Okay, I have never been one for following instructions closely or for adhering to safety standards for that matter. These two "qualities" do not mix well with my desire to modify electronic equipment but I have luckily avoided any serious personal injury or "injury" to my gear. I recently purchased upgraded (higher value) capacitors for my Apex Sr. amp and the resistor needed to remove the 6dB bass boost that comes standard with this amp. Okay, recently means December or so in my case, but I finally mustered up the courage to take a whack at this thing with my trusty soldering iron.
Overall the job was pretty easy (only 4 caps and one resistor) because there is a lot of room to work on the easily removeable PCB. Plus, I figured if it broke I was only out about $150 and the amp in stock form is pretty much unuseable to me in a music system (maybe okay for HT). It was simply too boomy in stock form, even in a 3 cubic feet sealed enclosure. Although the caps were glued in tightly, the job was pretty easy and relatively uneventful. The "relatively" part involves accidentally touching the positive and negative terminals on one of the caps causing a large blue spark to eminate from my pliers, knocking them out of my hands. Thank God, they had rubber coated arms or it would have been a bit more "shocking". This was the only unintentional spark of the day, although I did recreate the event a couple more times with the caps I removed (after donning safety goggles). Large blue sparks shot out of the old caps every time! It was very fun, although my wife had a slightly different opinion...one that included questions of my maturity and sanity. The job was very easy and bolsered my confidence in my soldering skills.
The moment of truth was when I plugged it in. For some reason, every time I build something or modify something I have more than a bit of aprehension when I plug it in. As if I expect it to suddenly burst into an uncontrolable electrical fire. I decided to "test" it in my actual subwoofer cabinet with some music playing. Luckily, everything worked perfectly (thank you very much!).
I guess the real "moment of truth" is the sound, how does it sound? In a word: VERYGOOD! (had to combine words to make it one word!). The Boominess (notice the capital) is completely gone and the bass is tight and deep. Very musical and articulate. I still need to get an EQ to even things out but I'm very happy with the overall sound. Plus, nothing has burst into flame as of yet which is an added bonus in my book.
The cabinet is a Partsexpress 3cubic feet flat kit that uses 1" mdf on all sides and 1"mdf braces, a Titanic MKII 12" driver and Apex Sr. amp and is stuffed with poly foam, about 75% volume. Still have to paint or veneer this thing and hope to get that completed when it gets a bit warmer out. I'm thinking about flat black truck bedliner. It weighs about 100 lbs. in present form and exhibits no vibration or rattles (I cauked the inside with two tubes of silicon which smelled really bad at first). It's glued together with Gorilla glue and about 50 screws that are counter sunk. Used heavy braces to hold it together when the glue was drying and will probably round the edges before I paint it.
Overall, I'm very pleased with the performance, especially for the price. Will hopefully compare it to some subs in the near future, but maybe not. I don't think my back can handle moving this thing any time soon.
Cheers,
Jack
