Wanna try something

[mendon mafia 10+ year member]

TRUE! My cadillac doesn't flex a bit!! I did a 143.8 in this video on music. However before I did all of my sound deadening I was only doing a 140.X and had some CRAZY flexing!!

not saying that flex means it does well on the meter but my roof is about 3 feet longer than your 2dr caddy its gonna flex even with mat.

and btw that song isint the best flex song in the world, u need a lower note.

Flex dosnt prove numbers but it proves air movement and air movement (Vd) makes for a more impressive system imo.

 

[k_schutte 10+ year member]

not saying that flex means it does well on the meter but my roof is about 3 feet longer than your 2dr caddy its gonna flex even with mat.
and btw that song isint the best flex song in the world, u need a lower note.

Flex dosnt prove numbers but it proves air movement and air movement (Vd) makes for a more impressive system imo.

your roof isn't much longer than mine... my car is like 10" or so longer than your 300 (assuming it is the newer version and not the glorified sebring version) ... you roof MIGHT be a little longer but IF it is probably only by inches. As for the song, I was at a competition and that song plays my cars peak frequency so of course I would play that one while being metered. While flexing is neat to watch it is a loss on the meter, the cadillac has 3 layers of deadening throughout and that alone gained me like 3dB~.

 

[plugitin 5,000+ posts]

not saying that flex means it does well on the meter but my roof is about 3 feet longer than your 2dr caddy its gonna flex even with mat.
and btw that song isint the best flex song in the world, u need a lower note.

Flex dosnt prove numbers but it proves air movement and air movement (Vd) makes for a more impressive system imo.

Really? There are WAY to many variables to say something like that.

 

[k_schutte 10+ year member]

Really? There are WAY to many variables to say something like that.

yeah, doesn't really sound like he has a clue what he is talking about but...

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

not saying that flex means it does well on the meter but my roof is about 3 feet longer than your 2dr caddy its gonna flex even with mat.
and btw that song isint the best flex song in the world, u need a lower note.

Flex dosnt prove numbers but it proves air movement and air movement (Vd) makes for a more impressive system imo.

What exactly do you think SPL is? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[tinmanchris217 10+ year member]

I personally like using cheap subs to compete because it shows that the box is more important (to a point) than the subs, and its fun to crush people that spent 3 times what you did //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif
There is some good advice offered among the flaming here...you should upgrade your wiring to 1/0 and do the big 3.

If 150 is actually your goal then you'll need to upgrade your amp, subs and optimize your box.

Similarly, I run cheap subs ($100 each) and a cheap amp ($150). It's all about doing your research, planning ahead, and buying smartly.

Hitting 150 isn't possible, accept that...but 145 should be a goal to shoot for. Honestly, I would be happy in the 140-143 dB, TL legal, range.

Bear with me, and I'll do what I can to help a learning SPL nut.

In a Grand Prix (with all trunk cars), you have a few options, and I'd bet you can get up near 143-145, with that equipment and spending some time tuning. Here are some box choices:

- Standard trunk will lose a couple dB's instantly. If you're trying to squeeze every bit out of your setup, don't use this.

- Rear-deck/middle-seat blow-through is good for staying in stock classes for competition. It also keeps things secure from thieves. This would be my choice. Either cut a hole, or use the existing speaker holes.

- Sealed trunk is as loud as you'll get, since you're basically walling the trunk off. It takes some time, but allows you to keep your back seats and compete in either stock or unlimited classes.

- Wall is impractical for most people, but it does get crazy loud and takes alot of time.

1) Choose your style, and setup the basic structure.

2) Build a test box, with ~3 cf sealed box.

3) Using a meter, run 2 tests. One using a sine sweep with the car sealed up, and one with the windows, trunk, and doors open.

4) Find your cabin gain peak. This is the where the biggest difference between the 2 tests happens.

5) Build a ported box, with 4 cf IV, and a large port (200 sq in) tuned to ~3 Hz less than this frequency. Try to keep port and speaker facing forward. Double-baffle the front, and use lots of wood glue and screws. Apply a layer of duct tape or fiberglass to the inside seams.

6) Ensure your wiring is proper and gains are set properly (to a light clip). 1/0 wire is needed for your amp, along with a clean ground, and a quality battery.

This should be enough to get your setup to 138+, TL legal. Everything from there on is small tricks and tuning that comes from lots of testing.

