Hi,

I'm quite misearable tonight. I had a great sounding Titanic 1200 sub
and 3 cu. ft box that sounded great. I unfortunately had no room in my
Pathfinder so I upgraded to a 12.1 Infinity in a 1 cu. ft. box. The
box is braced, has a double walled baffle and is sealed tight. When I
push on the cone it doesn't want to go in to easy. Anyway, I've tried
every setting combination on my MTX amp and the BASS is simply muddy
and boomy compared to my old Titanic setup. I'm wondering if my amp is
too weak. I have to EQ the BASS boost on the amp so that it's audible
and I believe this may be causing the boomy, muddy bass. If I EQ the
BASS boost down the amp becomes inaudible. I tried turing down my door
speaker amp and I the sub is louder but not any cleaner. I'm thinking
of buying a more powerful amp (the thunder is rated at 500 watts at
14.4v and 360 watts at 12v). It should be plenty powerful. My Titanic
was much cleaner and hit harder. Any advice? I played with placement
too. The curious thing is that the Infinity subs have gotten excellent
reviews. I'm just wondering if this is par for the course with small
enclosures?

Hi,

I'm quite misearable tonight. I had a great sounding Titanic 1200 sub
and 3 cu. ft box that sounded great. I unfortunately had no room in my
Pathfinder so I upgraded to a 12.1 Infinity in a 1 cu. ft. box. The
box is braced, has a double walled baffle and is sealed tight. When I
push on the cone it doesn't want to go in to easy. Anyway, I've tried
every setting combination on my MTX amp and the BASS is simply muddy
and boomy compared to my old Titanic setup. I'm wondering if my amp is
too weak. I have to EQ the BASS boost on the amp so that it's audible
and I believe this may be causing the boomy, muddy bass. If I EQ the
BASS boost down the amp becomes inaudible. I tried turing down my door
speaker amp and I the sub is louder but not any cleaner. I'm thinking
of buying a more powerful amp (the thunder is rated at 500 watts at
14.4v and 360 watts at 12v). It should be plenty powerful. My Titanic
was much cleaner and hit harder. Any advice? I played with placement
too. The curious thing is that the Infinity subs have gotten excellent
reviews. I'm just wondering if this is par for the course with small
enclosures?

Well, the sub and box are probably less sensitive than the old setup. A
larger amp may be helpful, but then again it may just be a gain issue. Does
it sound to you like the amp is distorting when you've got the EQ up?

When I turn the EQ up, on the amp, the sub gets boomy. If I turn it
down the sub can't really be heard. MTX has a built in bass boost of
18db. I've never been a fan of bass boost because of the distortion it
adds.

You're right how the sensitivity with this new driver. I also took the
sub into my house. I have a 15" passive subwoofer, in my home, powered
by a 200 watt B&K amp. Its one of the cleanest sounding subs I've
heard and it is power hungry too. I built it to look like furniture and
went to great pains to double wall the everything, brace it, etc. The
driver, a hand made Lambda is rated at 88 dbs at 2.83. The Infinity is
rated at 96dbs. Ha! On to my test. I turned off my speaker amp so I
could hear the subs. I had to turn the voume up considerable to hear
the Infinity sub when I switched the speak wires over from my home sub.
The Infinity driver sounded tight and defined and not muddy like my
Pathfinder. Two things bother me here; why are the sensitivity rating
of the Infinity driver so inflated. And why does my home amp rated at
200 watts play the sub louder then a 500 watt bridged MTX amp. My
choices are to buy a New Titanic sub driver that is made for a 1 cu. ft
enclosure or updgrade my amp to 900 watts. I still have one issue.
I've read over 50 reviews on this sub and I don't recall anyone
complaining that the sub needed so much juice.

When I turn the EQ up, on the amp, the sub gets boomy. If I turn it
down the sub can't really be heard. MTX has a built in bass boost of
18db. I've never been a fan of bass boost because of the distortion it
adds.

Most bass boosts these days don't generate distortion, actually. I usually
don't use it because it sometimes adds unwanted peaks. But it should remain
distortion free. In the meantime, if the signal level is your problem, you
won't hurt anything by using it.

