Really? :hmm: I looked at their site, and as huge as thier subs are(the ones in the link above) you'd think they'd be able to handle more than 400watts rms:dunno: But the idea of the impedance cartridges is very

 

The 400watt rating isn't bad for a sub, it's actually plenty. i have 2 12" PPI C1s wired to 2ohms sharing 300 watts and it's actually plenty of thump. If i wired them for what they are rated for max continous rms, it'd be extremely loud.

look at all the amps on the market too. a radio shack amp is rated higher for what it can put out (with the sound still being clean) whereas your high end equipment is usually under rated power wise and your sound is still extremely clean. so you might be able to hook up a 1000watt Optimus amp and your sub won't get blown out, whereas a 250watt PPI amp would be pushing that sub to the limit. my guess is when they rate speakers, they take a middle of the road (quality wise) amp and rate it for that. that way it's rated for pretty much anyone that's going to use it. but that's just a guess, if anyone knows for sure, hell, i'd love to know!

 

I ran two ppi subs that are basically the same as the c1's and sharing 250 watts and they sounded a lot bigger and louder than they should have. I think louder than my friends two rf 12's with 300 watts.

 

wouldn't it depend on how efficient the woofer is? say a speaker that is 85db@1W will need a lot more power to hit 110db, then a speaker that is 95db@1W.

if the concepts are the 95db or higher then you wouldn't need as much power (Watts) to drive them.

this is all from memory, I haven't been in car stereo stuff for over a decade. was it twice the power needed to increase db output by 1db? or 3db? I don't remember. :dunno:

 

Its 3 db's and yes it is partly due to the efficency. This is not the only factor however. Box size and type, as well as the vehicle all make just as much of a difference both in the way the speaker will sound and how loud it will be able to get.

 

yes very true, but it seemed like everyone was ignoring that fact and just hung up on how much power can be pumped through the speakers.


I designed one box for my friend that hit 120+db using 3/4 power on a Hifonics Zeus... that was

 

Yeah if you use a bandpass type box the efficiency can be over 100db's @1w. Usally they don't sound that good and you have to be casueful about freq below tuning but otherwise they can get very loud at a certain freq.

 

i went to CES two years ago and they were there. i don't remember if they had this cartridge concept yet, but i do remember that their subs sounded pretty good. how reliable, dependable, and cost worthy they are??? you got me :dunno:
but, if they have a booth set up, they got to be at least somewhat respectable. Good luck!!! :thumbup:

 

nah we weren't going to for loudest while sacraficing sound quality so I didn't use a bandpass or even a baffle

just a nice design using what I learned from physics honor class and what I read in car stereo mags

worked very well. but we also used high quality components each speaker was about 90lbs HUUUUGE magnet!

 

Really? That's good to hear. I'm gonna look into it a bit more, see if there are any local dealers around town, hopefully if there is, they'll have some on display so I can check em out.