TheUsD

Ported box came in and deff made a difference. To think, you can actually tell there are two 10" subs in that truck now. I also installed the 4chan amp to run the 4 door speakers and left the 3 dash speakers on the factory amp. I've got a little tweaking to do but overall this Ram 1500 sounds amazing.

Correct. The LPF is at 240hz because there are no switches or other knobs besides the LPF and the Gain to set the amp at "flat" as my co-worker called it. I believe the H/U's crossover is set at either 80hz -18db or at 100hz -24db. I honestly can't remember but sounds much louder and no clipping. Just to give you an example of how low-volume the subs were: When I adjusted the crossover's on the 6x9's and 6.5" and EQ'ed them to what I feel is "perfect" I could turn the subs on or off (by using the H/U to turn on or off the sub signal) you could not hear them subs turn on or off, it was that bad...

As promised I would update ya'll when I made some progress. Well let me first start out by saying: "Sorry". In my early days for audio systems (back in early '00's) I was a poor H/S kid. My amp(s) were hand-me-downs from friends or my brother along with dirt cheap subs from friends when they bought new ones. I never had a real car/truck audio system until now. More than anything, I never had a real H/U that had more than a "loud" button or 3 EQ. My issue was because of my LPF on the amp and crossover on the H/U. I had stated what my settings were in my post and maybe like I did when reading online how to properly tune subs (not set the gain) you guys overlooked what I was doing wrong. It turns out that I either needed to A: use the crossover on the H/U to control the filtering of frequencies to the subs OR use the LPF on the amp and turn off the crossover on the H/U. I decided to turn the LPF on the amp to its highest setting, 240hz to allow all frequencies to enter the amp but control the output of frequencies from the H/U with the built-in crossover. Once I corrected these settings, I re-adjusted the gain using the 40hz test-tone and FINALLY!!!!!!! the subs came to life. I have to admit that this was truly only my fault for not reading more documentation on how to adjust properly. I still have the subs in the sealed box and they are sounding pretty good. I still feel like I should be getting a little more out of them but I'm thinking that's where the ported box is going to fill the void. I just got done pre-wiring the 4 door speakers in my truck, (leaving the 3 dash speakers on trucks factory amp) installing my new Kicker 6x9's from the front doors with 6.5" for the rear doors. All that is left is installing my GM-D8604 4chan amp and putting the subs in the new, ported box. Thanks for ya'lls help and please feel free to chime in if you think there is a better way for me to go about this.

Why not just sell the used 12" for $150 (if it's in great condition) on your local CL and use the funds to buy a new 10"? Need more cash, sell the amp separately, say $50 and you're just $9 short to buying a 10"

Side Show: I really wish I could but I know I'd spend about 4x as much on material cause I'd keep screwing it up. Figured purchasing would be less time and money. We'll see how it turns out. Who knows...if I come back still complaining, maybe I'll just pay one of you to build it, lol.

I slept on it and decided to purchase a ported box. I purchased the Labyrinth Vented 10" box by Obcon. It's a .75cu per side (.25cu less than required) and the only other box I could find was the fox acoustic box but it was rated at 1.2 per chamber at almost double the price and needed some extra modifications to the truck that I just wasn't willing to do since it creates safety issues with back passengers. I'll post back with results when the box gets here.

I've been looking into the ported boxes for my truck since my fab skills are less than par. I can build motorcycles and repair vehicles all day long but something bout cutting wood, screwing and gluing escapes me...I haven't acted on purchasing a box because I was trying to go the free route (tuning the subs) because the truck has been receiving a full over-haul. From engine tune-up, shocks/springs/tire-rods/tires, to new exterior lighting, audio/video and this coming weekend project: Operation Climate Control (heating and A/C). I've only got a few more bucks for the audio/video and I planned on using that cash to purchase the 4chan amp to replace the stock amp that'll be powering the new 6x9s for the front doors and 6.5s for the rear doors.

Because of the hype from my co-workers, people on the Internet, listening to one of my co-workers SA8 (which sounded amazing I might add), and Brian from Sundown, I was hoping a deeper and louder bass than my previous subs. Especially considering the price I paid for them. Truth to be told, I'm feeling a little discouraged at the moment for choosing these SD2s. I'm really hoping that I'm just being a drama queen and don't have these tuned right but, honestly I'm losing faith.

