Best Shallow Sub

Just looking at the specs it looks about every other budget amplifier out there.
CT sounds , skar audio might be a little less cost when they run a sale

I have used CT sounds in my sons camaro with no issues

The US Acoustics Mike amplifier 1500 watt is very well built, with great specs for a monoblock amp, with a 2 year warranty.

If you are looking for high power with a low budget the Taramps smart3

 

@Snert I went and played with the vented box a little bit. You can drop it down to 1.4 cu ft, move tuning up to 28 hz, and put 750 RMS to it for an F3 around 28 hz and a very similar response to the sealed box that we had to beat in to shape with boost. Same high pass and low pass filter, thought.

The two cons, though: almost 30 m/s vent noise in the 28 hz range tapering down to 17 m/s by 38 hz; and a big long port at 4"x 28". But a LOT less amplifier power needed for a little more ouput. You could drop down to 500 RMS and get a near identical response with a max of 24 m/s on vent velocity.

 

I've heard of tramps but haven't look into them much. I'll check it out. Thanks!

 

That is very informative.

 

Applying basically the same treatment to a single SI BM11 as the WavTech in a sealed box yields the following results: a little bit higher tuning, but a higher SPL through most of the passband if running the WavTech at the same power levels.

.7 cu ft, f3 around 34 hz, and 500 watts RMS with 3 db of boost at 36 hz (so 1000 RMS amplifier). Cone excursion just barely breaches 14mm Xmax. Just a little less meat below 35 hz.

 

It's funny how you dismissed the Audiomobile Evo 2410 after seeing the test results vs the JL10TW3. Cogent Labs did the Testing as well. The Audiomobile Evo 2410 has an Xmax of 16mm.

 

Been sick and holy s*** man this is a phenomenal write up to come back to. Next rounds on me lol, but seriously I'm going to read this and reread it until I'm blue in the face. It looks like from all your modeling that the Wavtech is a very capable shallow sub that can take quite a bit of power and play down fairly well but like you said it looks like the BM-11 has a little more output in the passband. Having time off for the holidays this week I'm planning to sit down and mess around with WinISD and try and recreate your graphs to 1) understand how to model them and 2) better understand them. Do you have any tips for WinISD? For example one I saw is that it likes to auto-calculate certain values even if you have them available. I think it was qtc that I entered because it was listed by JL as well as qms and qes, or maybe one of those was switched around, but entering it gave me a "driver not verified" error or something, and clearing out the qtc and letting it auto calculate seemed to fix it.

Thanks again man and like I said I'm gonna have to reread all this a few times and I'm sure I'll be popping back in with questions lol.

 

I have the Audiomobile on my list of potentials but since they're no longer in business they're hard to find and the lack of warranty/support makes me a little iffy, other than that they Evo 2410's seem to be a well liked driver I would definitely consider.

EDIT: I was mistaken and Audiomobile is still in business. At the time of writing, their website is not up but their subs are in high demand from a few smaller online dealers.

 

They're very well in Business. They make nothing but quality Audiophile Subs. If you're looking for slim 12 sub, try the Audiomobile Encore 4412.

 

To say they're very well in business is a bit of a misnomer I think. Their VP (former VP?) Matt Overpeck still lists himself as their VP and CTO on LinkedIn, but based on a few Reddit comment threads and trying to track down their products, it seems like they're pretty defunct at the moment and Matt Overpeck has burned a lot of bridges. Their Facebook said about a month ago their new website was in beta and would be up a week later, but the url still goes to a dead page. If the Reddit comments are accurate, the only available stock right now is old stock, and/or their only distributer for new stock is Canadian company Importel and on their website it states they are B2B only.

Screenshots of some of the Reddit comments I was referencing, take these with a grain of salt:

 

Hey dude, you know what to.do if you want the product. Order it thru a dealer and stop reading old comments. They have a hard time keeping up with demand. Are you looking for an Evo? I have (2) New ones I bought directly from Matt that I can sell you.

 

Those were the most recent comments I could find and were all from the last month or so. Do you know of a U.S. retailer that sells them? Also curious why you're selling them?

 

With the number of quality drivers on the market, I’d have a tough time buying one with a potential risk. Not saying anything bad will happen, but I’m not usually bold enough to make that commitment.

What was the EV company that sold some $100K new cars and is completely out of business now? Those people likely have zero warranty support and a car nobody will buy second hand.

