MAJOR brands, how do they measure up? I want EVERYONES two cents!!

[XORstatus 10+ year member]

I have limited experience with alot of these brands, I haven't had the privilege of "PLAYING" with all of them. I more so interested in in these brands overall quality and their sound philosophy, as subjective as that may be.

I have previously owned a FI btl, an early version and I have seldom seen such excellent quality in driver production.

Some of these brands are very well known, but again I have limited experience and am wanting your expertise, in general info, your personal experience, and even hearsay.

Brands:

DD

AQ

AB American Bass

Atomic

GZ Ground Zero

T3

IA Incriminator Audio

CS Cactus Sounds

DC

AA Ascendant audio

Thanks!

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[Falcons 5,000+ posts]

I've owned an American bass TNT 12, it's now in my gf's car. I can tell you it gets pretty loud for 600 rms. Also it can hit from 30 hertz all the way up to 80 with authority making it a great sq woofer

 

[silvercookie 5,000+ posts]

DD - expensive.

AQ - DD little brother - good price

AB American Bass - mostly their older stuff and their amps. the higher sub lines take a beating

Atomic - good quality. dont know if they are still in business though

GZ Ground Zero - Have to order from europe, good luck with shipping

T3 - scam artists.

IA Incriminator Audio - very nice stuff

CS Cactus Sounds - heard good things about their amps.

 

[Kangaroux 5,000+ posts]

The DD's will get loud as hell and take some abuse but they are definitely expensive. I wouldn't buy a new DD product if my life depended on it.

 

[craigzter 10+ year member]

The DD's will get loud as hell and take some abuse but they are definitely expensive. I wouldn't buy a new DD product if my life depended on it.

Amen on that.

 

[Team TH (Donny) 10+ year member]

DD - expensive.AQ - DD little brother - good price

AB American Bass - mostly their older stuff and their amps. the higher sub lines take a beating

Atomic - good quality. dont know if they are still in business though

GZ Ground Zero - Have to order from europe, good luck with shipping

T3 - scam artists.

IA Incriminator Audio - very nice stuff

CS Cactus Sounds - heard good things about their amps.

Couple Brands to add..

DC Soundlab - Great stuff decent price.

SSA Sound Solutions Audio - Excellent stuff for a mix of good SPL and SQ decent prices.

Sundown - Good stuff. High cost.

Crescendo - Basically same amps as Sundown at cheaper cost.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

DD

The snob-ophile gear of the SPL community. Stuff is **** good, but everyone (including DD and their pricing) will act like it's 10X better than anything else out there. They're the equivelant of SEAS tweeters for the SQ guys.

AQ

Fairly priced, low quality control, fair performance. Notorious for their spiders separating from former or just fraying/tearing and not honoring warranties because your sub "hadn't been broken in". Really apart from the poor quality control a great bang/buck ratio.

AB American Bass

Their amps are really solid. I doubt they OEM their subs. I've only seen their low end subs and they seemed pretty much like everyting else for their class/price range. Some of the other stuff I've seen looks very much like other stuff out there. Pretty much just off-the shelf stuff OEM'd somewhere else.

Atomic

Nice stuff, very solid build quality, known for rugged softparts. Notorious for giving different prices depending who you talk to and what day of the week it is. Also heard credible reports of some pretty shady stuff dodging warranty claims

GZ Ground Zero (no clue)

T3

Company seems really shady, but TSNS is an absolute monster. Lot of guys up this way doing some sick numbers with them and they take some terriffic punishment.

IA Incriminator Audio

Haven't heard anything bad about them which is really a good sign. Companies that old that act shady you hear about it.

CS Cactus Sounds

Pretty much unobtanium in the uSA. I'm guessing their big 4" coil motor is a copy of something that's more readily available. Their amps are good, but not original or unique.

IMHO if you're trying to buy retail find a company you can trust and that'll take care of you. NEVER buy anything with a bunch of proprietary parts since repairs become exponentially expensive and eventually the company will go under or stop supporting that particular model then you're SOL when you need to repair.

If you're buying used, or don't care, there's plenty of good stuff out there much of which from companies that you really wouldn't want to have to deal with or companies who make a lot of crap and one or two jems.

There are very few factories that actually make motors, baskets, and softparts, and apart from the rather risky (IMO) proprietary stuff there isn't a ton of technology that you'll find in one and not another.

1. Choose nuts

2. Hug

3 ?????

4. PROFIT!

 

[XORstatus 10+ year member]

What about ORION HCCA?

 

[LosIsATool 5,000+ posts]

DC= Good company, good quality. Nice line up covers all needs. Do well in smaller boxes! Love to be tuned low and can get loud when wanted. Distrobution philosophy is frowned upon by some, but there is a method to the madness.

 

---------- Post added at 03:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:48 PM ----------

 

What about ORION HCCA?

Hurts gas milage to much for its preformance

 

[LosIsATool 5,000+ posts]

Crescendo amps are not "like" Sundown amps. The BC2K is a Hifonics BXI2600. I cant speak about the larger ones, but I doupt they put out like Sundown. If they do I will never buy a Sundown product.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

What about ORION HCCA?

Decent daily ground pounders. Claims of megawat power handling are exagerated. Recones are proprietary, hard to find, and probably will never be made again

 

[mylows10 5,000+ posts]

dd too expensive and now the people who run the company are acting like like azzholes ,and i will not buy their products ever again

aq is dd little brother

ascendant is the higher end of fi ,very good woofers

atomic has great products ,and yes they are still in business,my team has been playing around with some of they're products

ab i hear great things about bob and his stuff ,haven't used them yet but hope to check some of his stuff out soon

dont know anything about incriminator ,but hear good things

ground zero ,the europeans love them ,must be a reason why,they do get loud

cactus sounds again same as ground zero

t3 bad *** woofers ,but the company is always have issues . ie in business,out of business alot