Rainbow Vanadium 12"

[headless 10+ year member]

So I finally got around to replacing my old Kicker CVR 10" in a custom ported box. It served me well ever since my JL 12w6 died, but since I got my Power Line CS, I've been quite unhappy with it. It was the weak spot in the system - didn't get loud enough, and there was an obvious hole in output between ~60 and 80hz. It got plenty loud...but it got loud way LOW and didn't provide a good clean range of frequencies. So, i got in touch with Don (6spdcoupe) and now I am the proud owner of a Vanadium 12".

It's a dual 4 ohm nominal voice coil woofer - the coils read around 3ohms each. I've got it wired up to my punch 100 with both coils in parallel, bridged, to a 2 ohm total load - giving each channel on the punch a 1 ohm load as a result, since it's bridged.

You may know that the Power Line CS uses the same motor/basket as the vanadium 7" subwoofer. Sure enough, the vanadium 12" is like my power line CS woofer's big brother //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Check it out...same type of interwoven tinsel leads

Beautiful woofer

Mmmm, basket.

Chrome vented backplate..push type terminals for the 2 voice coils.

Vented all the way to the cone...no 'grill' in there like my power line cs woofers...but it's in a sealed box anyway, so there's nothing getting in there //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif Mirror shined chrome; note my reflection in there...

Currently it's mounted in a Q-logic 1.25CF sealed box. Rainbows spec sheet lists various enclosure sizes for sealed boxes varying from 0.42ft^3 all the way up to 1.73ft^3 depending on your goal. For example, the 'purist' has a QTC of .707 (woot) for 1.02ft^3 and shows f0 of 50hz. SPL-bomer shows QTC of 1.1 in 0.42ft^3 with f0 of 78hz. 'Allrounder' is 1.24ft^3 (my box) and shows an f0-hz of 46hz, with a qtc of 0.65

Here it is in the box //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Click to read more...

 

[joshualittle]

Looks sexy......

 

[macq32 10+ year member]

didnt think the punch's were bridgeable?? I know some of them aren't, might want to double check that

 

[headless 10+ year member]

The manual that came with the woofer says it needs a 50 hour break-in to get it to optimal parameters...but first impressions are - much louder than my kicker cvr, though it was ported and this is sealed. Much more excursion than the cvr. Much flatter response, right up to 80hz //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[headless 10+ year member]

didnt think the punch's were bridgeable?? I know some of them aren't, might want to double check that

Trust me, it's bridgeable. It's a punch 100IX...and does extremely well for a 2x50w rated amp //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif Then again, it's rated at 2x50w @ 4ohms per channel. Now it's seeing 1ohm per channel. With my kicker cvr (dual 2 ohm) it was seeing an even lower load.

 

[6spdcoupe 5,000+ posts]

Well that was quick ! //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[Plutoman 10+ year member]

/jealous.

That looks nice ^^

 

[filtor1 10+ year member]

Nice sub. One of my favorites from Rainbow. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[headless 10+ year member]

Well that was quick ! //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Had to be done //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif Gotta get started on that 50 hour break-in, right? Maybe i should just go downstairs and get it playing all day while i'm working... //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif It already sounds better than last night after ~30mins of playing this morning. Produces higher volume at just about every frequency than my ported 10" did - except maybe the lows around 30hz.I suspect those will improve as the suspension loosens up some. I'm playing around with phase, box placement and crossover points now. Currently set to 80hz/18db for both the fronts and the sub. It's keeping up with the power line CS much better overall. It'll be interesting to see what happens when I replace the punch 100 with the 1500xxk or something comparable. Not sure how much power it's getting now, but i'd be surprised if it's less than 400w considering the bridged output of the 100ix. RF says it'll do 1x200w into 4 ohms bridged... and they are known for underrating specs on these amps particularly....and it's at 2ohms bridged.

 

[headless 10+ year member]

Played around some more at lunch. Definately beats the **** out of my CVR; standing outside my trunk, it makes my shirt pop when the kick drum hits. CVR was just never impressive above 60hz. Lows are better defined as well - several tracks that i know very well after hundreds of listen thoughs were noticeably easier to discern separate multiple sequential low notes on, where before they sounded like one long thunderous roar //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif The ported box did get louder way down low...but I'm optimistic about that improving as the woofer breaks in. It sounds a lot like my old JL 12w6 did..

 

[headless 10+ year member]

Played through my rap collection today. This woofer has some pretty impressive excursion for an SQ driver..it really gets a lot of movement on the low lows. Gotta get a subsonic filter on it...

 

[joshualittle]

Played around some more at lunch. Definately beats the **** out of my CVR; standing outside my trunk, it makes my shirt pop when the kick drum hits. CVR was just never impressive above 60hz. Lows are better defined as well - several tracks that i know very well after hundreds of listen thoughs were noticeably easier to discern separate multiple sequential low notes on, where before they sounded like one long thunderous roar //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif The ported box did get louder way down low...but I'm optimistic about that improving as the woofer breaks in. It sounds a lot like my old JL 12w6 did..

Yea I miss my old jl audio w6's, the ones that handled 300 watts rms. I had 2 12's in the back of a dodge daytona hatchback and it slammed and sounded great. If you rainbow vandium is comparable to that you must be in for a real treat, to be honest those old w6's were probably my favorite woofer I've ever owned and I've owned a few. I'm actually getting ready to order my new subs in a few weeks, probably either the hertz mille ml 3000 12"s or the jl audio 13w6v2-d4's. I've already ordered 2 sets of hertz mlk 165's for the doors, 3 arc audio amps and some focal and image dynamics speakers for my brother for christmas. Keep us updated on how much better it sounds during your break in period, I'm sure it's not going to be at it'4 best for awhile. Once it's broken in I can only imagine how happy you'll be.

 

[headless 10+ year member]

Yup, the old dual 6 ohm W6 that was much 'lighter' than the w6v2 was my sub before its surround dry-rotted out... i really loved how that woofer sounded sealed too. The sound of the woofer has continued to evolve and it's getting louder too.

 

[fast85_gt]

nice

 

[Brian_smith06 10+ year member]

how much are these? i was thinking about getting an idmax but these look pretty promising