Two Kicker 15 L7s Or One Kicker Solo X 18

mattro · September 19, 2007

Right now ive got one kicker 15" L7 ran by a kicker 1500.1zx amp. Ive got my subwoofer box setup for two 15s but ive only got one right now....ive got about 6cubic ft airspace for each right now say 12-13 total. Im thinking a 18" solo x would be nice just nock the center divider down cover a hole for the other 15 and make a bigger one for the 18. Of coarse id need more amps and some batteries and ho alternator that all added up probably isn't worth it when i can just get another 15 for $250 and split the amplifier I have now to run two 15s. The 15 sounds clean so far and everyone is impressed that its not distorted or muddy....must be the undercoating and the poly fil I put in the perfect size sealed box. I'm impressed so for for only my third speaker box....first being a premade and second being custom but too small.

Pallard · September 20, 2007

Right now ive got one kicker 15" L7 ran by a kicker 1500.1zx amp. Ive got my subwoofer box setup for two 15s but ive only got one right now....ive got about 6cubic ft airspace for each right now say 12-13 total. Im thinking a 18" solo x would be nice just nock the center divider down cover a hole for the other 15 and make a bigger one for the 18. Of coarse id need more amps and some batteries and ho alternator that all added up probably isn't worth it when i can just get another 15 for $250 and split the amplifier I have now to run two 15s. The 15 sounds clean so far and everyone is impressed that its not distorted or muddy....must be the undercoating and the poly fil I put in the perfect size sealed box. I'm impressed so for for only my third speaker box....first being a premade and second being custom but too small.

nothings better then a solo x

-Devil- · September 20, 2007

i have always liked the sound that 18" put out...

smoke03 · September 20, 2007

I think youll be happy either way...there both gonna hit hard and sound good

Ldogss · September 21, 2007

i say another 15

mattro · September 21, 2007

thanks for the replies guys...Ima get another 15" and go from there...ive never heard an 18" before so I'm not sure what I'm missin but I like the deepness of a 15" so I'm guessing it'd be deeper with the 18 but probably in my next truck.

-Devil- · September 21, 2007

its hard to explain the difference ... but the setups i have had in the past ... (this is with the late 80's to early 90's models kicker .. with the gold lettering) ... had 2 15"s in sealed box ... with a linear power 8001 on each one ... bass was d**n good ... pressure in the car was almost to the point of painful ... later that year i pulled the two 15"s out and put in one kicker 18" DVC ... with an amp on each voice coil and it put the two 15"s to shame ... later i added a second 18" to it ... man ... well thats the reason i have no hearing in one ear now ... that car more or less fell apart ... but to this day, i have heard a lot of good systems ... but its hard to compare it to the sound from an 18" ... like the say in motors ... there's no replacement for displacement ... the same thing applies in subs...

mattro · September 21, 2007

its hard to explain the difference ... but the setups i have had in the past ... (this is with the late 80's to early 90's models kicker .. with the gold lettering) ... had 2 15"s in sealed box ... with a linear power 8001 on each one ... bass was d**n good ... pressure in the car was almost to the point of painful ... later that year i pulled the two 15"s out and put in one kicker 18" DVC ... with an amp on each voice coil and it put the two 15"s to shame ... later i added a second 18" to it ... man ... well thats the reason i have no hearing in one ear now ... that car more or less fell apart ... but to this day, i have heard a lot of good systems ... but its hard to compare it to the sound from an 18" ... like the say in motors ... there's no replacement for displacement ... the same thing applies in subs...

Ha ha nice man next truck definetly getting 18(s) I was thinkin about the displacement thing to and bigger is usually always better lol. Oh question for you....well if you've used kickers square subs. Would a round 18" sub or a 15 kicker l7 square sub be better....saying they are rated the same and have the recomended airspace. Kicker says 20% more cone for the sqaure I don't know what the square 15" would be comparable to...if it were 20% then it would be the same as a circle 18" I believe....I bet that dual 18 setup was rediculous..so your opinion is it better to port or seal a box....i just do sealed cuz its easy

-Devil- · September 22, 2007

porting is very tricky .. and not only is the box design important when matching it to the subs .. but what it is going into matters as well ... i prefer sealed ... just a bit tighter in the bass .. and more defined ...

i haven't used the square subs so not sure ... but .. on a square 15" ... measure it from side to side .. (just the cone, not the entire sub) ... if that measures close to or almost on 15" ... then when you measure the cone from corner to corner it should be just a little bit higher ... it would have more 'displacement' then a round sub that measures the same as the side to side measurement ...

when i have built boxes i rarely went with the 'reccomended' box size ... most of the time i would punch the specs of the sub into a program and play around with it to see which gave the freq response curve i wanted ... ... by doing that, one time i had a JBL GTi 18" in almost 10cf with 2 4" ports that were 6" long...

