[adityamunshi]

Finally, it's time for the next upgrade.

Current Setup:

HU: Pioneer 6950
Front : Illusion Electra EL62 coax
Rear : GZ 6x9
Amp : Kenwood 8401

I need a sub to fit my budget of around 6K. Initially i shall be running it off 180 RMS from bridged channels of my Kenwood 8401. May add a better amp later.

I was almost sold on the GZ MKII sub for 5490 but then about fellow member dRaGsTerrr who got a sub from USA. Now im completely confused with all the options i have.

I am considering these options :

1. [COLOR=#810081]GZTW 12MK²[/COLOR] - 5490
2. Infinity Ref 1250
3. Infinity Kappa 122.7

Or one of these MB Quart subs. Gurus, i have no idea which of these is a good SQ sub, so please help me decide.

And for those who would like to confuse me further, you can suggest any good sub locally available or from sonicelectronix.com or woofersetc.com (within my budget of 6K of course).

[live2drive]

Also consider Bull Audio sub with ported enclosure.
At 6.5 K, total VFM.

[Magma]

if buying from america consider these

Infinity Reference 1250W 12" Component Subwoofers Car Subwoofers Car Audio and Video - Sonic Electronix
Infinity Reference 1252W 12" Component Subwoofers Car Subwoofers Car Audio and Video - Sonic Electronix
JL Audio 12W1v2-4 (12w1v24) 12" Component Subwoofers Car Subwoofers Car Audio and Video - Sonic Electronix
Rockford Fosgate Punch P2D412 12" Component Subwoofers Car Subwoofers Car Audio and Video - Sonic Electronix

Infinity Reference 1050W 10" Component Subwoofers Car Subwoofers Car Audio and Video - Sonic Electronix
Rockford Fosgate Punch P1S410 10" Component Subwoofers Car Subwoofers Car Audio and Video - Sonic Electronix


i like the JL audio
but the dual 4 ohms might be good too if you can configure them to work in an amp
otherwise pick the single 4 ohm infinity

[adityamunshi]

Thanks Magma. The JL looks good spec-wise.

BTW, what are the pros and cons of a 10" sub vs a 12" one.

[ethanhunt123]

I have the JL Audio 12W1 and its a rocking sub with clean tight bass. Its one i would recommend to anyone.

[frankmehta]

hey Adi! good to see you back in business :-P
anyways, i really feel 180W RMS to run any of these subs is woefully inadequate, but if you wanna upgrade the amp after a short period, then its cool.
I'd recommend one to stay away from the Punch series of Rf woofers. Its not worth it!
Anything above the Power series is good!
For a good subwoofer, a good enclosure is a must! so i'd recommend keeping atleast 1.5k for a good enclosure.
As per experience I'd say, get the GZMKII. there is nothing like it in the price range, in india or abroad, atleast not from this list that ali has provided, or you have provided.
It plays well with as little as 140W of power, and comes into its own after 250W so you have a lot of flexibility.
if i had to choose no. 2, I'd take the infinity ref 1250, which is a good sub!


EDIT: i'd say the JL audio sub is an entry level sub and not in the league of even the JBL 1205. Trust me, my cousin changed from the same JL sub to a new JBL 1205 in the same enclosure, and it played better!
By that I mean its more of an SPL sub. needs a lot of power, and doesnt play well at low wattage. My cousin was using an old kicker amp which gave it about 200W rms. not good for it!

[Magma]

hmm
frank here seems to speak with a lot of experience.

but adi
i still would put my money on the 10 inch infinty 250 rms over the MK2 ( in terms of what will be driven better) and that 180 rms would be MORE than adequate for Sq listening
but thats just me
(if you can find a jl 10 incher good)

and frank have you heard the Rockford?
it will play louder than the JBL sub you recommend

it surprises me that 180 rms is "woefully inadequate" for all the above subs but a gz would "play well" with it.


aditya
the 10 incher should play cleaner and tighter with 180 rms.
its enough for a small hatch and i would get one myself if someone was willing to carry that heavy sub back from the US.
at least for my music a 10 incher is enough
(however if you think you will ever upgrade to an amp that will put more than 250 rms out then you can think of a 12 incher.)
remeber goin low also requires power otherwise the low notes get muddled ( this is only my opinion) if youve got a 12 incher - do justice to it

[frankmehta]

hmm
frank here seems to speak with a lot of experience.

yep, there's a lot of experience lol. 3 subwoofers in as many months!

but adi
i still would put my money on the 10 inch infinty 250 rms over the MK2 ( in terms of what will be driven better) and that 180 rms would be MORE than adequate for Sq listening
but thats just me
(if you can find a jl 10 incher good)

and frank have you heard the Rockford?
it will play louder than the JBL sub you recommend

i wasnt speaking about loud, i said played better. I meant that the price/performance ratio of the JL isnt good, and was just quoting an example of one of the cheapest but most VFM subs available in the market.ive heard both, and the JBL is louder, but somehow integrated itself to the system better.

it surprises me that 180 rms is "woefully inadequate" for all the above subs but a gz would "play well" with it.

i think you have a GZ too, that plays at 180W and as far as I remember, it plays wonderfully well in your car. I meant that the GZ sub plays well at lower wattage too. Ask me, its played off 120W on my Sony XM-504Z for a month. I was happy with it! The the 75.4 played it well with 284 W RMS, and after that the RF 325.2 played it the best at 325 W RMS.

