ncochran

in my build log there should be a box for 2 sa 12s. It sounded solid. My 4th is also in there, it is awesome sounding (for 2 12s and low power)

Easy.... throw them at the windshield? If that doesn't break it, you throw like a bitch lol!

^^ That... There is also no question that the SAZ5000 puts out way more power than the RF T2500 lol. If you are eventually going to want 4 subs, then the Sundown amp is a better long term amp (more head room for later). I am doing mid-upper 40s right now with a couple of SA 12s and a Hifonics amp lol. If I had Xs and 3x the power, shit would get real in a hurry lol. I ran RF back in the day and am in no way a hater. I had 2 punch classic 12s and a Punch 200ix (and the largest RF windshield banner that I could get my hands on). The subs were meh (imo JL was better for subs at that time).. but that amp was nucking futs at the time lol. But today... with the equipment mentioned... there is no way the Sundown setup doesn't out perform the RF setup. I don't have any special calculator or anything so I am probably just talking shit.. but in my mind there are several DB between the 2, not to mention the way the X gets down on the lows.

Sweet as hell. Makes me want to ditch car audio and go back to building computers lol. I haven't built a gaming machine since like 2001 when I was playing Counter-Strike like it was my job lol. Fortunately, League of Legends doesn't require much lol.

I am running ~2k on mostly stock electrical as well, but my lights don't shut off lol. To protect your amp, your sub, and your car, get yourself a cheap volt meter (yes the Stinger ones work) when you see that you are dropping below ~11 volts (you will get different opinions on the threshold here) it is time to either turn down the volume, turn down the gain, or upgrade your electrical. Ie. on my setup I have gain properly set (with bass remote at max) running the amp at .5 ohm. On normal music I leave the bass knob at the minimum. When I want to turn it up, I watch my volt meter and when it drops below 11, I back the bass remote down until I am holding around 11 volts. I have stock alt, big 3 done, and an older Optima blue top under the hood with no secondary battery. Yes, this is janky electrical, but until I can buy an alt and another battery, it is what I am stuck with lol. I am protecting my gear and still getting into the lower 40s like this. The cool part is that I know there is more potential there once my electrical is straightened out. And I am guessing I am not really giving much up in terms of SPL right now. I can crank the remote so that I am making my lights blink, but it isn't much louder (due to less volts in/less watts out) than running at a pretty steady 11-12 volts. I also have the advantage of having a little more power than my subs need anyway (1200W worth of sub and a 2kw amp (@ 1 ohm) running at .5 ohm. Load test your battery and if it fails, replace it first. Big 3 is easy and not that expensive. You need about 10-15 feet of 1/0, a couple of fuses, and some terminals. With a low amperage alternator even CCA would do.

Actually what the tests appeared to show is that even a 1F cap had a pretty decent gain on music, but that for test tones (certified mode) it takes a larger cap to get any gain. Steve has mentioned multiple times that the Certified and Uncertified tests are both essentially test tones, and the Dynamic test has peaks to simulate music. The AD-1 should have left very little doubt in anyone's mind that capacitors can and do work. However, a lot of people still won't believe in them no matter what lol. A 2F cap won't probably help you much playing a 30 second test tone for the meter. It would likely help you if you were burping or playing music though.

Seems to me that 2 runs of CCA does indeed beat 1 run of OFC in terms of capacity/loss etc... price will be debatable as there is always someone that says "I got my 20 feet of XXX wire for less than you listed" (that argument will be made by both sides to prove their points about cost effectiveness. Honestly, did anyone expect less runs of OFC to beat more runs of CCA? (assuming same size cable). But.. at the end of the day, the differences are really only relevant to those chasing tenths on the meter. You will not hear a 75W difference going to your subs when you are talking about running more than 1kw, let alone 3kw+... You will also not hear the difference of .15VDC... Your car will not care about the extra weight of the extra run of CCA... Your wallet will not likely care that you spend $30 for dual input + $80 for a spool of cable + a couple of extra terminals instead of spending $170 on a spool of cable. If you are chasing tenths, then break out your calculator and your wallet and run whatever cable setup that will meet your current carrying needs, whether it be CCA or OFC. There are some loud mf'ers on here that run CCA and they aren't wrong for it. There are some loud mf'ers on here that run OFC and they aren't wrong either. If your cable's capacity exceeds your system's draw, and your voltage is solid, you are probably doing it right. If you are not chasing tenths, then estimate what you need, and buy whatever you get the best deal on (or whichever will please you the most to install/look at/brag about etc..) because you just won't hear the difference.

