SR104 Confusion...

ocharlas

Ok so my sub came in today. I ordered the regular SR104, single voice coil, but it has two sets of terminals. It didn't come with any kind of manual or literature, and the info on the box doesn't touch on the subject. Did I get a DVC by mistake? And if it is the right sub, what's the proper way to hook it up? Two outside? Two inside?

Thanks guys

ipartywhenuhurt

Its right they put the extra speaker terminals so u can daisy chain the sub, as long as where u look into the back part of it and you only see two wires going too it then its a single coil if u see 4 wires then a dvc

If u hook it up that way ull fry the amp i did on when i got my sr124

Just place one positve speaker wire on one positive and one negative on one negative u choose which ones i belive , since both + go to one wire and same for the -

ipartywhenuhurt

Beautiful sub by the way

ocharlas

sweet, thanks a bunch...I checked the wires I thought it was a single, I just wanted to make sure so I didn't wind up with a fried amp.

And yes, she is certainly a thing of Buty(L). Going over to my buddy's house right now to grab my old box and pop her in. Pretty sure it'll be too small (I think it's a .8 or so) but I ain't waiting! I'll grab one at best buy or something tomorrow.

kawizx9r

Be conservative with the gain and volume, you'll want to break it in before you start playing it loud.

ocharlas

Thanks - I actually just signed on to ask about that specifically...

A) what's conservative? I have 400w going to it, head unit hasn't gone over 40%.

how long do I have to wait?

C) even at low volumes I feel like I hear it bottoming out. sub problem or box problem? how delicate is this thing right out of the box? could I have screwed it up in 20 minutes?

that being said, the sound quality is great. very detailed. not as low as I expected, but from what I've read that's also a break-in thing. I wanna rock this thing but I don't want to ruin it!

kawizx9r

I've heard from 60 hours to 200 hours.

Me personally? I'm in my truck everyday for a minimum of 1 1/2 hrs each day and everytime I've owned a new sub(s), I give it a good month or so until I start to give things more volume. You'll hear the difference too with deeper, more dynamic bass as the subwoofer begins to break in.

As for power, 400 watts can make that sub move so don't worry about that. I had a JL Slash 1000/1 hooked up to a single 10" SR and loved every minute of it. Just make sure to put it in a properly-sized enclosure. I recommend a sealed enclosure for best SQ.

Vital

Here's manual, enjoy

http://www.polkaudio.com/downloads/manuals/car/SRSubwoofersManual.pdf

arun1963

Get the sub in a box about 1^ft. Recommended box sizes are normally on the conservative side. Keep the gains low as mentioned. If you have it setup right, you shouldn't hear the sub bottoming out. It's either the box size or the gains.

ocharlas

Thanks for the manual, it cleared a couple things up for me.

I have the gain on the D4000.4 (bridged 400w @ 4ohms) set at 3/4 right now. Is that too high? At what point in the signal chain should I have the most gain? less gain from the amp but more subwoofer output from the head? does it make a difference?

as of right now the most the cone moves is about 1/4", I have it set pretty low
And thanks for all the help guys
Box is a .85

arun1963

Set the amp gains at about 1/3. Your gains are on the higher side. See if that helps. If you don't want to change the box add a bit of polyfill. Fools the sub into thinking the box is bigger.

ocharlas

I plan on changing the box very soon anyway so that doesn't matter.

At 1/3 gain I don't think I'll be able to hear the sub but I'll try setting it there for about a week. I'm in the car a bit so it'll get a good amount of play

Vital

According to specs your headunit puts out 4 volts.
In reality it's less than 4 and you only get close to 4 on max volume but I'm not looking to turn this into headunit voltage topic.
3/4 gain is def too much since ifrc D4000.4's gain is adjustable UP TO 6volts (6v is the "lowest" setting on the knob) so 4V should be as arun said somewhere in 1/3 area.

and yes, get a bigger box, I bet you'll notice the difference right away. When sub is broken in you can also add some poly to you rbox just to see if it'll sound any better. It will sound a bit different but it's up to you to decide if it's good different or bad different.

ocharlas

Huh...I think I get it. the gain knob is actually more of an attenuation knob. Whereas I've been using it as volume to make the sub louder, I should've been turning it down to match the output of the head. Is that somewhat right?

and if that is right, doesn't that kind of..suck? aren't you only using a small portion of the amp's potential?

pentoncm

1/2 way is fine or maybe a little more. If you have a remote or a bass level control you can always attenuate it.

