Have I purchased the wrong amps/speakers?

Like how happy are you with those Hertz? They look like a good brand, and I looked at some morels but wasn't sold on them at all. I had some really awesome jl audio coaxials and am hoping to be able to beat that set up that I have in a car that isn't my daily driver but on the cheap. Also won't have any idea if I like the subwoofer till the 25th. And you know it practically for sq has to be in a sealed box (sd3).

 

Kinda left this hangin I guess - missed this post somehow.

Which T/S parameters are most important? Lemme see: Fs, Qts, Qms, Qes, Re, Le, Xmax, Mms, Pe and Vas for modeling. The rest can be derived mathematically.

On enclosure wiggle room, yeah you have some. I'd personally try to make that margin as small as possible.

Yes, I disregard Kicker. I know they've been around for a long time. So has Pyramid. Kicker does have a few items to its resume that are noteworthy, but nothing that I ever see anyone using. They provide no parameter sets for most of their drivers. All the recent Kicker I've heard sounded like garbage (recent being since the 90s competition scene where I heard quite a few nice Kicker-equipped vehicles).

There are much better choices for the money. Even if the Kicker is free, all this usually winds up being a lot of work and you're going to enjoy it for a long time. As leaders of industry go, right now it's pretty hard to argue that Sundown isn't at the top of its game. At least as far as subwoofer drivers go, I'm having a hard time thinking of anyone who offers more variety and rapid innovation along with incredible value.

You don't see Kicker prototyping stuff like this just to appease a few dorks





This is what I want to see from the industry personally - constant innovation that leads to things that work better - not blingy gimicks. Some do bling better than they do audio - that's all I'm really sayin'

You really can't go wrong with the SD. Build it a proper enclosure, feed it enough power, slip it a steep high pass around 25 Hz and you'll love it. Pinky swear. It's a fantastic sub. Just don't feed it too much power - it will bottom out with too much excursion (which you're helping with the high pass ). Most of Sundown's subs are power rated very conservatively but the SD really won't appreciate much over rated power.

I'd keep looking regarding the Pioneer speakers. Hard to recommend anything without a budget there.

Not sure where you got the idea that 4 ohms = better sound quality, but that's probably not a thing. I'd just not worry about that one.

Edit: OK, that's not entirely true. In general it seems that an inverse relationship exists between impedance and distortion in amplifier output - as impedance decreases, distortion increases. Whether you can hear the difference I dunno? It might make the difference between a cheap amp and a decent one. We generally can't hear distortion below 1%THD.

 

.
Much "brain food" here ...
.

 

As far as the SD's frequency response, this is my truck just after a door driver swap - all EQs set to flat. The SD, along with cabin gain, gives a respectable frequency response with no tweaks. The rest of that train wreck was a different story.

 

I'm very happy with the Hertz. To my ears, they are very neutral. I've had problems with Focal's and Alpine's that were too bright. The Morel's (like the Hertz), sounded incredibly clear, but the Morel's were (only slightly) lacking in the lower end. The Hertz and Morel also really shine when you turn it up...you're more immersed in the music, but it's not loud in a way that fatigue your ears like cheaper speakers do. Plus, like I said earlier, the Hertz are better priced.