Do my subs need more power?

Forgive me if this has all ready been covered or you've already have addressed it.

Jl's sheath boxes have an incredible reputation so you should feel pretty confident in that department. Of course a ported box will have an increased output of about 6 dbs at its tuning, but some sub's are designed for sealed and will perform best in that enclosure.

As for powering your subs, yes, there should be a noticeable difference in the output between the two amps. If they were to perform exactly at their power rating the JL amp should produce about an extra 3 dbs more than the apline. 3 dbs is about the amount an average person will hear a noticeable, or slightly significant increase in volume. Its not going to be huge by any means. Twice as loud requires 10 times the power in this situation.

Also, I'd really recommend 1awg (0 gauge) for powering your alpine. 2awg minimum, IMO that is.

You'll also want to use your head unit for all equalization, speaker volumes, and crossovers (assuming you are not using the head unit to power extra speakers).

You probably already have that covered but there's one setting that isn't going to be an option on your head unit. That's the sub sonic filter. That will be on your amp. It may also be labeled as infrasonic or just as "high pass" on your sub channel.

That feature is not necessary for seal enclosures and if it is on then that could definitely be a reason for a lack of output.

For ported enclosures it is absolutely required.

Pioneer on the sub volume level normally has a range of -10 to +8 (or similar). To get the 4 volt out to your amp you will want to increase that volume to around +2/+4. That will also allow your amp gains to be set lower.

Your pioneer also has "SLA". That is a setting that let's you adjust each audio source to different volume levels.

When listening to xm/sirrus go to that setting and it will adjust it for just that source. Same with Bluetooth and USB. Basically its so you can set all you different source volumes to sound the same.

Phase, there are two types of phase. Mechanically and acoustically. Mechanically in phase when the speaker cones are moving outwards, or inwards, at the same time. Aka polarity. The post above is a well laid out method that will work very well. Its the way I do it too.

Acoustically in phase is set with time alignment. The goal is to have the sound waves from the left side of you arrive at your left ear at the same time the sound waves arrive to your right ear from the speaker from your right. These are normally in increments of milliseconds but you will input the distances using inches.

Extra tangent on the science of sound.

What you would like to achieve, assuming you're just as anal as I am, is to create the illusion of having your stereo project its sound as if the band has their stage setup on the center of your dash. The instruments and vocals coming towards you from the center.

Having speakers that are to the left and right, low in the doors and up by the sail panels are definitely not optimum locations to create such the desired effect.

Thankfully though someone, maybe even two, ppl decided that they were going to go full on science and nerd out on sound waves and stuff.

Long story.... Kinda less long, we now know how we can tell what direction a sound is coming from. The higher range frequencies, upper mid range to tweeter frequency directional cues are due to the intensity of the sound. Pretty simple, it louder on your right then your brain can determine that's the direction the sound is coming from.

In your truck you want to create the illusion of the sound coming from the stage that in the center of your dash board, though.

This is where setting the volumes of your tweeters and mids to where at your head, the volumes are equal. Typically less volume on the speakers closest to you. That will cue you brain to detect the source of the sound to be in front of you.

Subwoofer frequencies are typically considered undetectable and will not cue your brain to any direction.

Low midrange, the most interesting frequency range of them all to tame. The glorious Helmholtz's effect.

The lower mid range, or mid bass, frequencies cue their directions based on the time it take a sound wave (mid bass range) to travel from one ear drum to the other ear drum. This is how you are able to tell the direction those ranges of sounds are coming from. Since you have at least two speakers producing these frequencies from opposite sides of you its important to get them timed properly. If they aren't, then you will notice a lack of mid bass.

If the frequencies arrive incorrectly your brain literally disregards the signals and its as if you never heard it.

Luckily you can use this sorcery to your advantage and get even with your mid bass hating brain. With correctly dialing in the delay (time alignment) of the speakers closest to you in comparison to the ones further from you, the illusion of that band on your dash will sound like they are really there. Front and center.

Its magical, but without all the fairies and that weirdo Harry Potter making everything awkward. I don't know why anyone would invite Harry any where....

And that's how babies are made!

 

HAHA! That was awesome.

Anyway, Well, you are definitely my new GO-TO guy for help.

 

That was very helpful..
I found I had more of a front stage presence with the OEM dash speakers (that are connected to the HU) were disconnected.
They are now connected and I'm thinking about replacing the OEM side dash (with 2 1/2" or 3" speakers) and keeping the OEM DVC 8 ohm center.
The recent tuning and adjustment I had done made those dash speakers blend well with the door speakers.
He used the amp gains to level it out, which kinda screws me up.

