GNX or GXR? need some help on low $$$ subs.

Systems · February 2003

Which of all four subs below would sound better with a dual 1.75 cu. ported box setup ? (sound quality and pressure 50/50)

The audio installer at Circuit City said despite the Polk GXR being cheaper than the GNX, it is louder and sounds better. ?? (Both on sale- buy one get one free) What would be better for my application?

I know this is a polk forum BUT I was also thinking about Alpine SWR or Bazooka ELW. The Bazooka's have the chill option (just get a transmission radiator and a small pump- much cheaper) and I've heard some good stuff about the alpines, too.

Any guesses or experience would be very much appreciated!!

thanks, Alberto

PoweredByDodge · February 2003

hoenstly dude.. none of the above ---

for what you're suggesting... JBL GT 12's or GT 10's... they're 89.99 each retail or 129 for two (that was a crutchfield deal.. CC prolly will honor it.. but Circuit definatly carries the sub @ that price i believe).

the GT 12/10 will hold as much if not more power clean and clear and will work better in the box you suggested.

if not that -- then the Polk GNX -- everything else is just waste behind the JBL and the Polk GNX - those are the two "lowest" subs i'd ever use without hateing myself for doing the install.

paulette_uh · February 2003

hi guys.

i just got an 800w pioneer amp and 2 12"gxr polk subs. are htey **** subs? the guy at our circuit city told my they were better than most that store carried. enlighten me.:)

PoweredByDodge · March 2003

The GNX subs are not **** at all -- they're a good subwoofer... not a "killer" sub, but they're allright ... as far as "better than most they carry" -- well circuit city carries a bunch of garbage quite honestly. I wouldn't buy anything from CC except speaker wire these days -- the few good things they have are so overpriced its sick.

the subs however, are good in their own right.... whether u compare them to CC stuff or not --- they're a good sub.

question..are they 4 ohm or 8 ohm subs (or dual 4 ohm coil)... and what is the power output RMS of your amp at 4 ohm stereo and 4 ohm bridged? (just checkin if circuit city boy sold u the right amp for those subs).

Jstas · March 2003

Cheap subs?

Here:

Urban Audio Works

30 bucks at Target

Doesn't get any cheaper than that unless you get something from JC Whitney.

sntnsupermen131 · March 2003

i know a guy that bought a 15in pyle and a 150 w jensen amp for $45
man he got screwed...
-Cody

PoweredByDodge · March 2003

Jstas -- are those hte urban audio subs that u shot out of a box like a projectile?

if so ... how much power did u need.

my girlfriend wants me to get 3 or 4 cheapo subs and try to blow them outa the box like 5 - 10 feet... i duno if its possible tho and if so what to use...

here is the power i have available... two 81000d's @ 1250 @ 12 volts / 1380 @ 13.8 volts into 2 ohms.. so if i got a dual 2 ohm coil sub i could put like 2760 on it...

any help wud be appreciated.

sntnsupermen131 · March 2003

lol....thats hilarious...
-Cody

paulette_uh · March 2003

honestly buddy, i have no idea what an ohm is. make fun of me if you want, this is my first system and i dont know much about it. i just know i wanted it to sound good, so the guy at cc told me to get thoes speakers, and the guy at best buy told me to get that amp for thoes speakers. the amp i have is called pioneer GM-X972 800w amplifier. i dont know what a power output RMS is, and i dont know the diffrence between a 4 ohm stereo and a 4 ohm bridge. i know that the lady at car stereo one where i got it all hooked up asked mewhat kind of wire i needed, and i told her to give me the best they had. and then she added 30 bucks. but yeah. i would like to know what all this crap means, and i would be so greatful if you would take the time to explain it to me. or maybe just give me a link to one of these threads that explains it all if there is one.

thanks for the reassurance that i bought quality speakers.;)

Jstas · March 2003

Originally posted by PoweredByDodge
Jstas -- are those hte urban audio subs that u shot out of a box like a projectile?

if so ... how much power did u need.

my girlfriend wants me to get 3 or 4 cheapo subs and try to blow them outa the box like 5 - 10 feet... i duno if its possible tho and if so what to use...

here is the power i have available... two 81000d's @ 1250 @ 12 volts / 1380 @ 13.8 volts into 2 ohms.. so if i got a dual 2 ohm coil sub i could put like 2760 on it...

any help wud be appreciated.