Update: I swapped amps from the corolla with my truck. Going from a GM-D8601 that pushed 800RMSx1 @ 1ohm stable to: GM-D9601 that is pushing 1200RMSx1 @ 1ohm stable. That made a little improvement but I still do not fee like the subs are producing what they could be. Any suggestions? Anyone? Could my process of tuning be incorrect? I am using the 40hz Shine test tone. It is being played from my phone via Bluetooth streaming. Before playing the test tone, set my H/U to volume 25 (full is 40 and setting to 30 just seems too loud for the speakers) I ensured that the crossover on the H/U is off, and the amp's LPF is turned all the way down to 40hz. From there, I set the gain accordingly. When adjusting the amps LPF 80hz to 100hz seems to make the subs respond the best. At the H/U side, I try to match as best as possible. It seems that 80hz with -18db sounds the best for these subs but their "loudness" lacks. Is there a better way to go about this?

Cones are facing up.

ToNasty, the SD2 are under the rear seats of the truck. The bottom of the seats can be lifted to expose the subs but makes very little difference in sound lifted or down in the seating position. IslandPride, the subs that were in the trunk of the corolla are different size and model of the subs that were in the truck prior to installing SD2s. I was using the corolla as an example only to demonstrate the output power of the amp. My apologies if I made that a little confusing. I'll take some pictures of the setup tomorrow.

Sorry I did not bring this up in the first post as you reminded me with your post, ToNasty. I spoke to a few others about this amp to ensure that it was not going to under-power the subs more than, including asking Brian from Sundown, and all agreed that yes, on paper it will be producing less RMS watts than the speakers are rated for, however it should not be an issue "especially if I used good quality cabling" -Brian from Sundown, which is what I did. Again, not to compare but to help narrow down where my issue could be, I had this amp powering two TS-W3003D4 subs that are rated a 4 ohm 600RMS 2,000 peak power. This was installed in a 2013 corolla S. I ended up buying a bigger amp for the corolla just so I could match RMS as best as possible but the GM-D8601 was more than capable to power the corolla subs properly (I just wanted that little extra push, ya know? lol) The box's cu is .63 per chamber and the subs require .5. I Brought that issue up with Brian from Sundown and again, he said that would be fine as long as I used some baffling material. Luckily the box came with baffling material already installed. But just as a test to either prove or disprove your theory, ToNasty, if I was to disconnect one of the SD2s and run a single at 2ohm @500RMS, do you think that the sub would be pretty loud?

So I've been having some issues tuning two SD2-10D4s in my 02 Dodge Ram 1500. The two subs are in a sealed enclosure that fits under my seat. The enclosure is made by Atrend. Now before I go any further, I read that this site does not like/allow the comparing of subs. What I am about to say next is not to compare any two brands of subs but to help build the image of what my setup was and is now. Prior to buying the SD2's I had different subs but everything else is still the same. Subs: Two TS-W254Rs @ 2ohms with 250 RMS to each sub. Amp: GM-D8601. Gain was set to middle (turned by ear with no clipping), crossover was set between the 60hz and 125hz so I'm guessing around 90hz to 100hz H/U: AVH-X2700BS. Crossover was set a 80hz with -18db The bass sounded fantastic from the two subs, given what their capabilities were but deep down inside wanted just a little more bass. So I reached out to a few co-workers and they introduced me into Sundown. I contacted Sundown and spoke to a man name Brian who guided me from instead of purchasing two SA 10's to purchasing the SD10's given my setup. When the SD's came in the mail, I installed them but instead of having 2 ohms impedance , I wired the DVC's to a 1ohm impedance which in return raised the RMS of the am from 500RMS (250RMS per sub), up to 800x1 (400RMS per sub). Again, I tuned the subs (so they would not clip) the using the same method as I did the TS-W254R's and no matter what I did, I could not get the SD's to produce the same amount of bass as the other subs. I tried adjusting the amps crossover and the H/U's crossover for hours but could not get the volume out of the subs as others have proclaimed. I'm not sure if links are permitted so I will not post the link to a video from Sonic Electronix that uses the same method as I used to ensure the amps gain was set accordingly to keep the subs for clipping but it is a 3 part video, each part is a different method. I used video 1, the "ear" method. I do understand that the amp is pushing out 200RMS less than is should for these subs (100RMS less for each sub) but can that really make a huge difference for these subs? I can't imagine a $40 250RMS max sub would outperform a much more expensive "400RMS" sub (I would have said 500 as that's what the sub is rated but I really only have 400RMS running to each). Again, I'm not trying to compare brands by any means, I'm only trying to paint a picture of my before and after setup so that someone here might be able to help me tune these properly or at minimum point me in the right direction to some basic tuning points, aka:*Start by putting your crossover's Here, Here and Here, and the tweak accordingly* Thank you taking the time to read this and a extra "Thank you" to anyone who can help. P.S. if you require any extra info on my setup, I will be editing this post to keep the tread from being so long.