I've always read the amp gains are to match the output of the HU, not to be used as a volume control.
But I will say the system has never sounded better after my SIL adjusted the settings for me.

Since my Pioneer HU has been screwing up as of late I'm thinking about going back to a Kenwood HU.
My Pioneer will not reset to default settings.
If I change a preset, illumination color or background, EQ or TA setting, it won't keep it.
I've tried to reset the unit, it will reset, and show no presets, but then comes back to old settings like I didn't reset it.
It starts XM with the preset 1 #5 Faction Punk that drives my wife crazy.
It used to come back on to whatever channel it was shut off on.

No matter what I do, I can't wireless connect to Apple Carplay, the main reason I bought it.
The only way Carplay will connect is if I plug it in.
It used to work wirelessly.
It used to allow me to change presets, but no more.
Firmware update didn't help.

So I'm looking at Kenwood again.
I liked the Kenwood interface and screen better anyway, but I hated the nanny warning screen I had to manually cancel at startup.
Yes, I ditched my Kenwood DDX-9903s only because I had to touch the screen every time I started the truck.
Never should have gotten rid of it.
I'll suck it up and touch the screen if I must to get a working HU and 5 volt preamp output.

I am certainly replacing the 4ga CCA power wire I have now.
Sending the 15' of 0ga wire I bought from Crutchfield back because I paid too much ($85) for it.
I can get it cheaper from Knuconceptz.
I'll run a new bigger line next week when I'm off work.
Found an adapter on Knuconceptz to run the 0ga to 4ga at the amp.
Just bought 2 adapters, the 0ga wire, and 2 battery terminals tonight..

Thank you to all that have posted in this thread.

 

Hey now.... Ported boxes have feelings too!

On a serious note, obviously there are advantages to different enclosure types, sealed and ported for example.

A ported (vented) enclosure built and designed based off the Theile Small parameters of a subwoofer and tuning can have just as linear of a frequency response as a sealed box. But it comes at the cost of having it built and materials, and they are normally at least twice the size.

Prefab ported enclosures are famously terrible. Prefab sealed boxes are normally pretty decent.

There's really no one size fits them all ported boxes. There's a couple sizes that will kinda work but the tunings need to be specific to the sub. A smallish ported box for a 12" is 2 cubic feet before the displacement of the port type.

The wrong sized sealed box for a sub will for the most part just effect out put and its frequency response. Exception though is when the sealed box is way to large.

A ported box that's the wrong size will ave the same issues but add in an incorrect tunning and there's a good chance you'll have a dead sub in a couple days.

There are quarter of a million dollar audiophile speaker designs that use ported enclosures too.

And subs are designed for one or the other, some work fine in both. That's actually the way you would determine the box type.

I'm not saying ported better. I'm just saying ported is better when the sub and application are designed for it. Just as a sealed is the better box when the sub and design best meet the application. There's nothing wrong with liking one more than the other either.

Well, there's advantages and disadvantages to having more speakers, of course. Your current 2 way component are a pretty fine set that probably would meet most audio enthusiasts needs and some. Adding in another speaker to make a 3 way network is definitely a good thing except for tuning them correctly. If you enjoy the process of dialing it in and spending some time doing it then hell yeah!

But if you would rather have it installed and start listening to it without a lot of fiddling with crossovers slopes, frequencies, time alignment, ect... Your two way can still get the job done and done really well.

Then again, im kinda biased since I consider audio as a hobby. If I think there's something that I don't know that I'm not doing right then I'll change every damn setting until I forgot what I was attempting to fix.

yeah, but it does make it louder though!
Wait.... I mean I agree. And bass boost is typically a bad setting to use also if you weren't aware. You can normally tweak your other settings and such if its needed.

That's a bummer your pioneer is on the fritz. Its a great unit. I'm partial to pioneer but only cause I'm accustomed to the way the settings work. Kenwood has them all to of course but they have a different way/terminology that I'm not used to.

That said, I'd definitely be just as happy with either one, as long as they were doing what they are supposed to.

Knuconceptz has good wire but they sell CCA too. But that's OK. They over size their CCA to make it comparable in the power it can carry compared to copper of the same gauge.

Knuconceptz advertised 4 awg CCA will actually be like a 3 awg or 2 awg thickness.

 

Some good points here.
Thanks for laying them out for the OP.

 

The Focal PS165FX in the front doors are amazing.
The Focal 100AC in the rear sound great.

Getting the same basic set up with Focal 165 AC in the back and JL Audio CP208LG-W3v3 going with the Pioneer 4500 for flac of SD and this amp
Kenwood Excelon XR901-5 install is this weekend.