Who's running JL W7? What are you powering that beast with?
 

Looking at doing a 12" W7 in my '08 X-Star, and was curious what you guys are running yours with, and how do you like it? Thanks a lot for the info

You're gonna want to move this to the boats and accesories section. Dave pulled the "Audio" portion out of this section as 99% of the questions regarding audio are asked in the Boats, accesories and tow vehicle section.

You'll want a minimum of 1000 watts to it. I love my Exile 2500.1 if I were to be running a 12W7 I'd use Exiles 1500.1

Thanks Hate, didn't even realize the "Audio" portion was gone from here. My bad

Grant just pulled a nice box out of Phatboypimp's X-star. It is built for an X-star with 2 ported 12W6's. Shipping would be a bear but it would be plug and play. The previous owner was powering it with a JL 500/1 but that was underpowered.

Grant is running 4 W7's with an ARC SE 4000 to each (I believe). Yes, that is a ton of power. He melts up one or two each season and is on a first name basis with the local JL service center.

Mikeski, just sent you a PM

Ryan,

A W7 is a great sub but you better be prepared to have an extensive battery bank in your boat. I would think that a minimum of four stero batteries would be necessary in order to get a couple hours of play time.

There are other subs out there that will put out a ton of boom but are not as power hungry.

Ryan,
In my opinion the JL Audio W7 is still the reference woofer in an automobile if you are looking for great sound quality in addition to a very deep bass experience. There are tons of copies that look the part but none are its equal. But when we turn to the open field environment of a boat in comparison to the enclosed cabin of a vehicle priorities must change.
Here are a few things you should know. A 12W7 will be a disappointment in a sealed box in the context of a boat (I would actually prefer sealed in a vehicle). You need to run bass-reflex. For comparison, a 12W7 will require about 30 percent more power to reach the same output as a 13W6.
The W7 is a much higher mass woofer with more inertia to control. Not an issue in the highly efficient and rigid air mass of a car.
Yes, the W7 has more Xmax (excursion) but you won't see the benefit in a boat like you will in a car or SUV.
The 12W7 requires a bass-reflex enclosure of 3.17 cu. ft. external while the 13W6 requires a 3.36 cu. ft. external. That is a minimal difference in volume for a woofer that will play louder with the same power and require far less power at the same level. And when your voltage sags, which it will in a boat, this difference will be multiplied.
As for powering a 12W7 the JL Audio 1000/1 is definitely the way to go. The 12W7 is a 3-ohm impedance and the 1000/1 will deliver its full power into this load all the way down to 11 volts.
The Exile 1500.1 is a very solid amplifier to be sure. But its biased for lower impedances and works better into a 2-ohm (or even lower) woofer. Into the 3-ohm 12W7 at 12.5 volts it will be about half the power of the JL Audio 1000/1.
Here is another option to consider. A JL Audio 13W6 in a bandpass enclosure of 4.31 cu. ft. external displacement (just less than 1.0 cu. ft. larger) will give you 6 dB more output than a 13W6 in a sealed enclosure. That is equivalent to four times the amplifier power. And it will do this in a linear manner for more than one and a third octave which is all the bandwidth that you will use. This won't fit and conceal in every boat but when it does it may be the meanest low frequency experience you'll find in a single woofer set up in a towboat.

David
Earmark Marine

My buddy is running an Alpine PDX 1000 to a single 12" W7 and it hits pretty hard! We are getting ready to build a 1.75 cubic ft enclosure per the JL specs on their website for it because the box he did have was too small for it before.
Here's a link to the recommended enclosures per JL .
http://mobile.jlaudio.com/products_s...hp?series_id=9

I'm pretty sure he used the SE2300 to each.

Yes Hate, I was talking to Grant today. It is a SE2300 for each 12W7, they have been reworked by ARC to be optimized for the 3 ohm load and push right at 1300 watts to each W7. They initially didn't like the 3 ohm load but they are happy now that they have been reprogrammed by ARC.

This is what these look like when they are pushed by the ARC (not G's boat but the same combination of amp, sub, and sealed enclosure size). This is a pretty good example of full excursion for a W7 in a sealed box in a boat. The image was captured by my digital SLR with a high speed flash. I know this pic has been posted many times on other threads but I still like it as an example.

Man I never get tired of seeing that picture.........BOOM!!!! Makes me want to drive up to my storage and exercise my subs :)

Matter of fact I'm about to bump this bone stock system in my Chrysler until it distorts..........ok, enough of that.

Yeah I've always loved that picture too it certainly defines excusion.

Who built that box? It's so nice.

If you can't bottom out the voice coil former against the back bump plate or rip the tinsel leads off the terminals then I guess you're underpowered?