You have to consider a few things

(1) Your HU is rarely going to output 4V with music, most likely 1.5V.
(2) Different music will have low frequencies at different levels. Hard rock has a more powerful kick drum and bass lines than lets say alt rock or lighter rock. I would go with the gain at halfway or a little higher so that you will still get good bass on music where the bass is a little lacking. You can always turn it down via remote or bass level on a HU on songs that have more bass in them.

Here is a link explaining gain setting http://elettromedia-usa.com/event-schedules/tech-tips/amplifiers/how-to-adjust-gain

This explains why you can't match up your amp to 4V if your HU outputs 4V, play it by ear. I can almost guarantee that if you put your gain at 1/3 its going to sound like your sub is barely working. If the sub sounds fine then you are good. If it sounds questionable turn the gain down, its that simple. Sometimes its easier to set gains with the crossover opened up to 100Hz or 120Hz, this helps to hear distortion.

arun1963

1/3rd the way up, on gains is a good and safe starting point. For a while I was running my 12" svc off the pa200.1 with the gains at 1/3 and it was great. Upto halfway is normally safe though. 3/4 is way too high.

pentoncm

arun1963 wrote: »

1/3rd the way up, on gains is a good and safe starting point. For a while I was running my 12" svc off the pa200.1 with the gains at 1/3 and it was great. Upto halfway is normally safe though. 3/4 is way too high.

I'll agree with you there, 3/4 you are probably getting close to 300 mV as far as sensitivity which is going to cause clipping. I have mine set at 1 o clock and it works out well with no audible distortion. It really depends on the source material. I think if you listen to tons of low bass/electronnic/rap etc it will distort earlier than if you listen to rock.

My alpine amp has a 'nom' notch on the gain scale which is at the halfway point which is supposed to be a good place to start setting gains.

pentoncm

Another thing to consider, where is the volume set on your HU? Did you find the max volume unclipped?

For instance on my Kenwood, it goes full volume without clipping. So 35 is full power, guess what at 34 the voltage drops by nearly half.

ocharlas

I haven't found it yet - the speakers have about a week and an half on them (maybe 20-25 hours) so I didn't want to max them out yet. I've cranked them pretty good though maybe I'll give it a shot. right now gains for both are about halfway and the speakers are overpowering the sub - with the sub setting set to 0 it's barely audible. I'll put the speakers at 1/3, that should help.

I feel stupid asking, but I'm assuming that the higher the sub setting is on the head the more voltage it's putting out any way of knowing by how much? seeing goes from -50 (not sure why) to 10. usually around +3 it starts sounding right. in decibels I know that's double but I doubt that's the scale they're using, if there is one

pentoncm

Ok you need to get your system optimized.

(1) lets find out your max volume setting on the HU. Turn the gains on the full range amp all the way down. Now turn up your HU till it starts to distort. Back it off until it sounds good again. Most modern HU's don't distort at 3/4 anymore it will likely go much higher.
(2) Now turn up your gains until you hear distortion, again now back it off just a tad. Are you running rears?
(3) Now I would set your HU sub control at -5 to -10. Turn up the sub gain to 1 or 2 o clock. By doing this you will have headroom. If the bass is too heavy you can turn it down further from -5 or -10. But if you play a track that doesn't have much bass you can still turn it up to 0.

arun1963

Get the balance between the speakers and sub to the point where you can't tell which is louder. That's well balanced. Lower whatever dominates. Do this while keeping the gains under half way, both for the speakers and sub.

Leave the sub gains on the hu at 0. Get a good blend using the amps and then you can raise it a bit from the hu when you want some extra punch.

HU voltage ratings are grossly over rated. My 5V pio puts out 4.3V at 64/64 volume. It would probably get close to 5V if I engage stuff like loudness, BBE, etc. At normal listening 46-48, it's 2.2V. I'll take it to 52-53 when I want a bit extra and that is 2.8V. The gains on my amps are at 3V. Works well.

pentoncm

Its fine to use the sub output on the HU at 0 but if you do need to turn it up you will be boosting which isn't a clean thing. It sounds better to run it -5db and then raise to 0 if you need it raised, this way you never are truly 'boosting'.