Dyabolical · September 28, 2007

A few quick points:

2 15's will have significantly more displacement then a single 18.

As far as the sealed enclosure being "tighter", I can probably say with good reason that it is only percieved in your head. Or the ported boxes you have listened too have been poorly built or tuned. Ported boxs can be very complicated, especially when you get into ABC type enclosures and folded horns and blah blah blah.

The solo X is a decent sub, but nowhere near the best. Look into Fi BTL's or Digital Designs 9800 or Audioque HD3's for super strength subs. Or perhaps a TC Revo's.

Size of a sub has absolutely no relation to speaker frequency. A 1 inch tweeter can still play down to 1 hz, same for a 18 inch sub playing up to 25k hz. Installation and tuning will determine sound quality. Even the absolute highest quality sub will sound like crap if it is not correctly set up.

6 ft^3 is WAY too big for a sealed enclosure. With that much air space you pretty much have an infinite baffle setup and can potentially destroy the subs do to over extension. Manufacturer specifications are generally misleading and untested. I suggest taking your box to a reputable audio shop and asking if they can port it for you. After port displacement you might come out with about 3.5 ft^3 for each which would be very nice. A ported enclosure tends to be about 10-15% louder do to the phasing of the port.

-Devil- · September 28, 2007

a second sub only adds about 3db more to your spl in my experience ...

i have heard bad, and good tuned ported boxes... i still to this day have yet to hear a properly ported box that offers the 'tight' and precise bass when compared to a properly built and tuned sealed box ... yes it takes more power for a sealed box then a tuned one .. but to some people there is a noticable difference in the sound ...

only ported setup i have ever had, that i was happy with ... was a 6th order bandpass box .. with an old school cerwin vega 10" in it ... with 50w rms going to each voice coil it had a nice overall sound .. with decently quick response when it came to things such as bass drums or a bass guitar solo ... but still got a bit muddy on brass instruments (as do all bandpass setups i have heard)

but of course it all boils down to personal prefrence .. and how something sounds to you ... arguments can be made forever on which setup is better ... but till it is built, and in the car or truck .. you will not know for sure if you are going to be happy with it or not ...

Divey82 · September 28, 2007

A few quick points:

2 15's will have significantly more displacement then a single 18.

As far as the sealed enclosure being "tighter", I can probably say with good reason that it is only percieved in your head. Or the ported boxes you have listened too have been poorly built or tuned. Ported boxs can be very complicated, especially when you get into ABC type enclosures and folded horns and blah blah blah.

The solo X is a decent sub, but nowhere near the best. Look into Fi BTL's or Digital Designs 9800 or Audioque HD3's for super strength subs. Or perhaps a TC Revo's.

Size of a sub has absolutely no relation to speaker frequency. A 1 inch tweeter can still play down to 1 hz, same for a 18 inch sub playing up to 25k hz. Installation and tuning will determine sound quality. Even the absolute highest quality sub will sound like crap if it is not correctly set up.

6 ft^3 is WAY too big for a sealed enclosure. With that much air space you pretty much have an infinite baffle setup and can potentially destroy the subs do to over extension. Manufacturer specifications are generally misleading and untested. I suggest taking your box to a reputable audio shop and asking if they can port it for you. After port displacement you might come out with about 3.5 ft^3 for each which would be very nice. A ported enclosure tends to be about 10-15% louder do to the phasing of the port.

I agree with you 150%. The Fi's are excellent subs. As many of the others you listed. Most people tend to stick with name brand stuff. Also a ported box can be real easy to build. There are many free programs out there you can download. Sealed would be of the SQ (sound quality) type of box, ported would be of the SPL (sound pressure level) type of box, and finally SQL (both mixed for quality and pressure).

How loud a woofer can get in a sealed box is usually determined by its displacement. Displacement is basically how much air the woofer moves in each stroke. The more displacement, the louder it will be. Displacement is measured in Liters and you can use this spec to get a GENERAL idea about which sub will be able to get louder. 2-Way Linear Displacement = xmax*sd*2.

Since everyone always argues about which "super sub" is better, I figured that I would at least help to make it easier for everyone to see how much each sub can displace. SQ is always subjective. This thread is just to be used as a reference for the displacement capabilities of these commonly discussed "super subs".

