I remember years ago, when SoundStream come out with their SS series of subs, anyone remember them? We got in our first shipment of the subs, from what i heard of them, they were to be one HELL of a driver!... As I opened the box to one of the 12 inchers, I thought WOW!!!!! nice!!!! We looked at the spec sheet, looked at the awesome cast frames and the pretty magnets, thought for sure they would be an instant hit on the high end market! They were for the most part, just a little pricey for the average "boomer" at the time though. the efficiency wasnt great and the the power handling was good so we thought we have some fun with them as time permited. I remember running the numbers through a few PC programs we had at the time, dont remember what they were now, but anyway, both programs showed a displacement limited power handling capacity in the range of 1200 watts in a ported box. I dont rememer the particul;ars on the enclosure, just that it was rather big and tuned a little on the low side I thought, around 30 Hz if i rememeber. The numbers impressed me, so I went ahead and built an enclusure for one of the 12 inchers, all out of .75 inch MDF with a 1.5 inch baffle and a pretty lookin rectangular port. Got it all done and hooked it up to a reference amp we used, a nice 250 HCCA, runnin off an PS 100A and a couple of deep cycle batteris. The sound in the demo room was IMPRESSIVE! deep accurate bass, not boomy, tight and well defined, on the level of a high end home sub if you asked me. The 250 HCCA pushed it GOOD, but not to its mechanical limits amazing enough! We wanted more!!!!!. Well, at the time, that was our biggest amp on the demo board, so, where do we go from there? Enter the wall outlet!!!!!!!!! Yep, thats right 120 volts AC at 60Hz!!!!!!!! We thought long and hard about it, it was a desperate idea, we had to make it LOUDER!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!! well, the wall outlet isnt really that much more than what a 250HCCA can put out, but what a freekin show it would be! As I wired up the speaker to the cord, using the finest 10 gauge power wire we had, We started to bet on the length of time it would take for the sub to launch itself into next week! we bet everything from a 12 pack to a blow job!!!!!! LOL!!!!! The moment of truth arrived! Plug her in!!!!!!! BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY CRAP THATS LOUD!!!!!!!!! well, after about 1 minute i unplugged it. It Survived one minute!!!!! I thought that was LONG enough! At the time, that was one impressive demo of power handling for a speaker of the time (14 years ago). I figures that any speaker that can take that for that long deserves to be let to live! Oh, and I won the 12 pack of bud! Just a story of one of the MANY crazy thing I have done in the past years Hope yall enjoyed
Damn...I did the same to an old school W6...I lasted a little over a minute then seized up though lol.
Ahh the fun we used to have at the shop We would use the wall treatment on subs we were returning to manufacturers for warranty issues. Surprisingly of all the subs we tried. A freakin DR. Crankenstein 12" lasted the longest. The d@mn thing just would not die They were rated at 200w. We pushed a pair with the rf power 1000 we had in the shop for days to no avail. THe things just took it. We finally killed it one day with the socket. Lasted about three or four minutes before the magic smoke, and the distinct smell of burning coils permeated the air
I have never tried that. I must put that on my list of things to do. Hey ramos, what you said about the Dr Crankenstein woofer, sometimes the cheapies will suprise you. The cheapest woofer we sell is something called a PowerBass. They last forever. We finally had our first defect for this year. Those things are really reliable. Go Figure
Another thing we did one time, took two factory head units, one i remember was out of a toyota, the other i think was a GM. we hooked up both of them to a small cheesy power supply, wired a speaker to each of them and tuned them both to the same radio station. we then filled a 5 gallon bucket full of water, and sunk both radios into the water. We had another bet on which one would last the ongest. I think i bet on the toyato, dont know why, just for the hell of it I guess! Well, after about 3 hours, both were still playing, it was the end of the day and time to go home, so we disconnected them from the power supply and left them in the water overnight. Come in the nest morning and wired them back up, amazingly they both still played!!!!!!! we let them play all day, till one of them finally gave out, I think the GM puked out first, amazing really!!!!!
Surprisingly power bass aren't that bad. I have seen a couple power bass setups put up good numbers meca style on the tl.