That is retarded loud lol. Can't wait to see details on this.

Very well said! I am pumped to see the reasons why I am wrong personally. I believe that in my application, CCA is perfectly fine. But... maybe I will learn something that will make me louder lol!

I always figured OFC for the big boys, and CCA for everyone else (meaning CCA for me lol). I know that copper is a better conductor, but as long as my wire is capable of carrying more amps than my system can provide/consume, and I am not running extremely long runs (long enough to make the difference in voltage drop a big deal) then I think that CCA is fine for my application. But.. I am talking about a single run. If I was looking at X runs of CCA or X minus 4 runs of OFC, maybe the cost or even weight/size/convenience might sway things the other way. I have been an electrician for 16 years in the military, I feel somewhat comfortable with my reasoning for choosing CCA. However, 16 years has been just long enough that I have learned I don't know every f'ing thing (around the 6 year mark, I was pretty sure that I did lol..), and that most people with engineering degrees are a good bit sharper than me with the technical details, and reasoning on things like this. I will be tuned in to this for sure. edit: I agree with SnowDrifter maybe we should take the debate elsewhere, or just wait and see the OPs reasons

Seems dumb to argue with Steve about something that D'amore makes lol. I am pretty sure he knows how it works and what it does/doesn't test lol. Awesome numbers from these amps though.

As Steve says at the end of the video.. Dynamic Burst IS still RMS and is more representative of what you will get while playing music. Most of us don't drive around listening to 30hz test tones all day lol. I have the BRZ-2100 and I got it for $240 shipped. Currently running it at .5 ohm on crappy electrical and it is still taking the abuse. That 1700W rated amp did almost 1800W RMS and people still hate on it lol. If you are buying Hifonics to compete you are probably doing it wrong. If you are buying an amp to do rated power on music, doesn't seem to far off to me.

No worries.. go buy your "other amps out there". Ill continue to buy what i like, just like you,.... and.. Not be sub par.. but.... On another level. Thanks for playing.... see you in the lanes Thanks for playing? You are most welcome lol... no need to act like a dick because I don't get pumped up off your brand of choice... I respect you and your build and understand that you are super pumped up on DC right now, so your nut huggery can't help but show lol. Your build is sick, and your equipment is nice. However, to think of every other company out there as "sub par" is just silly. You could have easily achieved the same results with other companies. You chose DC and it is clearly not a bad choice for you. And as mentioned above, this was not meant to hammer DC. A company charging that much for an amp had damn well better deliver rated or higher, and they do. Everyone is getting all hard over a 1400W amp with a 1200W badge. Assuming the signal is clean, there comes a point where you are paying for the badge and not the power. And as for your "see you in the lanes" comment. I hope that wasn't intended to be as condescending as your "thanks for playing".... different builds for different purposes... Yes yours is probably 8-9 db louder than mine. You probably spent literally 10-15x what I did. Congratulations on being a master of the universe.... As I said before, your build is sick and your equipment is nice. But I stand by the idea that there are SEVERAL other quality manufacturers offering rated power at a better price. I will not de-rail this thread any further, so reply or dont (I will not). Everyone was making observations about the results, so I did the same. Sorry our opinions differ. Awesome tests, Amp Test Tuesday kicks ass!

Lol somehow I seem to be the only one unimpressed that a ~$400 1200W amp does about 15% over it's rating. I mean.... it is obviously a quality piece of equpiment but there are several other amps out there that put out way over 1200W for way less than $400. Anyway, not that my opinion really matters... glad to see it is a decent amp, sad to see it so overpriced compared to other amps that put out similar numbers. Awesome tests! It is really cool to know what you are getting with some of these products (both good and bad)

All I know is that for a ~$400 1200W amp, it has it's work cut out for it lol.... Especially when you compare it to the ~$150 JBL amp that Steve tested (at 2 ohms mind you) a little while back hehe. Before I piss anyone off, I know that there are a lot of other things to consider besides the actual proven output.... (I just can't think of anything more important than proven watts per dollar atm) At that price I would expect at least 4153W (as an absolutely craptastic minimum) combined on those tests.... (final answer). Any less than that.. DC Audio should be ashamed lol. 1200 - certified 1450 - clipping 1503 - dynamic ----------------------- 4153 Total

You can either A ) Hook your amp up to one of your home stereo speakers if you don't get anything make sure you have 12VDC at the input side of your amp. If you don't feel like dragging a speaker out to your car... B ) Check to make sure you have 12VDC on the input side of your amp, then on your speaker terminals coming out of the amp, make sure you have some amount of AC voltage coming out of the amp. If you have DC input with no AC output, it could be your RCA cables, it could also be the amp. You can also meter your RCA cables to make sure you are getting a signal out of them. This would also be AC voltage probably less than 3-4 volts depending on your HU. Before I would do any of that though, I would turn everything on and see if the amp's power light is on. I would also check to see if the "protection" light is on.