Yes, actually it is. We used a 500 watts Jensen amp. That popped them pretty good. Your MTX 81000D will be perfect! Single or dual voice coil, plenty of power. Just turn the gain all the way up, make sure you have some power behind it cause you are going to shock the amp basically so make sure you have power to draw off of. Get a CD with a heavy bass track. Extremely hard rock or a heavy rap beat will work. Overpower the living hell of the thing. Find a track you want to use on the CD, set teh CD player up and pause it at the point where you will hit the bass track hard. Plug it into the system, tun up the juice on everything, including the bass and treble and volume. Un pause the CD player when you are ready and you should be able to pop the sub right out of teh basket. Unless they wised up and got better materials. If they did, go get guitar amp speakers from Radio Shack and do it with those. They are paper fiber cones and they will tear and most likely launch the voice coil at the very least. Just make sure you have a fire extinguisher handy! That is very important!

paulette_uh, sorry for being a jerk. I just wanted to rib you and show PBD that there are choices much more worse than what you found. IMO, any Polk speaker is a good buy. It may not be up to PBD's high standards but for your first time, they will be fine and reliable. Good cheap stuff to cut your teeth on and learn something about it all.

sntnsupermen131 · March 2003

paulette,
you dont really have to know all the stuff about ohms and such
one thing you DO need to know is rms power
all speakers/amplifiers WILL have an rms rating
pretty much
your speakers are rated at 175 watts rms
i believe
this means
175watts of power can be sent to those subs all day and it will not have a problem
on an amp
it means it can give your speakers 175w all day and not have a problem
peak power is is what the sub can handle when the bass hits for like 1/2 a second or less
for an amp its how much watts it can "feed" your speaker in a 1/2 sec or less
peak power is the most useless number you will deal with in car audio almost
no one on this forum deals with peak power
only with rms
learn now to block out peak power
lol
as for wire
"good wire" is usually a shielded wire
which means nothing can get in or out of the wire
unshielded wire is prone to having outside noise come into your wire and play through your speakers
thats bad
shielded wire prevents most if not all of that
and for wire the smaller the gauge..the bigger the wire
and common sense tells you the bigger the wire the more power it can handle
the biggest wire you have for that system is probably 8 gauge
maybe 4 gauge
but if you have any more questions feel free to ask
no matter how stupid you think it might be
everybody was a beginner once
and everybody on this forum is still learning
good luck with your system
hope it sounds to your liking
-Cody

paulette_uh · March 2003

wow, thanks cody. your really nice, and that was very helpful.:D so then, in awnser to PBD's question, my amp feeds 200w X 2 or 480w X 1. i think im starting to understand this now, so that means 200w to each speaker if there is 2, and 480 if there is one. correct? i have another q then. why does my amp say its an 800w amp if its only a 480w? is the 800w the peak power level? and also will it be easier to blow my speakers with my 200w X 2 amp connected to the speakers you say handle 175w? that would suck.

thanks again.

PoweredByDodge · March 2003

paulette... allright cool a model number.. makes life easy.. that amp is 150 x 2 at 4 ohms / or 400 x 1 bridged.

explainaiont... say u got an amp that has two channels... one left... one right... if u put one speaker on each... then you are running in "Stereo" or "2 channel" mode... that is your "whatever power" X 2... so 150 x 2 means 150 to each channel (150 left / 150 right).

Bridged means you take the positive of the left and the negative of the right... and hook those up to one speaker (or one specifically wired set of speakers that ends up having only one set of hookup wires). usually you will get three times the single channel power hwen bridged.... or in your case 150 * 3 = 450 or more watts.

However, upon checking the specs of your amp, its 150 x 2 stereo or 400 x 1 bridged (surprisingly low)...

so chances are they wired them in stereo ... either way, you're fine.. that amp does enough power.

I re-read your post... i had thought u purchased the GNX... i now see it was the GXR (damnletters, i dont know why they cant make like unique sounding names....lol) ... so in creedance to Justin's 10 forum commandments i will grit my teeth and keep my mouth shut. GNX I like... GXR me no likey.

but still.. u've got plenty of power... decent speakers... it should boom... if it doesn't -- beat up the guy at circuit city and tell him his capacitors are filled with sand.

hehe :eek:

PoweredByDodge · March 2003

Paulette

quick on the reply eh? lol...

800W is the MAX power.. usually double the rms... amps never hit they're max... max is just something pretty to write on the side of the box... every company does it though... gets annoying but hey... cut it in half and boom there's u're rms

crutchfield rates it at 400 x 1 bridged... they could be incorrect though -- u state 480.

in 2 channel mode, it is 150 x2 @ 4 ohms / or 200 x2 @ 2 ohms

since your GXR's are almost certainly 4 ohm subs... since circuit city is lazy and doesn't carry "odd" coils of most subs.

so you're gettin 150 to each sub, and it has to be in stereo, not bridged, since you cannot bridge that amp into 2 regular 4 ohm subs (that woud be a 2 ohm load --- two 4 ohm subwoofers "tied together" are a 2 ohm load... that would "fry" the amp).

and yes cody is a nice guy -- i think he's single too -- wink wink nudge nudge.

