Hey everyone, I have a huge dilemma on my hands. I don't know what to choose from for my system. Should I go with 2 12" Solo Barics, that give out 2400 watts of peak power and 1200 watts of RMS power. Or should I go with 2 12" Audiobahn AW1206T subs, that pump out 4400 watts of peak power and 2200 watts of RMS power. Now keep in mind I want somthing that sounds good too. So if any one has experience or knows of people that has had experience with these 2 brands, and can give me a heads up on what there like, that would be much appreciated! Cheers!

if you want something that sounds good and pumps out good bass go with the solo's. the audiobahns say they handle 4400 but 1000 watts will blow them.

Audiobahn is generally poop.

Go with a six pack of funky pups.

Bahaha never heard of funky pup so i decided to look it up.
THE RESULT

hahahaha funky pup eh? well the solo barics i have heard in local stores, just not the audiobahn. If people say they arn't that good, or as good as kicker then i guess theres only one way to go! thnx

ok... a few things... im not going to cover everything... BUT...I will say what I can remember, and link you to a write up that you should read.

1. SUBS DONT PUT OUT POWER. They are built to play music and handle a certain amount of power. If a sub says 500 Watts RMS, that is the ammount of power the manufacturer deems "safe" to run to them on a regular basis. Peak power ratings are meaningless.
2. What amp are you running them off? This will dictate which subs will perform their best for your needs given the amount of power you have available.
3. Audiobahn doesn't build very good subs. Period.
4. Kicker solobaric L5's or L7's might satisfy your need for some bass... they can definately get loud. But sound quality is lacking big time. I wouldn't recomend them for someone looking to get a lot of good clean sound quality out of their sub stage.
5. We can not recomend a product to you without knowing your needs. If you wanted ground pounding bass, I could easily recomend you run out and grab up some DD 91515's.... if you wanted a superb SQ monster, I could recomend you go out and get a JL W6v2. Now if I recomended you get a W6v2 and you wanted nothing but sheer boom, you are going to hate me... not my fault, you didnt't specify before you asked for recomendations. See where I'm going?

Ok, here is a write up that I spent a bit of time and thinking on that I think should be shared with JBO as well:

http://www.caraudioforum.com/vbb3/showthread.php?t=260957

Hope some of this helps. I don't mind responding to recomendation threads, or threads asking advice on certain products. It just would be nice if you first answered some questions that I have outlined in that write-up first


On the other hand....you have other fingers.

KevinP (Stabby McShankyou) wrote:not funny... i just can't find that funny... not with 2 copies of the Candyland board game on your shelf.

damn! a lot of info i didnt know, and thanks a bunch! i am an 18 yr old kid looking to get some thump and some braggin rights around my friends, and some other kids my age....you know how it is haha. i was looking for a pair of solo barics (L5) and hook em up to a kicker zx1000.1 amp. Or even 3 solo barics and just add another smaller amp along with the 1000.1.

I think if you are just looking for a buncha bass and bragging rights, maybe a pair of 12 inch L5's and a good 1000+ Watt RMS amp would do the trick. Sounds like a plan to me. Kicker has decent quality products, Im not real fond of their amp pricing though. Here is one damn good amp that will put out rated power, and be fairly cost effective:

http://www.woofersetc.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=3193

Make sure if you run 2 subs off an amp like that (that puts out its highest rated power at 1ohm) you get the dual 4 ohm coils, each sub wires down to 2 ohms, then together down to 1 ohm. See JLAudio.com for wiring diagrams.


On the other hand....you have other fingers.

KevinP (Stabby McShankyou) wrote:not funny... i just can't find that funny... not with 2 copies of the Candyland board game on your shelf.

Dallas Lenko wrote:Hey everyone, I have a huge dilemma on my hands. I don't know what to choose from for my system. Should I go with 2 12" Solo Barics, that give out 2400 watts of peak power and 1200 watts of RMS power. Or should I go with 2 12" Audiobahn AW1206T subs, that pump out 4400 watts of peak power and 2200 watts of RMS power. Now keep in mind I want somthing that sounds good too. So if any one has experience or knows of people that has had experience with these 2 brands, and can give me a heads up on what there like, that would be much appreciated! Cheers!

Ummm, you do know that subs don't give out power, right??
The numbers you say they "pump out" are what they're rated to handle by the manufacturer.

The factors that you should be thinking about are:
(1) how much power do you plan on running?
(2) how much do you plan on spending on subs/amps?
(3) how much space do you have for whatever I buy?

GAM (The Kilted One) wrote: if you think you're that much better than them because you're "correct" I hope your progeny don't turn out as screwed up as yourself.

