Why does this suck.....really bad

I don't know ANYTHING about car audio stuff but I do know that this sub/amp/box must suck cause I can fart louder than this thing hits. I do know the sub is a new Kicker CVS shallow mount 12" and the amp is a Power Acoustic 1250 watt 2 ohm but that's all I can tell you. is the box too small, does the amp suck? it just sucks.

Lance,

I know nothing about stereos, either....but, from the looks of it, it's smacking the back of the seat. Can't see that that's good??:shrug:

I seem to remember something about being able to move the rear seat up an inch or two. Maybe that's all that's needed??

The shallow mount Kickers are awesome and you dont have to have a huge box either, but I've never seen anyone have good luck with a Power Acoustic amp before. I would opt for either a Kicker or Alpine amp. Alpine M850 would be perfect IMHO

I have one Memphis 10 in my truck behind the rear seat. It is a ported box and runs almost the width of the back seat. I don't know much about speakers and I may be wrong but my guess would be that the sub needs a little more airspace.

Do you have the amp bridged to the sub? If so it should be 4 ohm bridged, not 2 ohm. Rated 560 watts RMS. Make sure you have your crossover set to Low pass, start with around 100hz and crank it down to your liking, I usually went with around 80 when I had a daily driving system. Make sure your subsonic filter is set low, start with the 15hz setting and adjust up if need be. Play with your "Bass EQ" if you'd like, I have no idea at what hz it's set to peak at. Lastly make sure your gain is adjusted adequately as well.

If none of that works for you, and you aren't suffering from extreme light dimming due to power loss (shouldn't be an issue with that amp) turn to your head unit, make sure your sub output is set correctly.

Make sure your box is at least 1 cubic foot as that's what the minimum recommended box size is, with the maximum all the way up to 4.6 ft3. Assuming that box is sealed.

Daryl4412 said:

I have one Memphis 10 in my truck behind the rear seat. It is a ported box and runs almost the width of the back seat. I don't know much about speakers and I may be wrong but my guess would be that the sub needs a little more airspace.

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Go by what the speaker likes (specifications), ported boxes generally are larger than their sealed counterparts.

I don't know if its bridged....i just put the sub wires into it LOL. crossover is set to low pass and I've tried the whole range of impedence. Still sucks

is it even hitting?

Well if your amp is NOT bridged you are only getting half the power. See the diagram to make sure it's bridged.



Edit: You certainly aren't going to be doing any window or door flexing with that setup, but you certainly should feel some bump.

yep that's how it's wired. i just dropped the seat back so it's not contacting the sub and it's hitting a little better. I'm wondering if its the amp or if maybe I'm just expecting too much out of this cheap set up?

I don't know anything about audio either, but I had that same cvs in a box about that size. It barely hit as well, so I made a ported box thats the length of the back seat and it made a huge difference. I don't know if you have a sliding rear window like me, but if you don't, it'll be a straight shot to make one with a couple sheets of fiberboard, itll be easier than cutting around the slider motor. My box only has 1.2 cu ft of air space, so what your working with now is a lot less. It's either the box or the amp, not sure what else to suggest.

I was running a single JL 13 shallow in my 450 with a sealed box. The sub called for very little air space, but it required a long narrow box. Was pushing it with a JL 500/1 and it pounded.... hard. And it hit the back of the seat, made no difference.

Did you set your amp up? I would carry it to an audio shop and have them look at it

me thinks my box is too small. this one has .63 cu ft of air space. sounds a little small even for a CVT. I think I'm going to get one that runs the length of the back seat and port it. hopefully that'll do it.

Ok just did some checking. This sub needs a minimum of 1.0 cu ft so I'm short there. Also, the sub is a 4 ohm and my amp is a 2 ohm.....what does that mean?

Mdf

Monstar said:

Mdf

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heh?

stroke of luck said:

heh?

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Lol, Its called medium density fiberboard, its just leftover wood fiber mixed with wax and resin that's compressed with heat, making it alot denser than plywood. You can get it a home depot. It resonates less than regular wood and doesn't expand as much, so you dont have to worry about humidity.

Get 3/4" so you don't have to worry about it cracking either. I didn't really care about aesthetics since it's behind my seat, so I didn't bother carpeting it, I might later though.

is that box glued together or nailed?

Stapled and glued, also instafoam inside

The CVT's have gotten great reviews through the years compared to all the other shallow subs, but their large volume needs seem to contradict the use of a shallow sub.


Looks like you got a few things to fix, some more internal volume for the sub, keep it from hitting the back seat and maybe double check your amps settings.

The wiring and impedence of the subwoofer is what will dictate the impedence the amp see's and not how the amp is wired. I am assuming the sub is a single 4ohm, if it was single 2ohm it will send the amp into protection when the volume gets turned up even slightly while the amp is bridged, since it is only 4ohm stable when bridged.

With that amp bridged to a single 4ohm sub then the sub should be seeing 560W with the gains set correctly and at max (listening) volume. Now you have the low pass filter on, but what is the crossover point set at, if its pretty low you won't be letting the sub play enough of the frequency range, around 100hz should be a good start.

Also what head unit are you running? Does it have a subwoofer level feature? Could be that the level is turned down in the HU or that the EQ settings are cutting the low frequencies out of the signal.