 

Yeah I mean that's essentially why the Illusion Audio and Audiomobile drivers haven't been in my top considerations. From all accounts the Illusion Audio C12 seems to be the best SQ sub, and the Audiomobile Evo's are also very high SQ, more so than the comparably priced JL TW3's. I'm in the same boat that if I'm going to spend $4-500+ on a driver I'm leery of buying one from a company that's either entirely out of business or is on shaky ground. Wavtech is super small but for what they're doing as far as factory integration goes (seemingly the new hot topic in car audio that will probably be here to stay) it seems like they might be able to make a name for themselves, and they're thinPRO driver seems really good. Stereo Integrity is also super small but they've been around and made a name for themselves and do U.S. manufacturing from what I've read. JL is JL. Paying a tax for the name, but also the R&D and U.S. manufacturing. Having had a JL 12w3, 6w3, 8w7, an RD900/5 and JD250/1 I'm definitely a JL customer and have no complaints about anything I've ever bought from them, but am by no means a loyalist/open to broadening my horizons.

 

I selling because I can fit an Encore 4412.

 

You are welcome.

WinISD has a few quirks but I'll try to share a few tips:

- You can turn off Auto-Calculate for parameters, but I prefer to leave it on. Start in the first box then Tab over to the next box and if it wants to auto-calculate, it will auto populate that field as you tab over. Then simple Tab over to the next one and keep going. QTS, for example, likes to auto-calculate; if you are off by some small decimal point (as in a rounding error) it can throw a fit and give you a driver error.

- If you don't have a parameter, just leave it blank. Some will auto-populate, some aren't needed. Typically, QTS, VAS, and FS are the needed to model a box. Xmax an Power are needed to model, well, excursion and power handling. Make sure to save each new driver to the database before starting a model, that way you can access those parameters any time without the need to re-enter them.

- Pay attention to the units. VAS is often spec'd as Cu.Ft or Liters; don't interchange them. While entering parameters for a driver, the units are to right of each field. If you simply click on the unit, it will start toggling through different options. If you've already entered a number in the field, it will convert that number for the new unit as you toggle through options.

- You often have a couple of options for box alignments. Once you've chosen sealed, vented, etc, the alignment type isn't important except as a starting point. If you want a maximally flat response (.707 qtc) WinISD will calculate the box size needed for that response (if possible) and present it to you. Feel free to change the box size, vent dimensions, tuning frequency, etc.

- Try not to enter zero or non-numerical text in the boxes once you have a model drawn up, with the exception of a '.' as in '1.2'. If you do, you may cause an irreconcilable loop and kinda crash the program. Not to worry; just delete that model and start over. It happens.

- Remember that the graph may over-represent, visually speaking, the response curve of a driver. The low bass is over-exaggerated to give better definition to changes made. Sometimes fighting over 3hz or a db or two may not be worth the hassle. You may or may not hear those differences unless you know what to listen for.

- Have fun. Build some boxes. Screw up a few times. It's a hobby. Don't get your feathers ruffled. It's supposed to be fun. Oh, sorry, I guess that applies to more than just WinISD..

 

Here you go dude. This is from today from a forum dedicated to professional car audio.

 

Professional car audio? Why is the site called DO It Yourself car audio? You also seem pretty upset the OP doesn’t like your preferred brand…

 

I don't care if he likes the subs or not. He's misleading others by saying Audiomobile is out of business when it's quite the opposite. The DIYMA Forum brings a wealth of knowledge by professionals. You should join and start learning.

 

I'm sure he's maliciously maligning companies and misleading others in flagrant defamation instead of opining on an open forum... Also just pointing out the irony of calling a DIY forum a forum for professionals..

I feel I've got a decent handle on speaker theory. Always room to learn more, but too much teenage testosterone on that forum. Like there's always an argument that somebody has to create so they can win it and feel tough...

Here I can simply offer an opinion and be content. Sometime throw in a little bit a witty banter if I care to. I'm also more than happy to offer support of my opinion, whether it's a WinISD model showing the strengths and weaknesses of a particular driver or set of drivers that interests the OP in an attempt to help him make his own decisions, or simply saying I like apples more than orangutans.

 

There's sound engineers on that forum. People that bring a wealth of knowledge. You can disagree with anything, but WinISD won't show you all that you know about a driver. Just keep doing what you think it's right and handle your own theories.

 

I went back and corrected my post saying they are out of business (#98). I still stand by what I said and we can agree to disagree over what constitutes being well in business. Those Reddit comments could be entirely made up, but the lack of website and other's experience in trying to get a hold of their subs makes me more of a skeptic than a believer. The ol' rug pull situation with their VP ~20 years ago is also concerning.