Pauley want a cracker? lol, sorry Derek, but I said all of that


On the other hand....you have other fingers.

KevinP (Stabby McShankyou) wrote:not funny... i just can't find that funny... not with 2 copies of the Candyland board game on your shelf.

JLAudioCavalier(1bad02cav) wrote:...Peak power ratings are meaningless...

Actually, although among most people who are pretty knowledgable on audio do think this, it's not entirely true. Peak power is what a speaker can take for a transient hit, such as a kick drum, for a short burst. RMS power is what it can run at sustained waveform.

The ideal way to match any speaker and an amp is to match the amp's power to the peak rating of the speaker. This doesn't mean you can run the amp all the way up! You should then run your system so that when you are listening, the average volume is somewhere around half power of the amp. This way, a hard bass hit that exceeds this will still be within the peak power of the amp and the speaker, but you're not running this volume constantly.

Now with the production on most modern music being highly compressed to get the loudest volume possible, many times a song will have one volume all the way through, and there are no dynamics to it. In this instance, you will not have the kind of transients as a classic mix, so you will end up running more of a constant signal to your speakers. (this gets a little bit more complicated when you are considering multiple components--tweets, mids, and subs, etc--but I won't get into that). Also worthy of noting, is that a sub bass drop in techno, hip-hop, etc., it not a true transient, because of the long duration they have. If you are listening to electronic music that has a lot of this, make sure that you're keeping those within the RMS rating of a sub. As you can see with these small examples, what type of music you are primarily listening to will have some bearing on your system choices as well.

The key piece of information here is that you get an amp that puts out more wattage than your RMS, and you NEVER push the amp all the way! I'm sure it's posted in many places around here, but I don't think enough people understand that you will blow a speaker far quicker by maxing an amp than you will by running more power to a speaker than it's rating.

Dallas, the other key ingredient to remember is building a properly tuned box will make a world of difference no matter what you use. If you know what you want to accomplish, plan it well, you well be much happier with your system. Also, I would trust JLAudioCavalier in speaker recommendations. He knows his stuff.

Quiklilcav wrote:

JLAudioCavalier(1bad02cav) wrote:

The key piece of information here is that you get an amp that puts out more wattage than your RMS, and you NEVER push the amp all the way! I'm sure it's posted in many places around here, but I don't think enough people understand that you will blow a speaker far quicker by maxing an amp than you will by running more power to a speaker than it's rating.

Dallas, the other key ingredient to remember is building a properly tuned box will make a world of difference no matter what you use. If you know what you want to accomplish, plan it well, you well be much happier with your system. Also, I would trust JLAudioCavalier in speaker recommendations. He knows his stuff.

now as far as what you said about buying an amp that will put out your speakers peak power... no... not the best way to look at it at all.
what i WILL say is that you are 100% correct that having some headroom with your amps power is far better than having it just at what you need or lower.

and what you said about having an amp with head room easily supplying the power you need out of it is much better than running an amp that doesnt put out what you need and pushing it to its limit (thus sending a clipped signal, not good for your ears or speakers!)

Basicaly to clarify that a lil bit... you have speakers rated at 100watts RMS .. your amp puts out 150 watts RMS, perfect! get it installed, set your gains properly, set your high pass filter and tune everything... everyone is happy....
Now, if you got those same 100watt speakers but only got an amp putting out 60 watts RMS to them.. if you keep the gains at a reasonable level where you are not asking too much from the amp, the speakers arent going to perform to their potential... so you, the relatively new guy to all this turns up the gains.. HEY it got louder, sweet... so you keep going, speakers are louder now... but your amp is trying to push your speakers more than it was built to... the signal get clipped and crappy and they sound bad, and end up getting damaged... not good!

and about trusting me and saying i know my stuff... thanks i am a modest type of person, but when it comes down to car audio and drums, i will not deny that i know enough that i will help you anytime i can, and smart enough that i wont help when im not sure of what im saying... with that said, there are plenty of other people on this forum that know as much as i do or more, thats for damn sure... they just havent spoken much lol


On the other hand....you have other fingers.

KevinP (Stabby McShankyou) wrote:not funny... i just can't find that funny... not with 2 copies of the Candyland board game on your shelf.

Well, I'll still argue the power thing. We'll just have to agree to disagree there.

JLAudioCavalier(1bad02cav) wrote:Pauley want a cracker? lol, sorry Derek, but I said all of that

Lol!
Could have saved me alot of typing if I had seen that in the first place haha.

GAM (The Kilted One) wrote: if you think you're that much better than them because you're "correct" I hope your progeny don't turn out as screwed up as yourself.