JL Audio 12w7 = 3.1436 Liters

MTX 9512 = 2.748 Liters

Adire Brahma12 MKII = 2.5288 Liters

Adire Brahma12 MKIII = 2.4852 Liters

IDmax12 = 2.6814 Liters

Sound Splinter RL-s = 3.9039 Liters

Resonant Engineering 12-XXX = 3.072 Liters

Resonant Engineering 2006 12-XXX = 5.184 Liters

TC Sounds TC-2000 = 2.7475 Liters

TC Sounds TC-3000 = 3.0387 Liters

Since a lot of the "super subs" that we are used to talking about don't seem to be in stock, I've taken the liberty of creating this guide for the "sub-super subs". These are some of the MOST talked about 12-inch Subs:

Sound Splinter RL-p = 2.2796 Liters

Dayton Titanic MKIII = 1.671 Liters

Acoustic Elegance AV12 = 2.2908 Liters

Alpine Type-R = 1.7472 Liters

Alpine Type-X = 2.0207 Liters

Stereo Integrity MagD2 = 2.304 Liters

Resonant Engineering SE = 1.720 Liters

Resonant Engineering SX = 2.112 Liters

Resonant Engineering MX = 2.112 Liters

Kicker L7 = 1.7028 Liters

JL Audio W6v2 = 1.6566 Liters

Elemental Designs 13Ov2 = 1.9947 Liters

TC Sounds TC-1000 = 2.355 Liters

Ascendant Audio Arsenal = 2.173 Liters

Keep in mind that these numbers are for linear displacement ONLY. These numbers will NOT be the determining factor for which sub will give the best over-all performance. Also, all calculations were made with specs directly from the manufacturers website (except RE).

Thanks Terry

Divey82 · September 28, 2007

its hard to explain the difference ... but the setups i have had in the past ... (this is with the late 80's to early 90's models kicker .. with the gold lettering) ... had 2 15"s in sealed box ... with a linear power 8001 on each one ... bass was d**n good ... pressure in the car was almost to the point of painful ... later that year i pulled the two 15"s out and put in one kicker 18" DVC ... with an amp on each voice coil and it put the two 15"s to shame ... later i added a second 18" to it ... man ... well thats the reason i have no hearing in one ear now ... that car more or less fell apart ... but to this day, i have heard a lot of good systems ... but its hard to compare it to the sound from an 18" ... like the say in motors ... there's no replacement for displacement ... the same thing applies in subs...

I have never heard of hooking 2 amps up to a DVC sub.IMO Terry

-Devil- · September 28, 2007

I have never heard of hooking 2 amps up to a DVC sub.IMO Terry

the linear power 8001 was one a mono sub amp ... (well actually, it was a two channel amp, but internally they had already bridged it to 4 ohm mono (2 ohm stereo) so all you could do was run 4 ohms on it)

i have seen quite a few setups now-a-days where a person will have two amps on a single sub ... but mostly in spl setups

mattro · September 28, 2007

A few quick points:

2 15's will have significantly more displacement then a single 18.

As far as the sealed enclosure being "tighter", I can probably say with good reason that it is only percieved in your head. Or the ported boxes you have listened too have been poorly built or tuned. Ported boxs can be very complicated, especially when you get into ABC type enclosures and folded horns and blah blah blah.

The solo X is a decent sub, but nowhere near the best. Look into Fi BTL's or Digital Designs 9800 or Audioque HD3's for super strength subs. Or perhaps a TC Revo's.

Size of a sub has absolutely no relation to speaker frequency. A 1 inch tweeter can still play down to 1 hz, same for a 18 inch sub playing up to 25k hz. Installation and tuning will determine sound quality. Even the absolute highest quality sub will sound like crap if it is not correctly set up.

6 ft^3 is WAY too big for a sealed enclosure. With that much air space you pretty much have an infinite baffle setup and can potentially destroy the subs do to over extension. Manufacturer specifications are generally misleading and untested. I suggest taking your box to a reputable audio shop and asking if they can port it for you. After port displacement you might come out with about 3.5 ft^3 for each which would be very nice. A ported enclosure tends to be about 10-15% louder do to the phasing of the port.

Problem is I can't take my box out of the truck....its built in the truck not built then put into the truck....oh and ive heard my sub in a 10 cubic foot box and it didn't sound as good but the 6ft of airspace is nice with a little polly fil and rubberized deadner. As for porting I wouldn't be to sure of where I'd place the port....since most of my box is in the bed....Ima line the toolbox today so I can get rid of some of the rattle other than that there isn't much rattling which is nice...in the cab nothin rattles but my radar detector when I turn it up to loud..the thing hops up and down so I put it on the dash at that point. Could be the dynamat but I didn't have the stereo in w/o the dynamat so I wouldn't know...

Ok speaking of no name brand stuff because kicker doesn't make a good enough amp for two 15's I want to get some no name 4-5k watts max and yes I will probably upgrade the charging system. Has anyone tried a good high powered sub amp and want to share with me...Im worried about buying one that looks good and it sucking.