I understand that you want killer SPL, but I can also tell you are really confused about which way to go. First off, Plexiglas is probably the worst material for an SPL cabinet. You would need a minimum thickness of nearly two inches to play in the big leagues and I'll bet the going rate for that thickness is over $2000 a sheet! Factor in the difficulty in keeping the seams from blowing apart under serious power and Plexi quickly gets stroked off the list. Fiberglass is also not the best way to go unless you can form a lattice of structural reinforcement into the design to maintain rigidity.
As for the product choices, the retailers you are visiting are recommending some of the industry's top brands. We have had the opportunity to put a variety of products through testing in a World Finals competition vehicle that we are re-working in our "Area 51" special projects shop here at the school. We have found that there is no "best subwoofer on the market today", just the "best execution of a 'system'".
Your first course of action is to go and check out some serious vehicles at a variety of SPL competitions. You will discover a number of interesting things:
All good brands can go the distance in competition. You can find ten different authorities that will each say a different brand is the undisputed leader. They can't all be right. In CART racing for example, there is not one single "best racecar", but instead it is a balance of things that make it to the finish line first.
The pros are using seriously built MDF cabinets that are well designed and thoroughly tested. There may be several prior cabinet designs that are now scrap wood because they couldn't cut it. Experimentation is part of the game, which also rules out Plexiglass.
The object of the competition is to generate the greatest amount of pressure inside the vehicle. Competitors intentionally try to seal the entire cabin area to accomplish this. Avoid cutting holes in your vehicle unless you want to reduce the bump.
Perform a bit of logical research and you will begin to see where the real important points need to be managed. This will get you to your goal of serious SPL the fastest.
Q I was wondering if you could help me decide what kind of amp that I should get. I have one 10" Kicker Comp VR subwoofer, and right now I have a 300-watt Jensen amp that is supposed to put out 200 watts RMS and 400 watts peak, but I really doubt that. I've been looking for a new amp of a better quality, since the low pass frequency controls on the amp I have now are messed up, and I was thinking about going with a Kicker ZR120 which puts out 120 watts bridged mono, or maybe a Kicker Impulse IX702 which puts out 210 watts bridged mono. They both are about the same price. A guy at the store I was at told me that since the ZR120 is the top of the line of Kickers amps that it would make my sub hit harder and sound better even though it puts out less watts. So what is your opinion on which one would make my sub sound the best?Thanks a lot for your time. Nathan Brown
It's not difficult to confirm the amount of power that your Jensen is delivering. Use a digital multimeter with a "peak hold" feature and connect the probes to the amplifier's speaker terminals. Play something loud for a few seconds and read the measurement on the meter. Square the reading (multiply by itself) and divide that answer by the speaker load. The answer is the peak wattage that your amplifier is delivering.
The only way to truly know which amplifier will give you the best output and the best sound is to try it out. The guy at the store sounds like he is really confident in the performance of his Kicker amps. Talk him into temporarily connecting an amplifier in place of your Jensen for a quick tryout and see if you like the results!
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