Name a better deal then this.

[barber24alldaz 10+ year member]

ok, in all seriousness to the OP..

up until 3 weeks ago i was running a mtx 9515-44 off a mtx 1501d... i got the sub for $599 ("sale") n the 1501d for $439

I WILL SAY THIS, THAT AMP IS GREAT! mtx can make some amps..

but the sub..ahh the sub. #1, for the money i paid, it never really performed like i wanted it too..it was flat and dry on lows, not deep at all. n b4 u say it was n electrical problem, i have a 320 amp alt, with 1/0 all thru my car..

soo the moral of the story is, 3 weeks ago the voice coils on the 9500 fried..n it gave me n excuse to switch to sundown..i got n 18" d2, hit it real quick today in the box im building for kicks. this IS undoubtedly the BEST setup ive ever had..with the gain only 1/3 of the way up on the 1501d, i am hearing lows i never have b4 on the 9500.

AGAIN, not tryin to flame, jus speaking from experience..

MTX 9515-44: COST..$599

RMS..1000 watts

SUNDOWN 18 d2: COST..$415

RMS..1500 watts

HEARING THE MUSIC FOR THE FIRST TIME.....PRICELESS!!!

 

[twistedchild420 5,000+ posts]

ok, in all seriousness to the OP..
up until 3 weeks ago i was running a mtx 9515-44 off a mtx 1501d... i got the sub for $599 ("sale") n the 1501d for $439

I WILL SAY THIS, THAT AMP IS GREAT! mtx can make some amps..

but the sub..ahh the sub. #1, for the money i paid, it never really performed like i wanted it too..it was flat and dry on lows, not deep at all. n b4 u say it was n electrical problem, i have a 320 amp alt, with 1/0 all thru my car..

soo the moral of the story is, 3 weeks ago the voice coils on the 9500 fried..n it gave me n excuse to switch to sundown..i got n 18" d2, hit it real quick today in the box im building for kicks. this IS undoubtedly the BEST setup ive ever had..with the gain only 1/3 of the way up on the 1501d, i am hearing lows i never have b4 on the 9500.

AGAIN, not tryin to flame, jus speaking from experience..

MTX 9515-44: COST..$599

RMS..1000 watts

SUNDOWN 18 d2: COST..$415

RMS..1500 watts

HEARING THE MUSIC FOR THE FIRST TIME.....PRICELESS!!!

All win here

 

[T3mpest 10+ year member]

There is alot of info in this thread, but no one has really taken the time to educate so I will. Speaker sensativity is almost useless measurement. It's taken at 1000hz, several octaves above where a sub is expected to play. In general, as this number goes up, the box size required to keep that effeciency and get deep bass goes up as well. In a car this is bad, which is why alot of car audio subs arent' effecient. Anyway, if you want a sub to play low in a sealed box you need to look at the xmax figure. This tells how far the sub can move without motor force (BL) dropping below 70%. This is where 10% distortion sets in usually and things begin to sound bad. You'll note MTX doesn't even give XMAX figures, I"d bet it's under 15mm as most mainstream brands are, at lest the few that tell you, especially the ones that won't. Whichever speaker has the highest Xmax is the one tht has potential to play the lowest and loudest, cleanly. How big of a box you need a how much power is best to be modeled, but in general the more effecient the bigger box you need to get any lows out of it, and if it still have low XMAX, well you just wasted your whole trunk to max out at 122db's without using a ton of power, lol. (exaggeration, but you get the point).

If your going ported, BL and powerhandling become two big specs to look at. BL is motor force as I mentioned earlier. When you get near tuning frequency of the box, the sub excursion drops again, very low in most cases and the port is responsible for output. A high BL gives the speaker the ability to fight this resonace and keep moving, exciting air in the port and leading to more SPL near tuning and higher effeciency. Lastly, since excursion drops in a properly built ported box over the musical range, you don't need huge xmax so how much power a speaker can handle thermally is more important than how much mechanically.

Anyway, MTX doesn't seem to post T/S parameters for their subs, even the basic ones and as I hope you realize now, how loud or how good a speaker sounds has alot more to do with it than simply watts of power and sensativity. Here is a paper from Dan Wiggins, the owner of Adire Audio (RIP) on speaker effeciency. He has a US patent on a motor design he produced that really revolutionized speaker design. He also builds for alot of other companies now.

http://stereointegrity.com/docs/Efficiency.pdf

Anyway, Rushy knows his speakers will be used in the lanes in alot of cases. His build quality is very good and you paying for a much nicer speaker than the MTX. Both the Q and the DC LVL IIRC use a 3" coil. The MTX is only a 2.4" coil, meaning regardless of what they say for RMS, the MTX will not handle nearly the same amount of power. The MTX is likely right on with 600 watts, a fully 3 can almost always handle 1000 watts thermally. Even the DC LVL one has a 2.5"coil. Also, as I mentioned before you can't even model the MTX in a program because they dont' give reliable specs. Building a box is a crap shoot and at higher drive levels, I guarantee the FI Q and mid to upper DC line will walk on the MTX.