PoweredByDodge · March 2003

JSTAS.... thank god u replied!

i have been anxiously awaiting blowing up Urban rats for days!

so do i put these inboxes? like sealed boxes screwd down or do i just like sit them on my tail gate "free air" ...lol... or what?

Soon people will call me "Rat Killa Pimp Daddy Jack".

sntnsupermen131 · March 2003

and as for blowing your subs
not likely
this will probably surprise you
but
more power is better
i checked the specs of the sub and theyre rated at 165watts
but when i say more power is better
i mean that if you push 175-200 watts to each sub....in fact you are LESS likely to blow your sub than running 75-100 watts to each sub
BECAUSE if your jamming out to your favorite hard bass hitting song
you know
bass turned all the way up
volume on 45 out of 50
well this could cause your amp to "clip"
another words
it will make this really bad thing go to your speakers via the wire and blow them
and the less amount of power youre feeding them
the more likely it is to happen
so i really doubt youll blow those speakers
dont pay attention to the capacitors and the sand
pbd is just expressing his love(to hate) relationship about circuit city guys
and im taken thank you dodge
lol
-Cody

Jstas · March 2003

Originally posted by PoweredByDodge
JSTAS.... thank god u replied!

i have been anxiously awaiting blowing up Urban rats for days!

so do i put these inboxes? like sealed boxes screwd down or do i just like sit them on my tail gate "free air" ...lol... or what?

Soon people will call me "Rat Killa Pimp Daddy Jack".

you have to put them in a box. we used old Radio Shack tower enclosures cause they were free in the dumpster and held a 10 inch woofer. good luck.

PoweredByDodge · March 2003

I think i should wire up a whole hoopty system...

build a box for 2 urban rats and some factory 6x9's - say 3 of them... left right and "dolby surround sound center channel"...

blow them outa the box at once.... while dressed up like an abercrombie and fitch model... and then complain incessantly "dang... my beats be busted.. dang.. snatch... dang... straight".

i need more amps though...... maybe if i can borrow my buddy's 150.2's to put on the 6x9's... 450 x 1 should be enough for a factory 6x9? hell maybe i'll go high end and get "Kraco" 6x9's from autozone.

video tape the whole thing.... hahahahahahahaaaaa....

sntnsupermen131 · March 2003

Originally posted by PoweredByDodge
I think i should wire up a whole hoopty system...

build a box for 2 urban rats and some factory 6x9's - say 3 of them... left right and "dolby surround sound center channel"...

blow them outa the box at once.... while dressed up like an abercrombie and fitch model... and then complain incessantly "dang... my beats be busted.. dang.. snatch... dang... straight".

i need more amps though...... maybe if i can borrow my buddy's 150.2's to put on the 6x9's... 450 x 1 should be enough for a factory 6x9? hell maybe i'll go high end and get "Kraco" 6x9's from autozone.

video tape the whole thing.... hahahahahahahaaaaa....

how speaker guys have fun...
LMAO
send your video to americas crappiest speaker videos....lol
or you could do an episode of jackass with it...just point, aim, and fire at any given bystander....lol
thats entertainment...
-Cody

SANTIAGO · March 2003

I have two GNX104 10'' and a 300x2 or 600 bridged. It's a **** Boss amp but it puts out some watts. I blew one of the speakers the other day. I have them in a dual sealed box with poly-fill box stuffing, should I use the poly-fill stuffing? I have them both bridged out, should I have them running on their own channel? Was I using too many watts? I went back to CC and got a new GNX 10", what should I do so this won't happen again?