Lol I am a shipboard electrician and have spent 5 years on a ship chasing grounds, trouble shooting electrical distribution systems, as well as maintaining DC propulsion systems, gyro compasses, generators, e to p boards, transducers, and tracking down all the various electrical gremlins that you would expect to find on a ship. I have spent 7 years working on said systems (forgot sound powered phone and other comm circuits) while stationed on land, and 4 years teaching lighthouse and solar tech classes as well as calculating solar needs and requirements for hundreds of lighted buoys, lighthouses, and sound signals. (sorry for that lol, but am retiring in 4 years and working on resume for the next 20 years of my life ) I assure you my reply wasn't a lack of common sense. In fact, common sense told me that if a person with his post count asks a question like this, that he either 1) doesn't own a meter, and 2) if he does, may not know what all the silly lines beside the dial... (no offense OP, but I don't know you or your experience level, you could be an electrical engineer or some shit I guess). 95% of us can easily grab a meter and check our coils and know what the readings should be, and what to set the dial on. But I would imagine that 100% of us could hook the sub up to another source and see if music comes out of it lol. I prefer the KISS (keep it simple stupid) method of troubleshooting. Your way is the way I would use myself, but my way is simple enough that my 12 year old could do it without any further instruction hehe.

Hook the amp to another speaker (turn amp down first depending on power handling). If it plays, your sub is bad. If it doesn't your amp is bad (assuming you checked all fuses/connections) Or you could hook the sub up to your home stereo or even the deck in your car to see if the sub works. Your car deck won't exactly flex it, but you should be able to tell whether or not it is playing.

2650

2983 edited at 1156am on Tuesday 02 June: I had forgot to add in the 14v tests lol.

Depends on what you are shooting for OP. If you want a little boom for the girls, that box will likely work. If you want to compete, you might do better going custom or learning to build your own. All depends on your reason for getting into it imo.

Yeah, am working up a design for 2 of them in a bandpass enclosure. I am soooooo close to building lol but I keep making myself rework the numbers because I only want to build it once (yeah right lol). Probably going to take some work to get it to sound like I want.

Nice looking box. Makes me miss my 8s lol (they are still in my build log). So much quality for such a low price lol

Lol the possibility of a 5-10% increase in power is super exciting. And to think of all the people that have been bashed for using caps lol. Awesome testing.

Thanks! I have read that one a couple of times already but I appreciate the post anyway (I just read the whole thing again lol) There is one final detail that is fking me up right now. And that is port area. I imagine the answer is going to be for me to experiment lol. But... If Jacob recommends .75 sealed and 1.5 ported that leaves me with 3 cubes ported for the 2 subs. Most recommendations are for massive port area (1/2 sd of subs or around 100 inches of port area in this case). Most recommendations are also to keep port ratio at around 15 inches per cube. The tuning I can handle, gonna tune it around 40 to start, and chop my way down as far as needed (probably settling closer to 50 if I had to guess). But I can't follow both recommendations on port area at the same time lol. I wish I had a termlab lol.. I am the type of guy that would spend every waking hour tweaking and testing, but I just can't swing a meter right now hehe. I think I will build 3 seperate load walls and ports, and go with those barbed insert nuts (or whatever they are called) for the load walls. One will be 15" per cube (so 45" total), One will be about 22 per cube (66" total) and the other will be a massive 33 per cube (almost 1/2 sd of subs). Also is there a difference between port requirements for 4th order walls and 4th order ~normal~ enclosures? Maybe that would account for the differences in port suggestions? I really apreciate everyon'es input here. Hopefully this thread will help someone else. As I start the build I will update both my build log and this thread with results. And if anyone in the Hampton Roads area or in Northern NC could lend me some time on their Termlab (or any other meter for that matter), I am guessing I could share much more meaningful results. If so, hit me up! Also, please continue the discussion, I haven't started building yet hehe.