(however if you think you will ever upgrade to an amp that will put more than 250 rms out then you can think of a 12 incher.)
remeber goin low also requires power otherwise the low notes get muddled ( this is only my opinion) if youve got a 12 incher - do justice to it

smaller drivers can be more much more inefficient and more power hungry than larger drivers, and that is a known fact.
so saying 250W RMS and lower is for a 10 incher, and anything above that is for a 12 incher is incorrect generalization. I feel its a listen and buy game, and since Adi is going to get to hear a lot of GZ subs in Mumbai and has an option of listening to Infinity too (i think Navin has one) he can take a call.

[abhibh]

Frank i don't know what make you say that 180W RMS is not adequate. You should seriously consider listening to it again!

[frankmehta]

abhi i said these subs. 180W for a sub rated @ about 200-225 W is ok. but im saying these subs thats Adi and Ali have listed!
all of them except for the Rf need 300-350 RMS. RF punch im not recommending at all!
im just saying, if he plans to run it at 180W its not utilizing the potential of the sub!
in fact underpowering drivers (ie, giving them half their recommended power) can be harmful for them.
im not talking about the loudness at all, which my next upgrade will prove (surprise)

[karankapoor]

@frank how the half the recomended power harm the driver can you please eloborate

[frankmehta]

Clipping is a potential danger. Clipping occurs when you push your equipment too far and failing to keep up to your needs and not knowing any better, the amplifier will play a clipped signal or a square wave, which essentially doubles the output briefly. Now, almost all systems, even professional systems, have some degree of clipping. SPL comps have people deliberately clipping their amplifiers in burps to gain volume. It comes at the expense of equipment but it's part of the game.Even clipping isn't a total danger, usually a clipped signal last only a fraction of a second, hardly long enough to break anything. The key is to keep it under a point where the average wattage doesn't succeed the sub's capabilities.

Let's say you have a 500W capable sub and you are running a 200W max amp. If you push that amp into clipping, there will likely be no way it will damage the subwoofer, if not repeated too many times, but repeat it again and again and you have a paperweight, a heavy one at that!


This is where headroom in an amplifier is nice to have. Say you have that 500 watt sub and hook a JBL 600.1 to it. 600W will blow that puppy to bits won't it? Only if you are an idiot and crank the gains and boost. You can set that 600W amplifier to only produce what you need by properly setting the gains. Not only will it run just fine, the amplifier will be much less likely to clip since you are not pushing it whatsoever.

Most of the time your amplifier will only be supplying a small number of watts to your sub anyways, at normal listening levels, you will never blow up a thing useless, again, you did something stupid. Trying to make your windshield fly across the parking lot is where most people break thier equipment, or on extended runs where they become accustomed to the loud volume and keep turning it up until something overheats.

[frankmehta]

EXCERPTS FROM A POPULAR AUDIO FORUM:

This is a very tricky question. With the situation you stated with the small Alpine amplifier, your right. You would smoke that amplifier faaaaar before that subwoofer would ever blow.
On the other hand, I have personally heard a subwoofer DAMAGED by running too little power to it and blasting the volume. Of course this equation all depends on two things:
1) The volume at which you play the "under-powered" subwoofer.
2) How "little" of power your actually applying to the subwoofer.
I once did a little experiment with a friend based on this underpowering theory. We hooked up a nice JL sub (don't worry it was free) to an old 60 watt Hifonics amplifier. We played the subwoofer the whole time in free air resonance to try to keep the results from being flawed by different enclosure sizes. I am by no means a scientist, but we did try our best to keep experimental errors to a minimum. We cranked the amplifier gain just as you stated with your test. At low volumes it sounded all right, but certainly nothing special. Lets just say that at low volume, it played....
We then began to slowly turn up the volume. The louder we got the volume, the worse it sounded... until we got the volume past 80%.... we then heard a loud popping sound from the woofer and immediately shut it off. We thought we had blown the subwoofer, but to our surprise after examination the subwoofer appeared to be intact. We played that same subwoofer later on hooked up to a 500 watt JBL amp and it still thumped! I do know for a fact that we definitely did damage to the speaker though, because it just didn't sound the same. It had a little internal rattling on certain frequencies and couldn't hit the low ones like it could before. (kinda sounded like the voicecoil was in the early stages of blowing) By the way, it was originally hooked up to the JBL amp and it sounded great... until I asked the question about putting a lot less watts on it. That's when the experiment begain and the subs "sound quality" got decreased. lol.
My friend also told me that a week later, the subwoofer blew. He didn't unhook it from the JBL amplifier and he claims that it didn't even blow at a high volume. He said he was just listening to some reggae beats and then say goodbye to the JL sub! I'm not going to say for sure that the sub blowing was a direct cause of our "experiment". There could have been other factors that played a part in the course of the week that caused the failing sub.
Is it possible to BLOW a sub with too little power? maybe. With continued use at very low wattage and very high volumes, I would say it could be possible. Almost all subwoofers blow with too much power and not too little. As far as concrete, scientifical evidence goes, I don't know a site that states this too little power theory to be true,sorry. I do know what I saw and heard. Hope that helps.

[karankapoor]

but if there is no clipping then how will it damage the driver.\,

and say if a driver is rated 50wrms to 150 rms can't it handle more power and same

will 25 wrms will damge it

Interesting reading but I am stil unsure.