons of ideas that I didn't think through and ended up hurting me in the end. Second is the concept of what actually matters when you're building a system. If someone asked me the 2 things that matter most to get loud id say power and cone area. I know your more geared toward SQ but the idea is still important. DB's is essentially a power measurement. If you want to get more DB there is a mathematical relationship. You can always adjust what you already have to gain DB but when it comes down to it, the only way to get louder is to add subs or add power. Every time you double one of those you gain 3 DB. It doesn't always make it to the meter but mathematically if you double you gain 3 DB. In practice this is important because if you are serious about SPL but want to be as efficient with your power as possible you want to put in as much cone area as you can. Ex: my personal SPL build: we have 4 18s in a truck blowthrough. Those 4 subs are each getting 5000 watts and currently were hitting a 159.4. If we decided we wanted to be louder the only way we could do that is to swap out the 18s for 12s because we can match the cone area in the same box volume but because we have more subs we can double the power and get our 3 DB. Only problem with that is the power upgrades we would need to support the increased wattage. I don't have that kind of money so I opted to go with 18s because it was the cheapest way to fill my trucks usable area. I think you get the idea. 3rd thing ill talk about is box type. This is once again heavily debated. Im not a box master, I'd hardly call myself an intermediate but I have learned a few things. I think ported vs sealed already has enough coverage so I'll skip the pros and cons and give my general opinion. Sealed is good when space is limited and/or a tight punchy response is wanted. Ported is good when space is still a factor but less so and a deeper more rumble type sound is desired. If I had to pick between ported and sealed I'd pick ported but honestly I don't love either. Sealed lacks in the efficiency department and ported is bandwidth limited. With ported your bandwidth effectively stops as soon as you hit the tuning frequency and I assume with SQ, being able to play down to 20 hz is a desirable. As of now my favorite box type is 4th order. Just like everything it has trade offs but for car audio I think its the best option. The sealed section gives you a tight punchy response meanwhile having a ported section gives you attributes of a ported box. There is a lot of factors but when designed properly you can have a box that has serious kick and also plays ridiculously low without losing cone control. Im not sure a 4th could be optimized to play the higher notes associated with your choice in music but I would heavily consider it as an option. As a side note, if you do go 4th I'd be happy to design the enclosure, no cost. All in all there are many things to think about before making concrete decisions. Based on your post and my opinionated knowledge, I'd go with 2 lower power SQ geared 12's in a 4th. With roughly 5 cunesnof gross volume you should have the volume you need. The pair won't need tons of power either which is nice for your power supply too. As you can probably tell I'm definitely more of an SPL guy but the mindset and process of system design is very similar. Any other questions let me know. Sorry for the book. [/QUOTE]
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