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Not impressed with these sundown's, opinions on build


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Vehicle is a Honda Fit (hatchback) they are placed facing rear but either/or yielded no perceivable difference.

I was impressed by the 8's in a sealed enclosure. For a shallow 8" I have never heard anything els in that price range with the same or better output and sound quality. I'm guessing your not sending enough power to the sub's. What amp are you using and what ohm rating is the woofers wired? They are probably only getting 100 watts a piece, with 80db sensitivity, its gonna need some power to pack a punch from a shallow 8.

I just said I'm powering all three with 1000 watts. The actual output at 14.4 volts is over 1200 watts. Using a mix of parallel, series to achieve 2.67 ohms which draws just over 1000 watts on the amp at 14.4 volts. I'm sure they can handle a lot more power but they still shouldn't be under powered if they are rated at 300 watts each.
I Dont know if you are clamping 1000rms or if your amp just does 1200rms. I'm only here to help. If you are clamping 1k 333rms per woofer then it should be plenty loud for 3 8's. Is this like a 4kw amp?
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the title of this thread makes me laugh.....It's like saying your not impressed with your own building skills. You built the boxes out of spec then blame the subs....

Straight from Sundown's site, they recommend .25 cube sealed and .5 ported. So your box(es) are too big like everyone said. Who knows if your actually seeing 1200 out of that amp unless you actually clamped it.

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Its 3 low level 8s and a thousand watts. In a bad sealed box. What were you expecting

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What kind of amp are we talking?

Music quality good?

What kind of deck? And have you paid attention to the tuning of that? (if possible)

My budget setup with 2 10s in a shallow box massively underpowered hits satisfactory on good quality music, but a couple songs (multiples or not) lack in bass. Hurts girls feelings when I say they can't play their music because my system will pick up on the quality too much lol.

Just an idea.

Lossless. Using this amp: http://archive.mtx.com/caraudio/products/amplifiers/TE1501D.cfm

Sony XAV bt601. Timing, EQ..etc is off for testing so it's as flat as it's going to get.

4 volt preouts.

Silver cladded copper RCA wiring

KnuKoncepts OFC wiring

Grounded directly to frame

JL audio C3 Front speakers powered by a JL Audio XD amplifier

OFC Streetwires speaker cables

Yeah I know Metal music just doesn't have as much bass output that Rap has...and these do very well with Rap, I just hoped I could find that optimal size that would hit a bit harder for Metal/Rock.

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Its 3 low level 8s and a thousand watts. In a bad sealed box. What were you expecting

Why is using the maximum recommended spec for sealed box bad? I know subs will vary in output with size but it is within spec and there is no details on testing results. The box itself is also 3/4 MDF, air tight and used some polyfill so it's not a bad build. Also what is a low level 8? I had two JLA W3 subs in a sealed box just 3 years ago, using this exact same amp and wiring and it was louder. I don't expect three 8's to be as loud or go as deep but I didn't expect the result for this particular box...so sue me. So I would assume a different box might help these....that is why I asked a simple question on if using a different box would help it hit harder. I didn't ask why they don't hit as hard as my previous 12's.

If a different box won't help then why not just say so? I trust you are well experienced expert and knows this model of sub? I'm well experienced with car audio in general since the 90's but didn't claim to be an expert either, hence why the apparently stupid question. Jacob claims it can work in ported, I would just like to know if anyone tried it?

You try facing them up too?

No I did not but the amp I got strapped to the back of the box cause it's so big. I have no where else to put it. That's why I wondered about trying ported and if so what direction the ports should face. Jacob from Sundown mentioned these work fine in ported but no details from his testing.

the title of this thread makes me laugh.....It's like saying your not impressed with your own building skills. You built the boxes out of spec then blame the subs....

Straight from Sundown's site, they recommend .25 cube sealed and .5 ported. So your box(es) are too big like everyone said. Who knows if your actually seeing 1200 out of that amp unless you actually clamped it.

Some reading fail here. For one thing I did not build out of spec. It specifically says ...and I quoted straight from the website "The parameter set has been optimized for very small sealed enclosures ranging from 0.25 to 0.50 cubic feet."...it's right there and I literally just said in the OP that I built the maximum recommended size and yes it's air tight, 3/4 MDF, titebond 3 glue and brad nailed and I even painted it pretty...anything else? Now for ported box it just states .50ft3 but Jacob aka"sundownz" on another forum said he preferred these in .25 to .50 and said they will work in ported but did not go into details.

So my box is actually maximum recommended spec according to the Sundown guy's testing, it's just not exactly the sound I sought for so what harm is it to ask?. So sorry I chose the max and not the minimum but it's not like there is a clear details or the results on either size or in between.

Second, I did not ever once say anything about the subs. Re read my first post, I asked about trying either ported or smaller enclosure. Sorry I didn't make a super long thread title but obviously from the post I meant that I'm not happy with the output in this particular sized enclosure that does in fact fall within the specs.

So if you are just trying to say that the result I'm looking for would work out better in the minimal spec rather than ported then just say so but sounds like you never messed with this model of subs before anyway. You can't even read what is literally written right above the list of specs.

Also thanks to everyone that's trying to help. Not trying to be smart, just feels like a couple of members are just working around my question to turn it around on me when I followed everything that's supposed to be done, I just used an enclosure size not to my liking. So sorry that I didn't think the results for a maximum recommended box was impressive but that is why I am here, to get the box to sound suitable more to my liking. No sub has just 1 specific enclosure that suits everyone and not everyone is impressed with the same types of things.

If I made a bad choice in subs I can live with that, I just wanted to make sure, that's all. Perhaps sealed isn't for me, I dunno but the 2 JL subs I used to have were great in sealed, just took too much room.

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Build a different box man. Try ported, see how you like it. Not like it's going to be more than a sheet of wood anyway.

"Clipping" is the biggest forum boner now. It's like witchcraft... it automatically explains just about everything people don't understand.

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Build a different box man. Try ported, see how you like it. Not like it's going to be more than a sheet of wood anyway.

Maybe 2 sheets, I usually only find 2'x4' sheets. I just thought I would ask for some opinions before wasting time and material. If it didn't work out then I'd have to build another, probably use the minimal spec but I don't usually have much time to do these kinds of things.

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I can see how the wording on the site is misleading.

Put them in .25cf per driver and be done with it.

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If you had them in the maximum recommended size box and then added polyfil you effectively increased the size of the box now making it out of spec. Build a smaller sealed box, especially for metal and rock because the frequency of most of the bass notes are higher therefore needing a smaller box to optimize what you have. or build a ported box tuned to about 32-34 hz. I think you will see a world of difference with a ported box. That is my recommendation.

Also those are great subs. If you cant get the amount of sound out of them you are looking for even with a better box its because what you are looking for requires more power and cone area, simple as that. As far as 8's go you have some of the best. Jacob has a video that talks about them and he has two in a sealed box, you may have seen it. The box is .5 ft^3 for 2 of them. Just throwing that out there.

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