At the end of the day people make mistakes/companies go through rocky periods. If the subs are available and have warranty support I'm more than happy to include them in my considerations.

I've been a long time lurker on DIYMA and agree there's a lot of good info/helpful folks over there, but I also agree with @blenton that there seems to be a fair amount of bickering and condescension.

@Tundra619 I see you have a double cab, are the rear seats drastically different than a crewmax or have you done something like Gately brackets to fit the Encore 4412?

@blenton thanks for all the pointers above, those are the exact sort of little nuancy program things I was wondering about. WinISD seems like a super cool/useful program once you get the hang of it/begin to understand the numbers.

 

I'm not denying that there is a wealth of knowledge there, you just have to wade through a lot of BS to find it. It's also not the ONLY knowledge available. And the masses like to drive off reputable engineers with tribal think

WinISD is a tool like any other - you can use it correctly with satisfactory results, or incorrectly and be left with nothing but a steaming pile. It depends on your skill level and the price point and time you are wiling to commit to said tools. The wonderful think about WinISD is that it is powerful, accurate, inexpensive, and easy to use once you get past the small learning curve. It will accurately model 95% of what most folks are interested in knowing about a driver, which helps you turn theory in to reality. The purpose of the tool is to model reality without physically building the box with the driver in hand.

If you prefer I model the response in another program - BassBox, HornResp, SoundEasy, etc - that's is certainly possible. But their box modeling programs will all yield basically the same result, the differencing being 'optimal' alignments (which end up being essentially close the same anyways).

Better yet, we could break-in the driver for 20 hours in free-air using tone wave just below Fs, measure the actual T/S parameters using something like a DATS, load those in one of the afore-mentioned programs to model a box, build the box, then verify the electrical model using the DATS again, and finally verify the acoustical model using SoundEasy, LEAP, REW, etc.

Will that show you EVERYTHING about a driver? Nope. We forgot to Klippel it, and we all know a driver is 10000% junk if it hasn't been Klippel verified by some guy in his basement. We just know 99% of what we need to know, we are just lacking a nice, fancy BL linearity curve and some waterfall spectral decay plots. Oh, we are also missing some audiophile accolades describing the aural viscosity and visceral vicissitudes of the subwoofer. Personally, I don't have a klippel rig, but I do have or have access to all of the other tools we talked about. We can rig up SoundEasy to make waterfall plots, and approximate a BL curve with stepped high-level testing. Or learn more about T/S parameters. Xmax for example, can be highly controversial: was it derived mathematically from coil gap? or from 70% BL? Or some other method? If going by 70% BL (which is why MFG's Klippel test in the first place) we don't need to worry about doing that ourselves. Distortion in a waterfall plot also often shows up in a response curve as an anomaly. So no we are at 99.9% of what we need to know by using a few simple tools.

But not everybody is in to audio like that. A great number of people of perfectly happy building the box recommended by the manual - no modeling tools needed.

The point is, no single tool will do everything or tell you everything you want to know. WinISD is a a great tool that will tell you 95% of that, for not a lot of work or monies. Used properly, it can help you change theory into reality - ACCURATE reality, based on good data and solid theory. If you lack either theory or data, you can be shooting in the dark and simply swap ignorance.

 

It’s funny. Even if both you fellas know what you’re talking about, and I’m certainly not saying you do not, there isn’t any real point in this pissing match.
One of you is very alliterate and is doing a great job of proving that by poking holes.
The other one of you is arguing like a child. About the only rebuttal I haven’t heard is a big, loud “huhhh!”

I’ll admit that I did enjoy this last battle round, but the horse is pretty dead at this point. You’re both pretty and it’s apparent that neither is going to change each other’s mind. May as well quit now while at least one of you still sounds like you’re good at stuff.


Let’s all just have a Merry Christmas and buy stereo stuff!

 

Dangit! You're right... Hahaha.

I really do enjoy the hobby; it's a lot of fun for me. I ought to be more light hearted about it.

 

Yeah, maybe. I’ve definitely been guilty of this in my field of expertise.

Sometimes you gotta just leave the low hanging fruit.

 

Next time I have a question about underwater basket weaving, I will definitely defer to you…

 

I really should update my LinkedIn. I’m much more than an underwater basket weaver these days. My BB stacking skills are really coming to fruition.

 

So basically there are a lot of shallow mount options out there and all of them are different. But, ultimately it depends on budget. Maybe the thread should be what’s the best shallow mount sub within a price point.

lots of options out there as well as opinions.

 

Merry Christmas everyone and