Looking for a 12" that takes 500w RMS

[Clifff150 10+ year member]

I think you’ll be fine but can go bigger for peace of mind. How’s the demon look?

 

[Betelgeuse]

I think you’ll be fine but can go bigger for peace of mind. How’s the demon look?

Thanks, I'll go bigger because I don't want that in the back of my mind all of the time.

The sub looks great. Beefier than I expected. The spider is pretty stiff, but then again, I haven't held or played with a sub in like a decade.

I'm thinking I may have to double up the baffle with it being kinda heavy and it being downfired. Shipping info said it was 25lbs.

 

[Betelgeuse]

I hope to be able to give a review of the Demon after this weekend. I have the downfiring box built, 3" of space between the bottom of the box and the floor. Specs say 1.1cuft is optimum, so that's what I made it. Used binding posts instead of a terminal cup. The binding posts take banana plugs, so that's what I'll put on my 12ga speaker wire that came in the other day. I'm making it so in the rare event that I have to remove the box, it won't be a complete PITA. I thought I had more room under the steering column for the micro sub amp, but I do not. Since this had to change, my 3' RCA cables won't work, 6' cables will be in tomorrow. I have longer 8ga power/ground cables on hand to make it to the distro block. The distro block is 4ga to to battery/ground.

I'm putting the amp in the locking center console, attaching it to the inner liner of the console via blind rivets. I'm going to drill holes in the bottom of the liner for cabling. On either side of the cables, I'm going to drill small holes that I can feed zip ties through to further secure the cabling. There is a factory cutout in the center console for a factory sub. I cut a matching hole in the console liner and I'm going to mount the amp across this cutout so that any air in/out of console has to go around the amp.

I've got a pretty neat, IMO, idea to secure the box in the back of the jeep. I don't go around with the top completely off very often, but I do fold the soft top back, take the doors off, and use tube doors a good bit. I want to keep lazy thieves out. Unless the have a way to open the locked tailgate, there's one mounting point in the rear that they will not be able to access. And unless they carry around a Very large Torx bit and ratchet/impact, the exposed second mounting point will be solid as well. I bought 2" wide, 1/8" steel flat bar to attach the box to the bed. Sub is mounted by non-standard machine screws through threaded inserts. They are pretty long, so I do not envy someone trying to unscrew it from the bottom. I'm not saying it's theft-proof, but they are going to play hell trying to get it out.

As far as the box itself, I'm going to bed liner spray all the exposed MDF, then go back and use black carpet over the bedliner spray to match the interior.

 

[Betelgeuse]

Change of plans. The broken lock on my console looks like too much of a hassle to replace. Mounting amp in here. Gotta pick up some rubber grommets. Going to run cabling through the sidewall with enough slack to open and close the glove box without pulling on the cables.

It's prevented at least one theft (not my pics)

 

[Sancetiano]

I hope to be able to give a review of the Demon after this weekend. I have the downfiring box built, 3" of space between the bottom of the box and the floor. Specs say 1.1cuft is optimum, so that's what I made it. Used binding posts instead of a terminal cup. The binding posts take banana plugs, so that's what I'll put on my 12ga speaker wire that came in the other day. I'm making it so in the rare event that I have to remove the box, it won't be a complete PITA. I thought I had more room under the steering column for the micro sub amp, but I do not. Since this had to change, my 3' RCA cables won't work, 6' cables will be in tomorrow. I have longer 8ga power/ground cables on hand to make it to the distro block. The distro block is 4ga to to battery/ground.

I'm putting the amp in the locking center console, attaching it to the inner liner of the console via blind rivets. I'm going to drill holes in the bottom of the liner for cabling. On either side of the cables, I'm going to drill small holes that I can feed zip ties through to further secure the cabling. There is a factory cutout in the center console for a factory sub. I cut a matching hole in the console liner and I'm going to mount the amp across this cutout so that any air in/out of console has to go around the amp.

I've got a pretty neat, IMO, idea to secure the box in the back of the jeep. I don't go around with the top completely off very often, but I do fold the soft top back, take the doors off, and use tube doors a good bit. I want to keep lazy thieves out. Unless the have a way to open the locked tailgate, there's one mounting point in the rear that they will not be able to access. And unless they carry around a Very large Torx bit and ratchet/impact, the exposed second mounting point will be solid as well. I bought 2" wide, 1/8" steel flat bar to attach the box to the bed. Sub is mounted by non-standard machine screws through threaded inserts. They are pretty long, so I do not envy someone trying to unscrew it from the bottom. I'm not saying it's theft-proof, but they are going to play hell trying to get it out.

As far as the box itself, I'm going to bed liner spray all the exposed MDF, then go back and use black carpet over the bedliner spray to match the interior.

I am waiting for your review of the sub. Also please add attachments (images, videos) if possible.

 

[Bobbytwonames 5,000+ posts]

The Alpine Type R or even the Type S puts out a nice quality sound on 500 watts.

 

[Betelgeuse]

I am waiting for your review of the sub. Also please add attachments (images, videos) if possible.

