Fish Chris

I was about to say > "Well it's this machine they put in your chest when.... huh ? Wait a second here. Unreply... unreply ! Fish

So I'm surfing along and I stumble across this > ......and I was thinking to myself > Maybe if they would lighten up a little, and just enjoy life, they wouldn't need a pacemaker LOL Fish

Yea that sucks. But I like always say, I don't need / want more hours. I need / want more dollars ! Fish

Because you can Fish

Man, I'd absolutely LOVE to come to a show..... But I always work weekends. {by choice, as usually this is a good thing..... avoiding the crowds for my fishing, or photography} But it's really tough for me to take a Sat or Sun off. It's like it costs me $100-$200.... on top of whatever I would spend on myself for that day. Still, I might have to try to work in a good show or two Peace, Fish

Hey Ray I absolutely would use tomatos as bait, if through some strange occurrence, I found out that they worked great, and the best part of all, would be that I was the ONLY guy using them BTW, I am pretty much the ONLY guy I know, that uses spinning reels to throw big, heavy swimbaits. A bunch of guys probably think I'm crazy, but I've done well enough, that I have guys ask me on a regular basis if that is what they should use too LOL {BTW, I tell them, they should use whatever they feel most comfortable with} ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ But hey, I've heard enough, that I do plan to get all of my port extensions down to the same length.... and finish the third one. However, first I want to run my current setup on a term lab, to see exactly where my tuning stands, so I can decide from there, which direction I want / need to go with it. Oh hey, you had said "Obviously something was bugging me about my port extension idea"...... Well yes. Having SMD question it's effectiveness. Like I already said, there are a few guys who I put a lot of weight in their words. He's certainly one of them Appreciate ALL of you guys input here though. Peace, Fish

Yea', so I suppose if Steve isn't blowing his mids with sub woofer pressure, this probably is not an issue for any of us "mere mortals" to worry about LOL Nonetheless, it was an eye opener to see how much my mid-bass drivers were jumping, from the sub sound pressure, yet so little, under their own power (I'm only running them down to about 80hz). Hmmmm.... Fish

what's the deal on the excursion of your mids and / or mid-bass drivers, relating to the SPL's in your cab, caused by the subwoofers ? Here's why I ask... I noticed that my mid-bass drivers closest to my sub woofer ports, were jumping a LOT father that the two farther away.... So I disconnected the mid-bass drivers altogether, and guess what ? The two closest to the ports will still bouncing like crazy ! And even the two farther away from the ports were moving some. Heck, for that matter, the mids in my doors are probably bouncing from the sub woofer sound pressure as well. So how does this effect SQ ? Could the SPL's from your subs alone, damge your other speakers ??? And geeez ! What about in a truck like Steves ?!?! I could imagine him over driving mids (bottoming them out) when they were not even hooked up to power ! Probably just thinking more than I need to again. Freaking OCD Peace, Fish

Hey Ray, You can bet I weigh anything that someone at SPL2K, or SMD's level, (or a handful of others) tells me, quite heavily..... But at the same time, as far as it not being common for a reason...... Ehhh.... Most of my biggest successes in life have come from "stepping out of the box".... or should I say from "not following the leader". A lot of people do things (or don't do things), simply because a lot of other people do those same things. It always cracks me up to see 3/4's of the boats on a lake crammed into one tiny area > because that must be the fishing hotspot ! Yea' right LOL Keep in mind here too, that IMPO, my box sounds bombastic, as it is.... port extensions or not. I'm really just splitting hairs here. I wish I had my own Term Lab, so I could try some of these different changes (which would probably make pretty small differences) and be able to see "for sure" if these changes were positive, or negative. Hmmmm.... Peace, Fish

SPL2K, I'm certainly not arguing you here, but just out of curiosity, what do you think about the example I gave, of a slanted face enclosure, where the vent has a shorter air travel path at the top, and a longer travel at the bottom ??? Fish

