[Scott S]

Hi there, Kevin. Glad to see that Exodus has it's own area here at HTS.

I was wondering, while doing research on what subwoofer I would like for my car, I found that the Maelstrom X gave me pretty much all that I was looking for regarding performance, size and cost. The only problem is amount of power. In the sealed enclosure that I would do, a good 600-700w is needed and up to 1500w is still under rated excursion. 600+ watts @ 4ohms from a car amp is expensive. Twice that of the driver itself. Seems like all the car audio people use amps that can't cut it @ 4ohms so they have to go down to 2ohms.

Anyway, basically it isn't a huge problem or anything. Just wasn't looking to spend $800 on a single amp for my car. Unless someone here knows of a great amp for this use and that doesn't have a non-defeatable subsonic filter built in.

I don't compete or anything. This would be for daily use and I like SQ and deep, deep bass.

Thanks.

 

[Kevin Haskins]

Probably not in any reasonable time-frame. Most home audio amps are optimized around 4-ohms and 99% of the Maelstrom-X customers are home audio guys. I've had some interest from car audio guys but I don't think I have enough interest to do a production run.

By far, I've sold more Shiva's for car audio than any other product. They use a reasonable sized box and 400-500W is plenty for a Shiva. It will go much deeper than most car audio subs and you can just use two and still keep the box size smaller than the Maelstrom. You won't get quite the same headroom but you will get a lot and it will go deep, especially if you build them large (2 cubic feet per driver).

Since bandwidth and extension scale with Vas, which is scaled by Sd, the lower cone areas in the smaller drivers will give you more extension without equalization when using small boxes. They just won't have the same SPL headroom as the larger driver in the larger box. Box size for a given bandwidth scales with cone area so you need a box 2.4 times larger for an 18" to maintain the same bandwidth as a 12" sealed box, all other things remaining equal.

A pair of Shivas is cheaper, hits your 2-ohm load requirement and allows more flexibility for mounting and box design.

Kevin Haskins
Exodus Audio
www.diycable.com

 

[Ricci]

Scott,
What about bridging a 2 channel amp into the Mal X?

 

[Scott S]

Probably not in any reasonable time-frame. Most home audio amps are optimized around 4-ohms and 99% of the Maelstrom-X customers are home audio guys. I've had some interest from car audio guys but I don't think I have enough interest to do a production run.

By far, I've sold more Shiva's for car audio than any other product. They use a reasonable sized box and 400-500W is plenty for a Shiva. It will go much deeper than most car audio subs and you can just use two and still keep the box size smaller than the Maelstrom. You won't get quite the same headroom but you will get a lot and it will go deep, especially if you build them large (2 cubic feet per driver).

Since bandwidth and extension scale with Vas, which is scaled by Sd, the lower cone areas in the smaller drivers will give you more extension without equalization when using small boxes. They just won't have the same SPL headroom as the larger driver in the larger box. Box size for a given bandwidth scales with cone area so you need a box 2.4 times larger for an 18" to maintain the same bandwidth as a 12" sealed box, all other things remaining equal.

A pair of Shivas is cheaper, hits your 2-ohm load requirement and allows more flexibility for mounting and box design.

Kevin Haskins
Exodus Audio
www.diycable.com

Kevin - Thank you so much for your informative and speedy response. First of all, these new drivers you have brought out are fanatastic. I mean, I don't own one yet but I will soon and I really like what you have brought to the DIY community.

Oddly enough, I was modeling both the Maelstrom-X and the Shiva-X. For some reason though, I was never happy with the FR I would get from the Shiva's. I must have been doing something wrong or I didn't compare them right because I just modeled 2 Shiva's vs. a Maelstrom in the same sized enclosure with the same power. Identical FR. Amazing! The only thing between the two is that the MX is about 1dB louder and has more excursion left over.

So now I would have to decide which would be better and I am just not sure at all. Myself, honestly, I love big woofers. 15's are the new 12's to me, seriously. Heheh. The good thing is that I know that the Shiva's would be awesome in the car and would probably be a lot easier to build a box for.

Given the similar price, power requirements and low end extension.... which would recommend, the dual 12's over a single 18? Obviously, the Maelstrom isn't in stock at the moment but that doesn't bother me. I don't have a specific timeline for this project. Just doing my research.

Ricci - OMFG! I feel sooooo dumb. :duh: I completely forgot to look at all the stereo amps for cars. What would I do without you. :clap:

I guess finding an amp just got easier. :whew:

Thanks again for the replie guys. Helped me out tons.

 

[kryptonitewhite]

I just emailed him the same question...I really want 3 maelstrom-x's for my cars alone... 1 for my daily and 2 for my dedicated. I want to run Kicker 2500.1's, 1 per sub.... 2ohm

I wonder if enough people got together for a pre-order to do a run??

And I recall a while back hearing about the 30" beast they were working on with the Parthenon motor...winding coils in opposite directions to almost eliminate inductance?? That would be a nice add to a run of dual 2 or dual 4 MX's!