[1sashenka]

Well folks, for the longest time I had a hard-on to try a single 15" sub set-up as I never had one before. I have experienced a single 12", a dual 10", a dual 12", a triple 10" - all sealed, and a single 18" ported.

And it seemed my time has come to try one when the Xcon came out, and I have been anxious to get one of those in 15" size and seal it in around 2.25 cubes. The other day, I tried in my car a single 15" JBL GTI in a ported apprx 3 cubes box on around 850 watts. That sub is supposed to be one of the best, but it did not meet my expectations. I measured good db's, but it sounded strained with tons of distortion at loud volume. I could push my dual sealed set-ups of tens and twelves to same loudness, but they do it with much more ease without break-up and bottoming out on same power. I am guessing with my high expectations for occasional blairing and still remaining good control a 15" sub cannot give me. It seems being a single sub it strains too much, but two subs remain cleaner at high volumes as they are sharing the load. Dis anyone else have these findings? If this is the case, I may just scrap the single 15" Xcon project, as it may not give me the clean sound at high volumes as two 12's can on same power of lets say 1500 wrms. I realize that Xcon will have potential to be pushed further than the JBL, but I am guessing it will still show signs of strain being a single sub. It would appear, that a single 18" ported sub would be on par with two 12's in clear controlled output at high volumes, and I just dont have the room for an 18" sub, so I guess I am stuck with two 12's as my fave sound to sq/spl ratio, as two 15's would also take too much space. Any thoughts?

BTW, I noted that JBL GTI and CSS SDX series subs have a very similar sounding sonic signature and output. A very similar performance, only CSS is much cheaper.