Robert, yes, I did use the Torres calculator to build and tune my box. Ray and SPL2K, I just finished this box a couple weeks ago, and it's the best sounding box I've ever built, out of the dozen or so I have built in the last 30 years. So I don't see myself scrapping it for a new one any time soon. However, you have said enough to make me want to go on and chop my two extensions off a little, then complete the third one, at the same length, just to see if it really does make a noticeable difference. Ray, as far as flared ports go, I have actually made flared 6" ports myself, by heating the edge of 6" PVC, and forcing it down over the top of (of all things ) a bowling ball ! It would take some work, but I could actually flare the end of these port extensions, too. The only reason I didn't, is that all up until recently, the only advantage I ever heard mentioned with flared ports, was that it greatly reduced the chance of port noise.... And I don't have any port noise. As for increased DB's > Now they tell me ! LOL Peace, Fish

or better yet would be, your experience with this, and / or straight up scientific facts..... But if SMD wasn't exactly sure, I can't imagine their are very many people who do know about this. In fact, Steve suggested that I ask about this, here on the forum. So here's the scoop; You guys have seen my box, which I built with the idea, of being able to add port extensions, for different tuned port frequencies, at will. Just in case you haven't, here it is again; Okay now, somewhere way back, I had read something that must have been pretty convincing to me, which basically stated that if you had 2 or more round ports in a box, and these ports were of different lengths, the only effect would be that you would end up with the tuning of the "average length" of all said ports. I remember the example was given, of a vented enclosure, on a slanted face box. Even if the air travel at the top of the vent was 20", and the air travel at the bottom of the vent was 30", you would use 25" for your tuning calculations, and the sound from such a box, would be exactly the same, as a flat faced box, which had a vent length, of 25", at any point. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Anyway, my calcs show that adding one 18" port extension, should drop my tuning from just under 35hz, to about 32hz. And in the real world, it seems like it does. But the different length ports don't sit well with Steve Steve suggested that I run three port extensions of 6" each, instead of one at 18"..... OR, 3 port extensions at 12", instead of two at 18". Of course I'd do it, if I knew it would help either my SQ, or SPL's.... and I might have to go on and do it anyway, just for experimentation... But I'm curious what you guys think.... Or know about this ? Peace, Fish

Thanks again guys, and another BIG thanks to Steve. For a guy at his level in the car audio world, to help out a common guy with a little system like mine..... and then to be so freaking humble about his own stuff, which is really all just off the scale.... SMD is just a genuinely good guy. Don't know what else to say. Fish Oh hey Rebel, my deck is a Kenwood Excellon X790.

Okay, yea', I set my amp gains by ear. And I guess nobody in the history of car audio has ever got this right, without the use of a distortion detector, right ? Okay. I can live with that. But lets just say we hook up the DD 1 to my system, and it says my sub gain should be turned up. Well what this would mean, is that on certain heavy bass tracks, I could not turn the bass on my deck down low enough enough, as I already turn it to -11, even -13 (it only goes to -15 max). Then, if the DD 1 says my sub gains are too high, I've got a bunch of tracks where I could not get my bass loud enough, as I commonly push my deck up to +13... even +15 on occasion (+15 is max high). Somebody please explain to me how turning my gain up, or down, wouldn't cause any problems on one end of the spectrum, or the other. Fish

Thanks guys, but no... no... and no. Ripping off panels, and effing with stupid a$$ clips and $#!+ is just not my thing. I'd rather pay BIG $$$ and have this particular aspect of my build done for me. But still, I was kind of hoping to get it done for less than $1000 ($300 material, $700 labor) BTW, I dunno' about the doors, but I tried (with my mechanics help) to get my roof panel down, so I could do some foam rubber insulation, and even that was a total beee-otch ! Spent a couple hours, and basically gave up, before we had it completely down.... or maybe there were some special clips or something. Don't remember now. But do remember thinking > If ever this think gets sound deadened, I'm paying somebody else to do it ! This is just one of those things that sounds easy on paper, until you actually get into it, and holy $#!+ ! Not me. Fish PS, Like taking off the bumpers.... Easy, right ? Just a few nuts and bolts. HA ! We took mine off (with air tools) so they could be powder coated.... Took 3+ hours, during which time we had to remove more than 130 (I counted) nuts, bolts, and clips ! MF'ing rediculous ! I'll never do that again either.

