Hey guys my buddy has a 1987 BMW 325is and he is wanting to upgrade his sound system. Nothing crazy expensive, but he does want a decent sound. He is going to be running an Alpine CDE-9874 head unit. The speakers are 5.25" and he also wants a bit of lower end bass. Probably an 8" ported or 10" in a sealed box. Budget is going to be around $400
I'm sorry if this isn't new info, I don't know how much you know. $400 total gets you a $200 sub, $50 box (build yourself), and a $150 amp, which is enough, but you'll probably end up spending more when using a $200 sub. The SSA DCON (10" & 12") is a great choice for a ported box and small power, its 300W RMS for $100, it's a little beefy beast! I'd pick that over an 8" any day. It would leave you about $250 for an amp and other crap (I bought a used 1500W @ 1 ohm for $250).
Don't consider a suggestion for a sealed box if they didn't first model the driver, otherwise you might buy a sub that drops on its face on the low and/or high end or you find the setup to be peaky in response [before and/or after in-car acoustics & gain is considered]. I guess if they've directly compared 2+ drivers than yeah; consider the suggestion, but 90% of the time the modeled response does equate to the specs and the prediction is solid. The raw sound of a driver can be madly opinionated, however if a company builds a driver that's meant for a sealed box (and sealed or ported) than they've probably geared the driver more towards SQ and you wouldn't have to worry about it sounding muddy like an SPL driver or a driver that's meant for use in sealed & ported boxes (but still more-so ported, and can be used in sealed). If you're going sealed than buy a sub geared towards it (Eclipse LMS (made by TC sounds/TC sounds is dead?), low f/s spec, Sound Splinter LMS, TC LMS (5400 ETC), Audiopulse LMS (look on partsexpress.com for these babies, great buys).
One of the best 10" subs for a sealed box is the old-version Eclipse SW8000 because it gives a flat response in a medium-sized sealed box and it has a really low cut-off (you won't find that with non-LMS motors guaranteed, unless the f/s is super low and the QTS is just right - like the new SW series, which nobody has really ever copied that I know of). They dropped it and its class-leading low distortion LMS-motor for the new SW8010 series (non-LMS, similar specs, they cut costs). I had 3 SW8200's (same thing in 12"), and my god did they drop low in 1.25 cubes [each], and with less than half of RMS [each], and was loud even despite the 82dB sensitivity rating. I didn't notice the low sensitivity rating at all, they must have messed the specs up. You'll find differing specs or none at all. If you email Eclipse Tech for specs than it'll become clear that they can't read much engrish. If you say you want the VAS displacement than instead they'll send you the driver-displacement and vice-versa. They atleast gave me online manuals for both SW8000 & SW8010 (neither show the driver-displacements, I know the SW8200 disp. is .12 cubes). The SW8000 series is recommended for sealed ONLY, but I used one in a small ported box on more than its RMS, and it didn't seem to over-excurt like Eclipse thinks it would. It has 38mm xmax/670W RMS, can be found for $100-$200, but it's most likely going to be used.
$150-$200 from Sonicelectronix.com - Eclipse SW8010 (10") in (recommended for ported or sealed) 1.25-1.75 cubes (sealed).
700W RMS (the manual says if it's clean power, clean signal, no distortion or clipping than they recommend up to 1500W, but it says that anymore than 1250W isn't an audible gain). 86dB/1W sensitivity 27-33mm x-max f/s 21 Hz VAS 28L (0.988810668 cubic feet) QTS .36
SW8010 modeled:
QTC - the response (.4 is low, don't go below, great extension & frequency range, might lack upper bass like 80 Hz, .707 is flat, and I wouldn't go more than 1 unless it has a really low f/s - like the RE XXX 18 V4) FC - the roll-off point F3 - the -3dB down-point
1.25 cubes: QTC .4818 FC 28.1 Hz F3 46.02 Hz
1.75 cubes: QTC .4504 FC 26.27 Hz F3 47.28 Hz
The SW8000 is QTC .707 in something like 1.75 cubes/FC 28 Hz. This means approximately -12dB @ 18 Hz, compared to a ported box that would be -24dB @ 18 Hz if tuned to 28 Hz).
If your buddy wants more bass than a SW8010 sealed on RMS than he can always throw it in a ported box and use double its RMS, but that'd be pushing it if he didn't have proper constant voltage for clean input power, requiring a deep-cycle battery, the "big 3" would help lots, 1/0 gauge wire, and a beefier alternator than stock. Please don't buy a ported pre-fab box in either case because I & others can design you a better, cheaper and stronger one.
For 8's... well, I'd say don't bother with 8's, but that's just me. There's some GREAT 8's out there for use in ported boxes (that are around 500W RMS), but I can't remember all of the brands other than Digital Designs' 1508, JLs' W7, Sound Splinters' RL-i, and Hertz, CDT, Kicker, and TC. Transient response and SQ is great with 8's, and if you listen to rock only than you won't find yourself wanting more than a ported 8". I'd say look at the RL-i first. If you want a sub that's bigger than an 8" to sound good than concentrate more on the mid-bass in the doors, so that they blend nicer and you can't distinguish crappyness as much.
That is a lot of information and i appreciate. I wish it wasn't such a budget build so there were more options available. I'll try and talk him in to a bit better of a budget, but no promises... That Eclipse SW8010 seems pretty sick. I was also looking into picking up a used amp and sub. Possibly something like a RF P200.2 and a Sundown SA-8? What companies would you reccommend for a front stage? I never really got in to component speakers, just subs lol
I've only heard a handfull. My favs are Morel (the set was $1400 each for tweet/6.5/xover - and I was listening to 6 sets of them in an Escalade) and Hertz Hi-Energy (pretty sure) (about 16 of these in a store) because those are what I've played with the most. Morel has superb SQ and everybody knows it, but they're damn expensive. The Hertz 6.5's I listened to were out-of-this-world clear. Try to pick something that is neutral sounding, and concentrate more on the location for imaging & sound-stage, doing so will make a worlds difference, something you wouldn't get by changing out the speakers alone. You don't need mid-bass speakers if the 6.5" or 5.25" components will get down to where you want to cross the sub at (like 60-100 Hz). If your subs are tuned to 20 Hz than you might want something that'll handle the 45ish-90ish Hz a little better, and that's when you'd want mid-bass. Otherwise most subs can hit the high notes easily.
I can't recommend Alpine Type-R's. I've heard lots of 02-06's and they just sucked. I dunno if any were amped though.
You'll definetly want to use a component amp over powering with a deck. Big difference in output. Ever listen to studio-quality headphones (Sennheiser HD600's or Grado-whatever)? Same thing.
What's your budget? CDT has been known to be cheap vs. performance, and they have so many SQ trophies.
If you want the best of the best then look at what's winning the SQ competitions. JBL is probably up there.
You can buy door-pods for larger-than-stock speaker sizes from sites like partsexpress.
Don't buy 6x9's because they just suck. All of them suck.
Decide your budget and what will fit. More won't mean better, location will, but it never hurts to have a huge 1000W front-stage. I'd like 2 1" tweeters, 4 5.25", 2 6.5", and 2 8" mid-bass, each being fed 100W for 1000W total. That would really slam, and I'd probably like it so much that I wouldn't want 12 sealed 12's to go with it lol.