SoundStream??? good or bad??

[Nikku]

Well i just bought two soundstream SPLX12's ( 2000w ea, 750w rms ea ) and a tuned box. When i heard these they hit extremely hard!!!! the guy i bought them from did 150.3 dB in a competition with the same setup i will have. im getting an amp sunday. what do u guys think about these subs??
Modified by Nikku at 12:51 PM 3/7/2007

[homeslicej2]

I used know a guy who used Soundstream stuff, but that was several years ago. It seemed alright then. I never heard any complaints about it from him, but he only used their amps.

[TheKon]

YOU HAVE SPLX SUBS?! Holy crap dude! I really hope that tuned box is massive because they need a lot of displacement. We have a set of those in an Integra and that car hits 155dB....they're loud subs. You need the right amp though. If you're interested my shop carries soundstream and I can see if I can get you a good deal on an amp. Soundstream is awesome equipment I'll be using all soundstream components in my altima build.

[joe603]

Soundstream stuff is excellent...but the subs are made for the tarantula amp...They are very power hungry!

[Nikku]

the guy i bought them from is also selling me his amp i paid $250 for both subs and the box ( subs where only used twice ). its a Power Acoustik A3000db, its stable at 1 ohm but he has been using it at 0.5ohm and its been marvoulus. the box there in is homemade and tuned to 60Hz, he is going to make me a plate that will turn it into 35Hz, both subs and box is about 90lbs.

just curious, how much are u Sound Stream Amps???

what do u mean by displacement??? what is it?

[homeslicej2]

By displacement he means the amount of internal volume, in ft^3 (cubic feet), of the subwoofer box. If it's too small you'll get bad performance for everyday listening and sound quality. If an amp is rated as stable to 1-ohm load minimum, then don't run it at a lower impedance than the manufacturer recommends. You will fry/burn up the amp. If he's only used it twice this way, then it's probably fine, but it will not last long at that impedance with daily use. Too little resistance (ohms is the measure of electrical resistance) lets the amp flow more power than it's circuitry is designed for. It will overheat, and burn up, rendering it useless. Plus, running lower impedances increases the amount of distortion present in the audio signal. This means better chance of messing up your subs/speakers due to distortion, plus it's really bad for your hearing. A clean, loud sound will not damage your hearing as much, or as quickly, as a distorted, loud sound.

[Nikku]

By displacement he means the amount of internal volume, in ft^3 (cubic feet), of the subwoofer box. If it's too small you'll get bad performance for everyday listening and sound quality. If an amp is rated as stable to 1-ohm load minimum, then don't run it at a lower impedance than the manufacturer recommends. You will fry/burn up the amp. If he's only used it twice this way, then it's probably fine, but it will not last long at that impedance with daily use. Too little resistance (ohms is the measure of electrical resistance) lets the amp flow more power than it's circuitry is designed for. It will overheat, and burn up, rendering it useless. Plus, running lower impedances increases the amount of distortion present in the audio signal. This means better chance of messing up your subs/speakers due to distortion, plus it's really bad for your hearing. A clean, loud sound will not damage your hearing as much, or as quickly, as a distorted, loud sound.

will i be able to hear the distortion?? cuz i had 2 4-ohm 12"s wired in parallel to a 2-ohm stable amp. the subs were wired for 1-ohm and i never could hear any distortion????

[TheKon]

Two 4 ohm speakers in paralell = 2 ohm...they were not wired for 1 ohm...unless they are DVC then 2 4 ohm voice coils = 2 ohm and two 2 ohm speakers = 1 ohm. You can't run 0.5 ohm with 2 speakers....that I've ever seen anyway.

[homeslicej2]

Two Dual 2-ohm subs wired in parallel/parallel (parallel to their respective coils and parallel to each other) will produce a 0.5-ohm load.

If you can hear the distortion anyway, then you need to turn the volume/gain or both down. A lower impedance system usually has more inherent distortion to begin with. This means is that even if you don't hear audible distortion (this is bad, turn the volume/gain or both down) the audio signal will still not be as clean as a system with less inherent distortion, even if you cannot hear it. Google this stuff and visit some websites of car audio manufacturers. There is a lot more involved than just this, and a lot you can learn. That's my recommendation.

[Nikku]

lol if u cant hear the distortion, then why would u care???

[homeslicej2]

Even if you can't hear it, it's still there. It makes the signal less clean and crisp even if you don't hear the distortion. Take for instance, harmonics. you need them to fully hear the sounds of instruments/things in a natural way. Even if some of the frequencies are too high for you to hear, they still effect the way something sounds overall. Same with distortion. Even if you can't hear it, it does effect the sound of the audio. Plus, if you turn it up too loud to where it audibly distorts, you are more likely to damage your speakers and hearing. It isn't that big a deal if it isn't audible, I'm just trying to inform you about some of the things it does.

[PoorManQ45]

Alright, distortion caused by wiring to lower impedances is bad.

The thing is, when it comes to bass our ears are very insensitive to distortion. So the distortion produced by the lower impedance alone usually isn't enough to be audible.

Now, if your subs are audibly distorting it's either that the volume and/or gain are too high, the sub sucks, or the amp sucks.

So I wouldn't worry so much about the lower impedances with the sub amplifier(s).

I would try to stay away from running the main amp(s) at anything lower then 2 ohms, preferably no lower the 4 ohms

[homeslicej2]

....The thing is, when it comes to bass our ears are very insensitive to distortion. So the distortion produced by the lower impedance alone usually isn't enough to be audible....

This is what I was trying to get at. Since it's harder to hear distortion in bass signals, you may be damaging your hearing and not even realize it .

[PoorManQ45]

This is what I was trying to get at. Since it's harder to hear distortion in bass signals, you may be damaging your hearing and not even realize it .

There's somethign interesting about our ears that you may not know.

They naturally distort when SPL levels raech a certain level and above.

So, when distortion is present in the signal our body/brain recognizes that as the signal that the music is really loud(past the point our ears would distort).

Tests have been done that compared two signals. One pure, the other with added distortion. The one with added distortion was played ~10dB LOWER then the pure signal.

Of the 300 people in the test ~85% of them said that the distorted signal was louder.

Interesting, yeah?

ANyways, distortion alone won't hurt our ears either. Just think of it like the speaker with distortion. Distortion won't hurt the speaker, POWER will.

Now think of SPL as Power. High SPL levels will hurt the ear.

What you may be thinking about is the fact that when there is alot of distortion it becomes uncomfortable to listen to, maybe even painful.

This is our brain's gating mechanism again.

-brien

[homeslicej2]

Very interesting. Could you link this study? I'd like to read more about it.

[PoorManQ45]

I don't have time right now.

Try google.

Use the perameters of "ear distortion high SPL limitations"

Or a combination thereof

[homeslicej2]

Cool. Thanks Brien.

[NCturbo75]

Soundstream stuff is excellent...but the subs are made for the tarantula amp...They are very power hungry!

NO....Soundstream stuff USED to be excellent. Now, they are just like all those other companies that went to cheap parts for their products. Take for example, LANZAR. Back in the days, they had awesome amps like the OPTI-DRIVE series and loud*ss subs.

[Nikku]

well i got these hooked up and they hit incredably hard. So i would say they are pretty good subs.

[PoorManQ45]

Cool