I live about half way between San Francisco, and Sacramento.... an easy shot to pretty much anywhere in the Bay Area, or Sac, and all of its surrounding towns (bombastic location, huh ? ) Fish

Right on. I'll look at that stuff too. But again, I'm more concerned about the cost of getting it installed, than the cost of materials..... Fish

$5 a sheet ? That is like cheaper than dirt ! I heard this stuff was a major PITA to put in..... and most shops charge at least $50 to $75 an hour.... don't they ? (if not, I don't know how they afford groceries). Okay, I've heard of Damplifier Pro. Will look into that. But what is SS ? Fish

First off, I'm not that concerned about the cost of the sound deadening material itself. I know a lot of people often say DynaMat Extreme is over priced, and your paying for the name..... But for the price I can get bulk packages of it, from SonicElectronix {36 sq ft for $134} I'm totally okay with it. I'm thinking about getting two bulk packs, or 72sq ft, for about $300 (with CA sales tax). So, I'm cool with this ^ What I DON'T want to do, is to start ripping panels off of my truck, and messing with stupid ass clips, and crap, that needs special tools, etc, etc. That is just not the part of car stereo building that I'm into. So, what would be a reasonable price to expect to pay for labor, to totally install / deaden the entire roof, and all 4 doors of my F150 Supercab ??? Would $500 do it ? BTW, if anybody here has (plenty of) experience installing this stuff, and would like to give me a price quote for the job, you can always shoot me a PM. If it's in a shop, I might try to stay pretty much out of your hair while you do it.... But other than that, I wouldn't want to part with my baby Thank you, Fish

Much thanks guys. It sounds pretty good too LOL DW4x4, this kind of sucks, but I'm actually pretty heavy into photography too..... The problem is (and I'm being serious here) I've had pretty hard-core ADD all of my life. So, I can go out and take some really nice photos > when my mind is on photography. But when I'm building a stereo system, I'm thinking about what part of the build comes next "and almost nothing else". I'm lucky to have a few shots of like the sub box, before it was finished..... and that was like an "after dinner, and shower" thing, where I walked back out to look at my days work, and then thought, "Hey, maybe I should take a photo or two" Peace, Fish

I added two more Dayton 8" mid-bass drivers (foreground). They are sounding great free-air too Not only did this double my mid-bass cone area, but also, by going from 4 ohms to 2 ohms on those channels, my power went up by about 50%. Needless to say, but I now have a lot more mid-bass to play with. Don't have to push it near as hard, to get the same amount of fill Next I'll be adding another set of Polk Audio components up front. Already have them in the closet, just a matter of installing them. Oh BTW, I only have one of my port extensions added in this shot.... easier to see all four mid-bass drivers. This tunes the box to just over 31hz, which is great for most normal music, rock, alternative, etc. But lately I've been running two port extensions more often, for a tuning of just over 28hz. Better for techno-bass, dubstep, etc Peace, Fish

Okay.... So Matt, your saying that the upper frequency db's would matter / be added, "if" they were included in SPL contests (which makes more since to me) but just that SPL contests are looking specifically for loud bass ? You guys ever see those mega-loud setups from Mexico, and South of there, which have like hundreds of mids/highs, but bass often seems to be ignored ? I wonder how they meter those ? A weighted ? Or just a full spectrum sweep ? Thanks, Fish

So I've heard that the "only" speakers that really do anything substantial, for your total SPL #'s, is the subs. Do you agree, or disagree with this ? The reason I ask, is that you can put a decible meter in a very quiet room, and lets just say it registers 40db's. Now, you crank up a little shelf system, and turn whatever small amount of bass the thing makes, completely off. Suddenly that 40 db's jumps to 95 db's, with nothing but mids and highs...... Yet mids and highs have close to zero effect on a car system with big bass ? Why is this ? Just curious, Fish

I kept waiting for the drop.... but gave up about half way through Fish

No ? Okay. Then what is ? I'm looking for more, at least "as good" dubstep right now. So if you have any suggestions, that would be awesome. Peace, Fish