Naes

I wasn't doubting that 2 8's could hit 144. What I was questioning was 2 cheap subs doing it. Perhaps I didn't use the right language, but people make all kinds of claims. After reading some of the post, with the exception of jdaniels, I stand corrected and realize it's possible.
If someone had 24 8's I am sure the initial response would be "Wow" but if it sounded like crap wouldn't that be a little ridiculous and it the response wouldn't really be "Wow" after that. Just asking.

Chalk this up to my ignorance, my elementary understanding of audio and lack of experience and explain why 2 12's would sound better than 10 12's, if both are properly powered and installed correctly. I am not being a smart ___ and am serious.

xBMNx

im going to take a quick stab at that...let me put it like this if you have a fire in a room and all the oxygen gets burned out the fire loses it's intensity it's kind of the same way for (10) 12"s the speakers just move to much air and suffocate each other

Zombietime

If you lose all the oxygen in the room, the fire goes out period. Fire needs three things... fuel, (at least 20% oxygen) and heat.

Naes

So, 4 18's in a Camaro with the backseat removed wouldn't work. So the two
posts drawing the correlation with the fire in the room are saying that it would
be detrimental to SPL correct? But, with windows down you are going to get more
sound because there is more surface area moving more air, correct?
Or am I way off here?

Just trying to understand so I don't get put on anymore lists. :twisted:

xBMNx

yes that should be correct

BLACKICE

You have to make a distinction between "sound" and "SPL". I ran 6 subs in a small hatchback, 10 amps, 5 batteries, and metered 163.1 consistently. My limitations were power and enclosure space. But, closing my windows had nothing to do with it. If the windows or doors were open, you would hear more sound on the outside, but the SPL side would drop in metering because you had more air to pressurize.

Remember that what sounds "loud" doesn't always meter "loud". For example, you could sit in a car that has however many subs you want, doesn't matter, and the system can be tuned to hit in the low 30Hz. When a seriously low bass note hits, it might make it hard for you to breathe, thus giving the impression of it being very loud, and to your ears and chest it is.

But, it takes alot more power to reproduce that low 30Hz signal than it does a 60-80Hz signal. My Suzuki was tuned to 60Hz, was very loud but didn't hurt to sit in it, but yet would meter higher than almost any car tuned much lower. That's why as a competitor you are tuning your system higher to meter higher, make sense?

So yes, you very well could have multiple subs that sound worse or meter worse than one or two subs. It's alot of factors, power, enclosure design and space, subs, amps, batteries, voltage stability, resonant frequency of your vehicle, tuning frequency of the enclosure, etc. And, don't forget "total" cone space and motor strength, not just per sub!

Also, it's not always relative, and very much is a design of the complete installation. For example, you can take multiple subs, a decent HU, amp, and fairly designed enclosure, pump ALOT of power into it, and still sound and meter worse than a excellent HU with 4-8V preouts, one very efficient and powerful amp with max headroom, 2 efficient subs and a very efficient enclosure design tuned for the T/S of your subs. It's all optimized, and it's done each and every day.

Kind Regards,
Matt