Hey all, ive been out of the stereo loop for awhile so i thought id ask this question (and yes, i already searched)

I used to have 2 JL-10W0's in my FC. Wanting more output, i decided to upgrade to 2 JL-12W3's. Ive had those 12's for a couple years, but ive never been happy with the sound quality as compared to the 10s'. The 12's are just to boomy and lack tightness.

I want to go back to 10's and i want to know what would people reccomend i check out. I want max sound quality (tightness) over being "really loud". I have a Zapco Reference 750 (750 watts bridged) to power whatever i get.

I was considering listening to JL-10w3's, New JL-10w6's, 10w7's, Alumapro 10s', or Alpine R type 10's. Any of these good choices?

I sure would like some input on this! Thanks everyone!

 

Alot of the boomyness is the box. It makes all the diff. The current top of line for sound quality are JBL GTI's. They come in 10" 12" and 15". But get ready to hold on. They aren't cheap. You get what you pay for though.

Oh I run Fosgate subs.
Here some pics


pics

 

Heard some good reviews on the MB Quart reference line as well as the Infinity Perfect 10's & 12's. Actually, all the numbers on the Infinity's are very strong. Not going to beat a JL w7 but also not the price or weight!

 

Though I haven't listened to all of these, though I've heard good things about all of the following:

Eclipse Aluminum/Titanium
Kicker L7 Solobarics
Crystal CMP or CMP2's
Image Dynamics IDMAX
Infinity Perfects
Boston Acoustics
AudioMobile Mass series

That's about all I can think of off the top of my head. At least it'll give you a starting point. I myself am running RF just cause I got them cheap from my work. I don't like the sound quality all that much though. I've been checking into the square L7's lately, I guess they finally fixed the corner blowing problem. By far the best way is to check the local shop and listen to them yourself! You'll have to be careful though a lot of the subs listed above are power hungary and I don't know if the Zapco will be able to feed your subs enough juice if you want to run a dual setup. Check out the local shops and see what you can dig up, maybe you'll find something newer or better! Oh btw I listened to a 10w7 in a 3 series BMW, by far one of the loudest subs I've ever heard! It puts out amazing SPL numbers but ends up drowning out the components..

 

Should have gone with the 12W6 instead of the W3. The W3 never did sound great.

Either the 10W6 or 12W6 is a radically better speaker than the W3 versions.

 

If you have alot of money and want good quality, and sound I would get some digital design's they are very nice but for a 17" inch sub WOW it costs about $1000.

 

I agree with you. The box design is very important. The box i built is VERY strong, however i think that the sound problem is the fact that the 12's just arent as punchy and tight as the 10's i had before (and they were just W0's).

Do you mean it sounds alot better to just plays louder? I was always under the impression that the W6 was the the most powerful (until the W7). Is the new W6v2 (looks like the W7 in a way) going to sound alot tighter than my old 12W3's, or is it just an SPL woofer?

The Alumapros' really intrigued me on their design and construction. Has anyone ever tried those out?

Thanks for the help so far, this is great. West TX-RX7, your install looks great!

 

I personally never like the overall sound quality of the W3 product. I didn't feel it ever sounded that good and was more for the budget consumer that was used to buy Rockford or MTX.

The W6 speakers were always just more musical, you didn't have to work them hard to get decent bass, and they were almost indestrucable You could count on the woofer being very flat from its 3db down point up, without the peakiness that the W3 had (they always seemed to have a big peak right before roll off, so you could never get anything out of them at 50-70Hz.

Again that is fine for the rap guy on a budget, but just not a great sounding speaker, and certinlly not as hard and deep hitting as the W6 speakers.

I havn't played with the W7 yet, so I can't comment on them.

I was rather impressed with the Alumapros though. Most alum cone woofers (like the Eclipse is a classic example) had/have a nasty ring to them. But the dampening of the alumapros was/is much better and didn't have that distinctie aluminum ring to the sound reproduction.

 

Any comments on the Infinity Perfects? Do they have the same 'ring'?

-ZenFox

 

I rub Infinity Perfects Compnents in the doors and they sound really nice but I dunno bout their sub line. If the subs are on par with the perfect series components though they would be a good choice.

 

havn't heard them yet, so I just don't know.

 

i love the JL's line up... if i were to get another sub i would get either a W3 or a W0.. have u seen these W0's? holy crap!

 

What would you guys recommend for say 5.25"s. I am talking about some pretty damn decent speakers for a good price. Not the most expensive, very best though. Thanks.

 

Infinity or Alpine or Boston are all very good.

New Update on the subs. Infinity is comming out with a new line to replace the Perfects that I have heard are twice as good. Should be on the market in a couple of months. Tunable for a sealed, Ported, and diff sized boxes by changing the inputs on the sub. Not seen one yet, just heard it from my stereo connection guy.

 

jl audio's VR line is smooth and better than alpine and infinity kappa - imo. Alpine is artificially bright and the Infiinities bottom out easily. Boston's cheap line sucks too. Their other stuff is pretty good.

 

They're on the infinity website..

http://www.infinitysystems.com/carau...ct.asp?ProdId='KAPPA+PERFECT12DVQ'&Ser=KPE&Cat=SUB

See a bit much for me. ^_^

-ZenFox

 

There ya go Zen! Yeah 444.00 each is a little stiff but just a drop in the bucket of my total system cost which I will be paying on for the next 100 years. Thank GOD my banker likes me.

The same guy who did THIS for Infinity did my setup. He's pretty good.

 

One thing I found confusing about that set up: They chose to go with a JBL BP1200.1 for the amp... but that's 1200W @2ohm, so each sub (which I'm almost certain are the standard single voice coil subs, since the car was built before the DVC perfects were out) is getting 600W per sub, right? Or at least, that's what it says in the link...

But, if you snap over to the specs for the infinity perfect, it states that it has an RMS power handling of 350W. Doesn't that seem a little dangerous for the sub?

I've been playing around with the idea of a perfect 10, but it seems like a hard sub to match an amp to since the RMS handling is low, and the peak handling is rather high..

-ZenFox

 

Hi folks,

West TX is right to say sound depends much on the box design and size.
If you are looking for the clearest subwoofer ever, try Phase Linear Aliante Si 12" limited. Give that friend 500 - 1000 RMS (NO class D!) and you will be happy.
But bad news: As far as I know the Ali is not available in the US.

http://www.phase-linear.com/html/aliante_si.html

rgds
Tobias

 

Thats 350 RMS continuous watts. I'm trying to remember what he said about that car as he was just finishing up on it when I dropped my car off to get the work done last year.

I'm thinking they don't turn up the gains on the amps very far to help keep things running cooler and more reliable. But I do remember him saying that Sub was under rated and it would handle more power than was writen in the specs.

Here's a 6000 watt RMS Amp they just finished installing

 

I think the 10" JL W3's bar none. They just hit so crisp and clear.