adam728's Full Review: Kicker Solo-Baric L7 S12L7 (2001) Car Subwoofer
My friend recently bought two of these subs for his older S-10 Blazer. He is powering them off a Memphis 1500D wired to 2 ohm mono. Each sub is recieving 750 rms.
To start off he threw the subs in a sealed box, each one having its own 1.5 ft^3 chamber. They sounded pretty good, and got decently loud, but nothing like I was expecting the much talked about L7's to perform to. I told him he needed to try a big ported box, these subs can crank some serious SPL out of large ported enclosures.
When I came back from college for a weekend he had changed over to a ported box with 2.5 ft^3 per sub tuned to 33 Hz. It was definitly louder, probably hitting into the lower 140's. But it still lacked the ummff I knew it had in it. So I designed him a killer box. 11 ft^3 common chamber, tuned to 33 Hz for daily driving with 98 square inches of port area. All I can say is WOW. It's almost painful to sit in there. The one outter door panel of the Blazer keeps getting sucked in, then stays there! Looks like someone kicked it in. Have to take out the inner door panel and push it out every now and then.
The subs do not sound bad at all. With proper tuning they can have good spl and sound quality. His sounded a bit off, then I found he had his deck settings all messed up (bass boost on full, crossover at 45 Hz, just not at all right). Before it could be tweaked to perfection he managed to move his box and slam the tailgate on his amp (opps!) knocking something importanct inside loose.
This weekend the new amp will arrive, and the box is getting a new port, 150 square inches raising tuning frequency to 45 Hz for spl, with a port cover and two 6" ports tuned to 33 Hz for daily driving. A little tweaking and he should have low 150's with this setup, it already sounds close to that! I will update soon.
I would say if you want to be LOUD but still sound good, these subs are a great way to go. Digital Designs can offer the same performance, but for about twice the cost. There are others that can get as loud, but in my opinion give up sound quality and some durability. These work well in all boxes, but if you want the most from them, be prepared to make a BIG ported box. I say 3.5 ft^3 or more per sub is ideal. There are a lot of people using them, and I am not a fan of the square sub looks, but this product works! And that is all that matters.
The patented square-woofer technology allows for 18% more cone, which translates to more bang for your buck compared to competing round subwoofers.More at eCOST.com
I have a brand new Kicker S12L7 subwoofer. I bought 2 of them and only used one. Sold the used one and still have this new one. Great subwoofer and he...More at eBay
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