I hooked it up yesterday evening right before it got dark. Haven't yet set the gain or LFP properly yet. I just wanted to verify my wiring was correct and that the amp worked. The spider seemed pretty stiff out of the box compared to what I remember of my JL 10w0's and 15w0's. I'm hoping it loosens up and gets louder. As of now, I'm underwhelmed. It does fill in the missing bottom end, but the output is not that great. I did increase the gain a little bit to get the sub moving, but dialed it back down until I can set it properly.

Other than the Demon, I have a Taramps 400x4 bridged to 2 channels (200x2) to push my Polk MM1 6.5" component set. I used a multimeter and math to dial down that amp to what I believe is 125 watts. It gets pretty loud. By the time I turn up the volume to get the sub moving, my ears are bleeding from the tweeters. I have them dialed down as far as they go on the crossover, and I had them attenuated a little bit on the head unit. Disconnecting the batter to install the sub amp reset my HU settings, so maybe after I get everything re-calibrated, I'll be happier with the demon.

The locking, steel glove box idea worked. Amp fits in there nicely. It was a major PIA to install, but it works. I'm going to tinker with everything over the weekend and see where I am.

 

[Betelgeuse]

The Alpine Type R or even the Type S puts out a nice quality sound on 500 watts.

Already got the SSA Demon to go with my 500w mono amp. My thoughts were that the Demon fit my goal of being a small sealed box 12", good power handling, and worked ported as well. That way, if I wanted to change things in the future, I could go with a bigger amp and/or go ported, I wouldn't have to buy a new sub.

 

[Betelgeuse]

I am waiting for your review of the sub. Also please add attachments (images, videos) if possible.

Here are some preliminary pics.

Installed threaded inserts into the box.

Didn't have a table saw saw so the cuts weren't the best on this end. I went back and sanded it really flat.

Test fitting the amp in the new glove box.

 

[Betelgeuse]

One issue is apparent. My source *****. My HU is always connected to my phone bluetooth. I listen to a lot of YouTube videos because I'll get a song in my head that I'll want to hear and it's easy to just YouTube it. None of the music levels are the same, some loud some soft, all compressed and crappy. Pandora is better, but I dont get to pick songs. The USB stick was awesome with high bitrate songs on it.

Im going to sign up for Spotify and try a wired USB connection.

If this audio quality doesn't do it for me, I'm thinking about trying something. I set my component set gain about 2/3 ~ 3/4 max headunit volume. Its plenty loud cranked up, loud enough to overcome road and wind noise when driving topless. If I have it cranked up and come to a stop, its suprising loud. I dont listen to it nearly that loud when the top and doors are on. I probably listen to it at half to 2/3s of that for daily driving. I'll set my sub gain at daily driver level with the sub bass knob all the way up. That way, if I need to drown out road noise and I crank it up past 22 or so, I can use the base knob to turn it down, because I'll probably be at volume 29 or so.

Thoughts?

 

[Sancetiano]

Here are some preliminary pics.

View attachment 27845





Installed threaded inserts into the box.

View attachment 27847


Didn't have a table saw saw so the cuts weren't the best on this end. I went back and sanded it really flat.
View attachment 27848


Test fitting the amp in the new glove box.
View attachment 27849

I think your sub box needs more height/depth and more air space. Looks like your sub is jàm-packed in there looking at your third pic. I personally haven't seen a box like that.

 

[Clifff150 10+ year member]

The Demon doesn’t have a pole vent so the motor being that close is fine. I’m sure his airspace is within what SSA recommends sealed.

 

[Betelgeuse]

The Demon doesn’t have a pole vent so the motor being that close is fine. I’m sure his airspace is within what SSA recommends sealed.

Correct.

It's down-firing and within spec. I have a big cooler that I carry around in the summer (priorities) and the box was pretty much built around it. There's about an inch on either side of the cooler with the box in the back.

Still pretty underwhelmed. The sub isn't even really moving around much. Wondering if I should have taken the advice and got a sub with less power handling.

 

[shredder2]

Underwhelmed?.. meanng pathetic?

Either the underpowered, downifring small sealed box don't agree with that sub in that vehicle... or...

You stated before that the HU reset when you disconnected the battery, was the sub level up and reset to a lower level?

 

[Betelgeuse]

Underwhelmed?.. meanng pathetic?

Either the underpowered, downifring small sealed box don't agree with that sub in that vehicle... or...

You stated before that the HU reset when you disconnected the battery, was the sub level up and reset to a lower level?

I wouldn't say pathetic, just underwhelmed. Seems underpowered to me. Went riding dirt roads yesterday so I could get away from neighbors. Placed the box firing towards the tailgate, and also in the back seat facing the front. Facing front was a little better. I played a 50hz test tone and adjusted the gain. It acted like it wanted to sound off, but by that point, the gain was too high and I had to back it back down.

The HU has the sub pre outs at +10, the max. I think part of the problem is that I'm not getting much, if any, cabin gain since I have the soft top on. Maybe that's part of it, but I suspect it's underpowered. Wish I had room to try ported.