Anyway, just looking at what MTX considers "high end features" on their sub is a joke. Extended pole peices, progressively wound spiders, etc arent' super high end features worth bragging over. It would be like a car salesman bragging about a car's "anti-lock breaks and traction control" in 2010. Maybe if you knew little about cars that would sound impressive, but to anyone that knows shit about cars, it's been a standard forever on any car worth mentioning. Maybe not quite the same parallel, but still worth noting. A FI Q can give you the same things, with probably 2x the useable excursion. Anyway, I'm done ranting, so to OP, what kind of box do you want to build, sealed or ported? How much space do you have?

 

[barber24alldaz 10+ year member]

There is alot of info in this thread, but no one has really taken the time to educate so I will. Speaker sensativity is almost useless measurement. It's taken at 1000hz, several octaves above where a sub is expected to play. In general, as this number goes up, the box size required to keep that effeciency and get deep bass goes up as well. In a car this is bad, which is why alot of car audio subs arent' effecient. Anyway, if you want a sub to play low in a sealed box you need to look at the xmax figure. This tells how far the sub can move without motor force (BL) dropping below 70%. This is where 10% distortion sets in usually and things begin to sound bad. You'll note MTX doesn't even give XMAX figures, I"d bet it's under 15mm as most mainstream brands are, at lest the few that tell you, especially the ones that won't. Whichever speaker has the highest Xmax is the one tht has potential to play the lowest and loudest, cleanly. How big of a box you need a how much power is best to be modeled, but in general the more effecient the bigger box you need to get any lows out of it, and if it still have low XMAX, well you just wasted your whole trunk to max out at 122db's without using a ton of power, lol. (exaggeration, but you get the point).
If your going ported, BL and powerhandling become two big specs to look at. BL is motor force as I mentioned earlier. When you get near tuning frequency of the box, the sub excursion drops again, very low in most cases and the port is responsible for output. A high BL gives the speaker the ability to fight this resonace and keep moving, exciting air in the port and leading to more SPL near tuning and higher effeciency. Lastly, since excursion drops in a properly built ported box over the musical range, you don't need huge xmax so how much power a speaker can handle thermally is more important than how much mechanically.

Anyway, MTX doesn't seem to post T/S parameters for their subs, even the basic ones and as I hope you realize now, how loud or how good a speaker sounds has alot more to do with it than simply watts of power and sensativity. Here is a paper from Dan Wiggins, the owner of Adire Audio (RIP) on speaker effeciency. He has a US patent on a motor design he produced that really revolutionized speaker design. He also builds for alot of other companies now.

http://stereointegrity.com/docs/Efficiency.pdf

Anyway, Rushy knows his speakers will be used in the lanes in alot of cases. His build quality is very good and you paying for a much nicer speaker than the MTX. Both the Q and the DC LVL IIRC use a 3" coil. The MTX is only a 2.4" coil, meaning regardless of what they say for RMS, the MTX will not handle nearly the same amount of power. The MTX is likely right on with 600 watts, a fully 3 can almost always handle 1000 watts thermally. Even the DC LVL one has a 2.5"coil. Also, as I mentioned before you can't even model the MTX in a program because they dont' give reliable specs. Building a box is a crap shoot and at higher drive levels, I guarantee the FI Q and mid to upper DC line will walk on the MTX.

Anyway, just looking at what MTX considers "high end features" on their sub is a joke. Extended pole peices, progressively wound spiders, etc arent' super high end features worth bragging over. It would be like a car salesman bragging about a car's "anti-lock breaks and traction control" in 2010. Maybe if you knew little about cars that would sound impressive, but to anyone that knows shit about cars, it's been a standard forever on any car worth mentioning. Maybe not quite the same parallel, but still worth noting. A FI Q can give you the same things, with probably 2x the useable excursion. Anyway, I'm done ranting, so to OP, what kind of box do you want to build, sealed or ported? How much space do you have?

very informative

 

[spltuscon 10+ year member]

^^^ Good post, but MTX does list T/S parameters for all their models including x-max. You have to click a link to it on the website. I have no experience using MTX subs myself, so I won't go so far as to stick up for them, but the 7500, 8500 and 9500 all spec pretty well on paper.

I would buy a DC or Fi before MTX though...

Peoples perception of the sensitivity rating is funny though...a higher spec DOES NOT mean that it will be louder in your car with more than 1w (or 2.83v)...lol

 

[seedubs1 10+ year member]

I still don't know why people are liking the DC LVL 3 so much.....

Bl is low, QTS is high, and EBP is low. It models out and looks nice as a sealed box driver, but if youa re looking to get loud, go ported and get a driver really built for it.

The LVL 4xl looks real nice for a ported driver though.