Oh. So that's what happens when everything is on and you plug in the RCA cable to the amplifier input with the volume at full gain.

Wow David, those replies are somewhat out character?

I have seen Grant and Clay do some crazy things like plugging a retired subwoofer into a battery charger or a 120v wall outlet but this picture was not one of those times. This was a new install in the test and tune part of the installation. The song track was T-Pain, I wanna love you, it was about a third of the way through when there are some very heavy bass notes. The boat was sounding very good, we were pushing the system intentionally but there was very little distortion. We could see the woofer moving quite a bit with our eyes as when it approached it's resonant frequency so I started snapping pictures to see if the camera could catch it. This was one of about 20 shots and just happened to catch the woofer at what I would say is maximum rated excursion. After seeing the picture I was very surprised at how clean the bass sounded with the woofer moving that far. As far as I know this woofer is still bumping right along as it was installed 3 years later.

I have seen some youtube video's of guys showing extreme excursion of various woofers but they sounded awful. I don't know if the awful sound was the result of an overdriven video camera microphone or if it really sounded awful. My hunch is that it probably sounded pretty awful in person too, this is not one of those cases.

mikeski,
Relax. You read those comments totally wrong. I was simply having some fun with an extreme looking visual. There was no intended criticism. But you may be right in that a sense of humor on my part may be a little out of character.

David

Dub 7 powered by ARC = bad a--!!!!!!!!!! thats what i got. im only powering it with a kar 1000.1 but it is clean. ported and side firing the w7 packs a punch.

David and Grant, I sent both of you guys messages.

Here's a W7 13" Ported powered by a SE2300. It definitely pounds for just 1 sub.

I think I saw a place where Grant could have fit in another woofer.
The W7s are incredible! No doubt about it. Just make sure that if you make that investment that you support it with the right amplifier power, batteries, massive cabling, preamp voltage, cabinetry and all the other goodies so you're getting the entire benefit. Because of the crazy internal pressure that these can produce we always encapsulate the terminal cups for a double seal. Always use a 1-inch thick baffle.
Just an FYI, JL Audio will be releasing an HD1200/1 this spring. Same footprint as the HD750/1. Its not fullrange like the HD750/1. Strictly lowpass. 1200 watts at any load from 1.5 ohm to 4-ohms and with any supply voltage from 11 to 14.4. Highly efficient Class D. Strictly requlated power supply. I think that you will find that with this level of efficiency and being strictly regulated that this amplifier will be the equivalent in performance of amplifiers rated at 50 percent more in a boat.

David
Earmark Marine

David, I noticed that the plans that JL gives you don't include any type of bracing. Is it needed? Should I incorporate that into my specs?

timmyb,
Absolutely. We've got some bass-reflex enclosures that we are cuurently working on for (4) JL Audio 8W7s. And we added bracing similar to what you would see in an esoteric home speaker cabinet. But we made sure that it was done in such a way that doesn't change the enclosure function and we added internal displacement to offset the addition of the bracing.

David
Earmark Marine

I asked David how to add transmission fluid and this is his Video reply

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIS5n9Oyzsc

That guy talked so fast I found it hard to take notes.

Hahahaha......Entabulator!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^BAD ASS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

David if you sat in this boat you would understand what BASS RE-FLEX realy ment!

I bet if you took the picure above and in put it into your Bat Computer, It would come back with terms like diminishing returns, and voltage sag ,extreme expenditure, broader dispersion pattern, and last but not least Entabulator!

Grant it would make his hair stand up and eyes bug out like Doc from back to the future.

Jeez - at what point do you get atrial fibrillation. Knock you heart beat out of whack.

ryan -

are those W7's sealed ? Sweet work, as always.

Unvisible -

We posted this one last year. There are two enclosures side by side bolted together with the carbon work mounted over the top . Each woofer is sealed individually and most importantly on the same plane together.

Ryan, any pictures of that with the observers seat in place?

Let me check with the owner, this is the only pic I have in my Library. The seat was slightly modified and has about 4 inches of clearance on the edge seen in front of the sub and the backside is hollowed out all the way around to the sides of the boat

Hmmmm...I bet it feels pretty nice to sit in that seat when the boat in bumpin.

CD changer.. nice..

Yeah its kinda tough to see how it looks from that angle but acoustically it probably works out pretty well. Couldn't let go of the CD changer huh?

HAHAHAHAHA!

DVD Changer Boys.!................

Has the same T.V. in the mirror setup as "G"

Oh thats right I had forgotten about that.

4" dvd screen... with 40" of W7's... i'm guessing the LCD doesnt get much face time like factoryKITTED's LCD :-)