You're right how the sensitivity with this new driver. I also took the
sub into my house. I have a 15" passive subwoofer, in my home, powered
by a 200 watt B&K amp. Its one of the cleanest sounding subs I've
heard and it is power hungry too. I built it to look like furniture and
went to great pains to double wall the everything, brace it, etc. The
driver, a hand made Lambda is rated at 88 dbs at 2.83. The Infinity is
rated at 96dbs. Ha!

See? That was one of my points before. Infinity bases their sensitivity
measurements for this driver *in the car*. By doing so, they artificially
inflate the numbers, because most other manufacturers aren't doing this. In
the end, sensitivity specs tend not to give us too much information because
of the restricted values they use.

On to my test. I turned off my speaker amp so I
could hear the subs. I had to turn the voume up considerable to hear
the Infinity sub when I switched the speak wires over from my home sub.
The Infinity driver sounded tight and defined and not muddy like my
Pathfinder. Two things bother me here; why are the sensitivity rating
of the Infinity driver so inflated. And why does my home amp rated at
200 watts play the sub louder then a 500 watt bridged MTX amp.

Different listening environment could be a factor. Also, it's quite
possible that your home amp actually delivers more power than the MTX,
despite the disparity in the ratings. Also, is the 200 watt rating measured
into the same impedance?

My
choices are to buy a New Titanic sub driver that is made for a 1 cu. ft
enclosure or updgrade my amp to 900 watts. I still have one issue.
I've read over 50 reviews on this sub and I don't recall anyone
complaining that the sub needed so much juice.

Sub setups are often *very* enclosure-dependent. In other words, more often
than not, the enclosure will make more of a difference on the sound than the
sub itself. In fact, efficiency (not the same thing as sensitivity, but
relevant nonetheless) is closely related to enclosure size. So it's not
surprising that your old 3 cu ft sub played louder. The "muddy" part could
be a number of different things. Oftentimes, a sub will sound "muddy"
because the midbass drivers aren't keeping up their end of the bargain. But
since you left that unchanged, it could just be that the freq response of
the new sub/encl setup is not what it should be. Ways to fix this a

0) switch the phase of the sub! - it's common for the response to improve
when the sub's phase is changed, even if it's "out of phase" with the rest
of the system.

1) change the volume of the enclosure - since you can't make the enclosure
bigger (unless you want to put that driver in your old 3 cu ft enclosure
just to see what the difference is!), you can make it smaller by just
filling it with lumber. Put a few pieces of spare MDF in there to take up
some volume, and see what the difference is going with a smaller box. It
won't play louder, but it should change the freq resp enough to help
diagnose what the problem may be.

2) play with aiming some more - since you seemed to like how the Infinity
sounded in the house, maybe moving the box around might help diagnose
things.

3) still got that Titanic? try the mtx amp on it.

4) the gain setting still may be an issue. For whatever reason, you may not
be reaching max output on the mtx amp if you can't get the signal level high
enough. This is not uncommon, actually. Make sure that the processors in
the head unit aren't screwy, or anything like that.

I'm assuming, of course, that the sub's coils are wired appropriately - you
know, if it's a DVC.

In article .com,
"Sub_Lover" wrote:

When I turn the EQ up, on the amp, the sub gets boomy. If I turn it
down the sub can't really be heard. MTX has a built in bass boost of
18db. I've never been a fan of bass boost because of the distortion it
adds.

Thats pretty much what may happen. Cutting as opposed to boosting is
usually a more efficient use of amplifier power. Unless of course one
has measured the space and has access to parametric/paragraphic hardware.


You're right how the sensitivity with this new driver. I also took the
sub into my house. I have a 15" passive subwoofer, in my home, powered
by a 200 watt B&K amp. Its one of the cleanest sounding subs I've
heard and it is power hungry too. I built it to look like furniture and
went to great pains to double wall the everything, brace it, etc. The
driver, a hand made Lambda is rated at 88 dbs at 2.83. The Infinity is
rated at 96dbs. Ha! On to my test. I turned off my speaker amp so I
could hear the subs. I had to turn the voume up considerable to hear
the Infinity sub when I switched the speak wires over from my home sub.