 

[mendon mafia 10+ year member]

your roof isn't much longer than mine... my car is like 10" or so longer than your 300 (assuming it is the newer version and not the glorified sebring version) ... you roof MIGHT be a little longer but IF it is probably only by inches. As for the song, I was at a competition and that song plays my cars peak frequency so of course I would play that one while being metered. While flexing is neat to watch it is a loss on the meter, the cadillac has 3 layers of deadening throughout and that alone gained me like 3dB~.

i guess its the glorified seabring version cuz its a 2000 even tho my car is huge compared to a seabring of the same year. roof its about 5ft long from glass to glass its like a dodge intrepid if i had to call it glorified anything.

and its just ive never seen a loud system not flex the car on low notes, so its a safe assumption that if your car isint flexing at all on 30hz then ur system probably isint loud. obviously if ur car has 30 layers of mat and is reinforced this is a different story and you know your system is loud hence why you need all the damping to keep your car form destroying itself.

Are you claiming that your car has zero flex at 30hz or less cuz i seriously doubt it even with 3 layers of mat. I would love to see any system that is capable of 140's @ 30ish hz to play that loud with no flex at all. that will impress me more than scoring a 140 @ 30 hz with a 8.

if you throw an 18 properly powered into a car its gonna flex the car at least a little bit if not break shit unless its armored or a tank.

 

[k_schutte 10+ year member]

i guess its the glorified seabring version cuz its a 2000 even tho my car is huge compared to a seabring of the same year. roof its about 5ft long from glass to glass its like a dodge intrepid if i had to call it glorified anything.
and its just ive never seen a loud system not flex the car on low notes, so its a safe assumption that if your car isint flexing at all on 30hz then ur system probably isint loud. obviously if ur car has 30 layers of mat and is reinforced this is a different story and you know your system is loud hence why you need all the damping to keep your car form destroying itself.

Are you claiming that your car has zero flex at 30hz or less cuz i seriously doubt it even with 3 layers of mat. I would love to see any system that is capable of 140's @ 30ish hz to play that loud with no flex at all. that will impress me more than scoring a 140 @ 30 hz with a 8.

if you throw an 18 properly powered into a car its gonna flex the car at least a little bit if not break shit unless its armored or a tank.

my car don't flex AT ALL on a 30hz tone... because that box is tuned to 40hz so it can't hit those lows for shit... //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

It flexed like hell with the RE XXX 15" in there with a box tuned to 33hz playing anything in the low-mid 30hz range. However I have yet to run a lower tuned system since I did my sound deadening. Basicaly I was just going for numbers on the TL so I was running a tuning of about 40hz.

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

i guess its the glorified seabring version cuz its a 2000 even tho my car is huge compared to a seabring of the same year. roof its about 5ft long from glass to glass its like a dodge intrepid if i had to call it glorified anything.
and its just ive never seen a loud system not flex the car on low notes, so its a safe assumption that if your car isint flexing at all on 30hz then ur system probably isint loud. obviously if ur car has 30 layers of mat and is reinforced this is a different story and you know your system is loud hence why you need all the damping to keep your car form destroying itself.

Are you claiming that your car has zero flex at 30hz or less cuz i seriously doubt it even with 3 layers of mat. I would love to see any system that is capable of 140's @ 30ish hz to play that loud with no flex at all. that will impress me more than scoring a 140 @ 30 hz with a 8.

if you throw an 18 properly powered into a car its gonna flex the car at least a little bit if not break shit unless its armored or a tank.

Without sounding harsh, excess flexing really only impresses people who don't actually care about the audio quality. All that flexing is doing is the car absorbing the sound energy. The more flexing that's happening, the more output you're losing. At least in home audio, it is one of the least desired things for a room to have, since if the room's walls are vibrating significantly, they will be out of phase with the speaker and will cause terrible coloration of the sound. You've heard the term standing waves? Well, the standing wave is a wave that just sits in place and oscillates. That causes any note at that frequency to continue to resonate within the enclosure, which causes peaks and valleys in your output response. In an undamped enclosure, that causes the walls to vibrate significantly at that frequency which also colors the sound significantly. That's why you use damping materials on the inside whether it's physical wood bracing, fiberglass, Dacron, wool, whatever. They turn the sound energy of the standing waves into heat which causes them to dissipate quickly. The physical bracing just prevents the walls from flexing altogether from the energy produced by the driver. All of these things whether it's sheer panel vibration due to excess energy, standing waves or poor room construction are completely undesirable. Take a look at this:

I trust you've seen those spikes on speakers and subwoofers before. What are they for? They're for exactly what I'm talking about. They isolate the speaker cabinet from the floor so that any vibrations caused by the cabinet are not transferred to the floor which would also vibrate and cause interference. Using spikes can clean up your bass response because you don't have 10 dozen vibrating surfaces instead of just the 6 on the enclosure and the speaker. More vibration adds coloration, and you don't want that. When it's actually flexing, the issue is compounded significantly. People add deadening to doors for this reason: by adding mass to the door, you're lowering the resonant frequency of the door panel, thus making it less susceptible to vibration from audio frequencies.

 

[k_schutte 10+ year member]

Without sounding harsh, excess flexing really only impresses people who don't actually care about the audio quality. All that flexing is doing is the car absorbing the sound energy. The more flexing that's happening, the more output you're losing. At least in home audio, it is one of the least desired things for a room to have, since if the room's walls are vibrating significantly, they will be out of phase with the speaker and will cause terrible coloration of the sound. You've heard the term standing waves? Well, the standing wave is a wave that just sits in place and oscillates. That causes any note at that frequency to continue to resonate within the enclosure, which causes peaks and valleys in your output response. In an undamped enclosure, that causes the walls to vibrate significantly at that frequency which also colors the sound significantly. That's why you use damping materials on the inside whether it's physical wood bracing, fiberglass, Dacron, wool, whatever. They turn the sound energy of the standing waves into heat which causes them to dissipate quickly. The physical bracing just prevents the walls from flexing altogether from the energy produced by the driver. All of these things whether it's sheer panel vibration due to excess energy, standing waves or poor room construction are completely undesirable. Take a look at this:

I trust you've seen those spikes on speakers and subwoofers before. What are they for? They're for exactly what I'm talking about. They isolate the speaker cabinet from the floor so that any vibrations caused by the cabinet are not transferred to the floor which would also vibrate and cause interference. Using spikes can clean up your bass response because you don't have 10 dozen vibrating surfaces instead of just the 6 on the enclosure and the speaker. More vibration adds coloration, and you don't want that. When it's actually flexing, the issue is compounded significantly. People add deadening to doors for this reason: by adding mass to the door, you're lowering the resonant frequency of the door panel, thus making it less susceptible to vibration from audio frequencies.

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wow.gif.23d729408e9177caa2a0ed6a2ba6588e.gif That's what I was gonna say //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/cool.gif.3bcaf8f141236c00f8044d07150e34f7.gif

 

[mendon mafia 10+ year member]

i never said flex sounds good. it actually can completely wash out a 150+ db system for example my buddys Subaru with 2 shocker sig 15's. the roof flexes so much and loudly, its terrible to listen to music. all you hear is the roof waving and bending and smacking support beams and what have you.

 

[Lakota 5,000+ posts]

This thread is full of FAIL.

 

[tinmanchris217 10+ year member]

OP gave up on this setup... in return, I give up on helping noobs (on this site).

I'm starting to realize why most of the gurus don't waste their time, until a thread proves its worth posting in.

@ the peeing contest, start a flex thread, rather than dumping here. Flex is bad, but inevitable in underdamped normal cars.

 

[Face of Fear 10+ year member]

wen i saw him get metered he did like 138-9ish(correct me if im wrong here jake) and as far the the meter is concerned i watched another guy i know put up a 144 flat with 2 btl 18s in a wall then post a 146.X on a termlab an hour later. so im assuming the meter isnt more than 2-3 dbs off at most. however wen i saw jake(op) get metered he had 4 of those 12's in his trunk and that was a few months ago so i couldnt tell you wat hes got going on now(edit) please do an ip check so im not confused with anybody who likes mobile wiring

It was a 139.8 and then again with different wire and a jbl 1201.1 at 141.1.

 

[nissanrider06 10+ year member]

Its funny how everyone hates on best buy subs, Not everyone cares about killing there ear drums in a week and spending a grand... or spending hours a day on the internet learning how to have a professional system some people just want a little bump and rather focus on other thinfs