Thanks for your help,
Santiago

:(

PoweredByDodge · March 2003

well you're running your amp at 2 ohms, which is a no no -- if you have that amp bridged.. then its 600 x 1 at 4 ohms... two subs together on the same channel (both being 104 GNX - the 4 standing for 4 ohm) is a 2 ohm load.

so you're running your amp
1) hot
2) into distortion

neither of which are good.

if its 300 x 2 @ 2 ohms, it would be like 150 x 2 at 4 ohms.... which would pobably be better for both the amp and speakers...

try running them in stereo (one on each side) ... probably improve the life of your amp and your speaker.

polyfill is necessary if you have a box that is like 1.0 cubic feet to 1.2 cubic feet... if you're at the 1.25 reccomended by polk for each sub then very little to no poly is necessary me thinks.

also... maybe you're gain is up too high on the amp... juice it to one knotch higher than u listen to it with some sick **** heavy rap like methods of mayhem... check the voltage at the amp terminal and then square that and divide by 4 -- if this is over 200... then you need to turn the gain down (this is a rough estimate - to do a proper reading you'd need an oscilliscope but "rough" is better than nothing).

turn your loudness off.. keep your bass on the deck at less than half of the deck's boost capability.

keep the bass boost on the amp at 45 hertz to under 6 db's.

other than that, ic an't think of anythign.

paulette_uh · March 2003

thanks for the help guys PBD and cody!! <---- im taken too

ps: who the f is crutchfield?

PoweredByDodge · March 2003

crutchfield is an online / catalog (or if u live in virginia they have a warehouse store) car audio / home audio dealer. www.crutchfield.com

very similar to www.sounddomain.com

retail prices but quick shipment and easy to deal with.

sntnsupermen131 · March 2003

crutchfield is a great place to look around on their website to see what you want
you can also subscribe and theyll send you magazines...free...they also have a good phone service thats open almost all day i think
but they hardly ever have the best prices
for that sound domain... www.carmedia1.com ... www.carstereotime.com ... www.onlinecarstereo.com usually have the lowest prices
-Cody

wodom1 · March 2003

Hey guys, I've got a quick question. I've got one 10" Infinity Kappa sub--the older green ones. If I remember correctly the rms rating is 50-250watts with a peak of 1000. I've got some **** L.A. Sound amp that I bought from a friend my freshman year of college--L.A. Sound Laguna, 100x4 I believe. Anyone know anything about this amp? I've been using it for a couple of years and it sounds decent to my ears. I have channel one running the sub and channels 3 & 4 running my rear speakers--Polk 5x7's. What kind of RMS power should I be feeding this sub? I'd like to get a mono amp solely for the subwoofer but I don't have the funds to spend any money on stuff like that but what would you suggest? Thanks for any replies.
-Josh

sntnsupermen131 · March 2003

you need to be running around 250-300 watts rms to that sub
ive heard of the brand of that amp but i cant really remember anything about it
i dont think it was good though...
but yeah when you do get the $ look for an amp rated at 250x1 @ 4 ohms
www.carmedia1.com
www.onlinecarstereo.com
www.carstereotime.com
those places usually have the lowest prices i can find on the internet w/ full warranty...free shipping too
-Cody

PoweredByDodge · March 2003

100 x 4 at what? 2 ohms or 4 ohms...

if its @ 4 ohms, then bridged to one 4 ohm sub you're getting roughly 300 watts most likely, which is perfect for that sub.

if its @ 2 ohms, then bridging to 4 ohm sub you're getting 200 x 1... which is still good for that sub.

far as to your speakers... like i said.. they're 4 ohm speakers, so you're getting either 100 or something betwee 50 and 65 to each EX coaxial.

wodom1 · March 2003

Thanks for the responses. I need to bridge channels one and two for the sub. I'm not sure of the ohms on that amp. I cannot find any specs on it anywhere on the web. The Kappa is a great speaker. I've got it in a sealed .66 cubic foot box. I drive a single cab Ford F150 so one sub is all I need. 10" may actually be too big. My fronts consist of a Polk DX3065 6.5" component set with the 1" silk dome tweets. I have those running off of a cheapo amp which was free from my bro-in-law. The sub is in a Q-logic box, which I think kinda sucks. Some day when I have a little extra money I'll purchase a better amp for the sub. Once again, thanks for the advice.
-Josh

Keske944 · March 2003

THE KESKE944 SAND FILLED CAPACITORS LIVE ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

paulette_uh · March 2003

oh, ok. crutchfeild.. :cool:
thanks for the web adresses, PBD and cody. they are cool. i want a lot of stuff now!!

man, it sucks! i only got those speakers put in like a month ago, and not even two weeks after i paid the extra money to have them guys hook my stuff up to the factory stereo, the cd player in my car stops working. so i went out and got a DEH-P3500 pioneer cd player. i like it. i can tell a little bit of diffrence in the sound, but not as much as everyone said i would. haha. just wanted to share that cuz... im... drunk. j/k;)

boominnjoe · March 2003

i own a pair of gxr sub and i personally think thay are great. i notice lots of peeps knock them, well more then those with good things to say. i think they are awesome and i get tons of compliments from everyone who hears them.:cool:

GNX or GXR? need some help on low $$$ subs.

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