Arun when you measured your pio at 4.3V at max volume was that using music or test tones?

ocharlas

pentoncm wrote: »

Ok you need to get your system optimized.

(1) lets find out your max volume setting on the HU. Turn the gains on the full range amp all the way down. Now turn up your HU till it starts to distort. Back it off until it sounds good again. Most modern HU's don't distort at 3/4 anymore it will likely go much higher.
(2) Now turn up your gains until you hear distortion, again now back it off just a tad. Are you running rears?
(3) Now I would set your HU sub control at -5 to -10. Turn up the sub gain to 1 or 2 o clock. By doing this you will have headroom. If the bass is too heavy you can turn it down further from -5 or -10. But if you play a track that doesn't have much bass you can still turn it up to 0.

Ok I went ahead and did these steps. The HU goes cleanly to max volume. For step 2 I assumed you didn't mean turn the gains up while the HU was on max volume so I took that back down to 20 (out of 50. again - speakers aren't completely broken in yet) and brought the gain on the amp up. I don't know if it's because I had the volume too low, but I got the gains all the way up on both without any audible distortion. I don't have any tools besides my ears, but they're pretty good.

I went ahead and set the sub volume at half and the speakers (only running fronts) at a third. The sub control is at -5. As it stands the low end is still quite lacking. What I'm doing for now until I'm confident enough to turn the sub up is just fading -2 to the rears. Since there aren't any it just makes the fronts quieter which about levels out the balance between speakers and sub. Also crossovers are set at 40hz for the MM6501s. For the sub I keep bouncing between 80 and 120hz

Vital

Did u get a new enclosure yet?

Also cross your speakers at 50 or 60, imo 40 is too low for mm.
Cross your sub at 60 as well, you might get away with 80 (altho i still say 60) but 120 is serious overkill.
Most important thing in your case is enclosure. Change it first.

ocharlas

I want to get one today, but I think best buy sealed enclosures are .7, only their ported ones go to one. I'll see what else I can find

ocharlas

ok I guess I was right all they have is a .7 sealed. All the actual car audio stores are closed today. I think I'll just wind up ordering something online just to get it over with.

I've been toying with the idea of setting the tweeter crossover at -3. I've got it flat right now and for a lot of the music I listen to it's too much high end. I think that may be part of the reason I have the sub crossover set so high, to compensate. The only reason I haven't done it yet is the crossovers are in the door panels, minor pain.

pentoncm

Actually yes, you were supposed to turn up the gains with the HU at max volume. With you turning the HU down, you turned the gain on the amps way up. The point of this is to find max volume while avoiding clipping. 9 to 10 oclock sounds right for full range components however.

Don't be afraid about turning everything up they will be fine, you have a good crossover on them, set it to 60 and you will be fine.

I would suggest just turning off your rears. It sounds better and it requires less sub power.

ocharlas

I went to a couple car audio stores today, pretty much what I expected. All the sealed 10" boxes run around .8, one ran a little over 1 but had a slant front which makes no sense for me. I think I will check out home depot and see if I can build it myself.

I talked to a couple guys at each store and they all pretty much had the same thing to say - the difference between a .8 cu. ft box and a 1.0 is negligible. How much difference will it actually make? I'm always properly wary of salesman knowledge, but when you get 3 in a row saying the same thing you start to wonder.

Tomorrow I'm running to home depot. Store bought boxes are too expensive ($90 for a mediocre 10" sealed box) and online boxes do look pretty lousy. Hopefully I can put something together than will be a little nicer.

pentoncm

Volume changes of 20% are going to be noticeable. The car audio shop is used to dealing with the average consumer that can't tell the difference between a cd and a 128kbps mp3 file.

You are going to want that box on the large side to get the low end extension, otherwise you will have too much 80Hz and above information which will sound sloppy.

I heard a big difference in my box when i added 1/2 pound of poly fill, so definitely a volume change that large is going to matter.