Ok, so after hearing my setup, I have a friend in a camaro (Firebirds > Camaro's!) who got a W7 himself, and had the place build a box for his hatch. Now - question... Would a HUGE hole in the box effect the SQ? His dosnt sound as good as mine, and we opened it up. First off, they only had one VC plugged in... Second, there is a HOLE in his box, near where the mechanism to hold his hatch down goes.. I took some pics, here they are..
It fits semi-tight around the hatch piece... But obviously not air tight.. Would this effect his sound performance??
Jonathan, these guys are JL authorized dealers...not very many of those wehre I live...wouldnt this be....something their installers should know? I hooked both up immediately when I saw the VC thing... I was like WTF?!?
"Should he just call JL or bittch to the place who built it first you think?"
Call the place first, see what they say. If they won't fix the problem, then call JL to make a complaint. From what I see of it, the worksmanship on that box doesn't look very impressive, anyway.
Anybody should know that the hole will cause SQ issues, you shouldn't have to be an authorized JL dealer to know that. A leak around one of the box sides is bad enough, that hole is just uncalled for as there is no way they could get a tight seal.
I'm looking at your 2nd picture and noticed the wood chips in the screw holes. Didn't they pre-drill it? That will insure the box won't crack and provide good seal. They must've had some high school kid build it for their project. The box I built is air tight 100%. I not only used wood glue, but a sealer along with it on the sub frame, screws, and the speaker wire terminal connectors. The only air flow is the port. You really need to drive down there and show the owner the box. I am sure, unless the guy is a crook, he'll do something to make it right.
did your friend actually have a shop build and install that box? is that just carpet streched over the hole in the box??!!?? wow...i'd never do business at that shop again.
take it back to the shop and tell then you want a new box....not that you what that box fix, get a new box.
Thats a 13w7, right? so its DVC 3ohm, right? And the shop only had 1 coil wired?!!!??? (wow, again...) I would prolly demand a replacment sub too. (if the shop did the whole install.)
Yea, I think they used some left over wood from a construction site. He should just take the box as is to the shop and them refund it completely. That's just a shabby work/business practice.
lol, btw, Jonathan, I did wire them in series. Heh heh. Odd thing is, I'm not sure if it's damaged now or what... Because the total resistance then measured at 2.5 ohms oddly enough? Didnt get a chance to meter both VC's seperately...will try and get'm to open it back up tomorrow and will post what each ones results are.
He's gonna take hte box back down to the shop today..will post with how it goes.. (Told him that if htey try to offer to only repair the box, to say no, because as isaac pointed out, the splintered wood..)
"lol, btw, Jonathan, I did wire them in series. :-) Heh heh. Odd thing is, I'm not sure if it's damaged now or what... Because the total resistance then measured at 2.5 ohms oddly enough? Didnt get a chance to meter both VC's seperately...will try and get'm to open it back up tomorrow and will post what each ones results are."
DC resistance of 2.5 ohm is dead on for a 13W7 wired in series. 3 ohm is the nominal impedance, basically an average over its intended frequency range, remember a speaker is a reactive load.
I doubt you damaged the woofer though. Since only one voice coil was attached, the driver lost a lot of BL, which makes Qts higher (nearly double). High Qts works best in large enclosures (or ones with really big holes in them ), so while the connection was wrong, the enclosure the sub was matched with shouldn't screw things up from a mechanical standpoint.
running just one vc (in itself) doesn't damage drivers. being that these are authorized dealers, i'll give them the bennefit of the doubt and at least ask this question (even though that means very little in today's age of inept, yet money hungry, installers). Jonathan, do you think that they may have been intentionally going after a higher Q by wiring it so? I didn't see any pics of the sub, but maybe they shorted the "loose" vc with a resistor so that it levels out the active one, behaving the same as if both vc were connected. just with the peakier resonance you made reference to above. ?
"Jonathan, do you think that they may have been intentionally going after a higher Q by wiring it so?"
I was questioning it, but if they did then they are acknowledging that they built a crappy box with a huge hole in it, which would piss me off even further had I paid for the box to be built. They'd be throwing a band-aid over the problem. The whole enclosure screams halfass to me, I doubt they went to the trouble of adding a shorting resistor.
an unfortunate, but common theme in today's industry. not enough customers to make real profit on installations, so when they do, they do a half @$$ job, unless you pay them tremendous amounts to "compensate" them for their professionalism and attention to detail. then you have the idiots who just claim they know what they are doing to get the job. when of course they are experimenting, themselves. it's this trifling mentality and practice that has lead me to the whole "a job done well is a job done by myself" belief. might take a little longer, but it will eventually be right.
i agree to get the job done right, or just settle on an amount to get it built correctly elsewhere. that's what i did when i had the same problem.
The box price was $300. He went back today, and they arent sure why the guy didnt have both VC's hooked up.
They claimed to have said that the car needed to be brought back in, because the plan was to fiberglass it, and that was included in the $300? Heh... Sounds like they messed up and are trying to backpedal.
However, he's having a new box built, (since I went with him, and threw a hissy fit about the stripped screw holes.) Also, complained about them just drilling two little holes and running 10 ga wire through them, without even a speaker conection terminal, just ran them out, and put a little silicone..not even enough to keep the wires from moving back and fourth, though.
Heh heh. Odd thing is, I'm not sure if it's damaged now or what... Because the total resistance then measured at 2.5 ohms oddly enough? Didnt get a chance to meter both VC's seperately...will try and get'm to open it back up tomorrow and will post what each ones results are.