Keep in mind as well, your Lambda driver is bigger and therefore
displaces more air. And as Mr. MZ has mentioned, more sensitive because
of the larger box. Not to mention most likely being more sensitive
overall in free air.

The Infinity driver sounded tight and defined and not muddy like my
Pathfinder. Two things bother me here; why are the sensitivity rating
of the Infinity driver so inflated.

Looks better on paper that way.

And why does my home amp rated at
200 watts play the sub louder then a 500 watt bridged MTX amp.

A couple of factors that come to mind: The wattage ratings game, and
room/cabin gains/placement. There are for sure more factors.

My choices are to buy a New Titanic sub driver that is made for a 1 cu. ft
enclosure or updgrade my amp to 900 watts.

My vote is for the cheapest option, but that's coming from a
frugalphile's point of view.

I still have one issue.
I've read over 50 reviews on this sub and I don't recall anyone
complaining that the sub needed so much juice.


Exposure is one's limitation. Personally, its hard for me to trust
random reviews based on the fact that nobody knows what the reviewer has
experience with. Or if any at all.

hth,

--
Cyrus

*coughcasaucedoprodigynetcough*

Hi,

Thanks for all the ideas. Unfortuantely I sold the Titanic - it would
have been fun to try that driver in these little boxes and to try the
Infinity in the larger enclosure. There is one factor I forgot. With
my old setup I had a 88 watt Kenwood amp which I upgrade to a Xenon 200
watt per channel amp when I changed to the Infinity sub. I tried
turning the gain way down on my Xenon amp, that powers the door
speakers, and removed all the bass boost from the MTX amp. This seems
to have fixed the problem. My other amp was too powerful for the sub.
Now the sub sounds good. But the EQ or bass boost was definitely making
the sub sound boomy. It plays clean and hits hard now.
Unfortuantely, my bass control stopped working on the MTX amp so I'll
put a call into MTX on Monday. Lots of times there are settings that
don't make it into the manual. I found this out fast on my Kenwood
deck. There is no instructions for turning the sub on or off and for
several other features.

"Sub_Lover" wrote in message
oups.com...
When I turn the EQ up, on the amp, the sub gets boomy. If I turn it
down the sub can't really be heard. MTX has a built in bass boost of
18db. I've never been a fan of bass boost because of the distortion it
adds.

You're right how the sensitivity with this new driver. I also took the
sub into my house. I have a 15" passive subwoofer, in my home, powered
by a 200 watt B&K amp. Its one of the cleanest sounding subs I've
heard and it is power hungry too. I built it to look like furniture and
went to great pains to double wall the everything, brace it, etc. The
driver, a hand made Lambda is rated at 88 dbs at 2.83. The Infinity is
rated at 96dbs. Ha! On to my test. I turned off my speaker amp so I
could hear the subs. I had to turn the voume up considerable to hear
the Infinity sub when I switched the speak wires over from my home sub.
The Infinity driver sounded tight and defined and not muddy like my
Pathfinder. Two things bother me here; why are the sensitivity rating
of the Infinity driver so inflated. And why does my home amp rated at
200 watts play the sub louder then a 500 watt bridged MTX amp. My
choices are to buy a New Titanic sub driver that is made for a 1 cu. ft
enclosure or updgrade my amp to 900 watts. I still have one issue.
I've read over 50 reviews on this sub and I don't recall anyone
complaining that the sub needed so much juice.



Smaller boxes have a higher resonant frequency, the sub SYSTEM will be more
efficient here and above. Try lowering your crossover frequency and bumping
up the amplifier gain to get rid of this resonance instead of invoking a
bass boost. Depending on the Q of the bass boost circuitry you may be
exciting the driver with the boost where you don't want to. I have found
this typical of smallish boxes.

You may need more power. Below the resonance of a closed box in free air
the response rolls off predictably at 12dB an octave. Transfer function
will make up for this but it will also amplify the frequencies where the
SYSTEM is more efficient, the degree depends on the internal volume of your
vehicle. I have found that in most cases tinkering with the crossover freq
can smooth things out well. Unfortunately going from a big box to a small
is far from plug-n-play. The system will have to be re-tuned.

Good luck!!!
Chad