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Who has one? Im looking for one 12" for a girlfriend of mine...I told her Id check out a JL 12, an MB Quart 12, an alpine 12, and some rockfords.

But Id really like some feedback on the mbquarts, anyone have their subs?

 
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My first sub was an mb quart sub, 5 years ago back when the only sub they had was the autobahn series which is basically their lowest level product line. It sounded good, but wasn't loud or would never blow anybody away.

Now they have 3 different products in their sub line, the premium series, pwd304 would be the 12 inch, is a 12 inch dvc that fits sounds very nice in a small sealed enclosure. It's kinda of expensive though. The have great build quality and they are good for sq but they aren't nearly as loud as many other sub would be.

Best bet is to go to a shop and listen to the subs on display, problem with that though is the box makes a HUGE difference performance wise of subwoofers, and hearing different subs stuck on a wall really does not do many subs justice.

For the money you spend there are a ton of other subs out there that you would be satisfied with. the pwd 304 retails for over $400, online they can be bought for about $225

 
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Thanks..

 
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I just received a new shiva and it sounds amazing, it plays so much lower than my low end Infinitys, even when the Infinity was ported. You can get them online for only $125. I'd go for something like that

 
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I have the new premium Quart subs. They sound VERY nice, very good low freq response. They are recommended for sealed enclosures, although hey can be used in ported boxes. They were designed for SQ so this is the reason for the sealed. I also have JL 12W3's. I will say that I like the sound of the Quarts better but the JL's are about 3dB more effecient, meaning they need 1/2 the power to play the same loudness.

Small is RIGHT. They recommend 0.95 ft^3 per sub, but we tested it on a woofer tester and the parameters showed that the sub performs best at about HALF of that! Now that is a TINY box, that will take up very little of your trunk space.

They handle 600W RMS to EACH COIL!! I am running 800 WRMS to each sub right now and they sound great, i wanna bump it up to 1000W RMS to each very soon tho.

The Quarts look waaay cooler but I am not sure on the price. I also do not know when they will be in production.

my 2 cents

~Tbone

 
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tbone.........by new quart subs are you referring to the new pwe302 subs that mb quart showed at the 2003 CES show? The pwe302's are dual 2 ohm subs. i've been waiting for the release of these new 2 ohm dvc models. I currently have 2 12 inch 4 ohm dvc fosgate subs that i've had for the past 3 or 4 years. Only problem i have is that my amp, the eclipse 34230 2 channel amp is not bridgeable, therfor i can run my 2 dvc's at either 2 ohms or 8 ohms, but the amp isn't 2 ohm stable so i am running them at 8 ohms. I'm waiting for the dual 2 ohm subs to be released so i can hook them up to my amp with a 4 ohm load like it is meant to be ran at.

A small enclosure size is the main reason why i've been interested in getting the quart subs, i prefer to have as much trunk space as possible in my car.

I've been asking a local shop when the new line of subs will be out and they have no clue yet, just have to wait and see

 
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Tom...by new MB Quart subs, I do mean the PWE302 that were shown at CES in January. These subs are still in Beta and I am not sure when we will release them for production. What a coincidence, I have (had) a 34230 Eclipse amp running my JL 12W3's (dual 4 OHM) which, by the way, I wired the coils in parallel and ran my eclipse amp at 2 OHMS! The amp never thermalled on me even tho this spec is not in their manuals (from what I remember). The rated power into a 4 Ohm loadfor that amp is 370W. The amp willl work into a 2-Ohm load but will current limit. You can get about 400W RMS out of it on a 2 Ohm load ( +0.33dB - which will be in INAUDIBLE difference from a 4 Ohm load at 370W). Now, I wired the coils on my quarts in series and paralleled the 2 subs to form a 2 OHM load. I am using a BD1500 which is rated at 1500 W RMS @ 2 OHM. IT IS SOOO MUCH BETTER!!! These subs need lots of power so be sure and give it to them (since they are relatively ineffecient). If I find out when the PWE302's are supposed to be released, I'll let ya know.

~Tbone

 
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Thanks tbone,

I rewired my subs to run at 2 ohms today. I am in the process of re-installing my system for a cleaner look. I rehooked everything up today just because i am sick of not having music, i couldn't take it anymore. Apparently i broke something because my stereo is completely screwed up now. My mids and high's all it does is play a click click click click sound when i turn the volume up, and when i hook up my sub it plays full blast subwoofer whether the volume on my head unit is at 2 or 80, it just plays full blast. EVERYTHING is hooked up correctly, EVERYTHING. I've been working with my stereo over and over for over 5 years and i know how everything is supposed to be hooked up. The only explanation i can think of is that when i went to ground my amp it wasn't grounded very well. I think i may have fried my eclipse hideaway dsp. At the crack of dawn i will be out there again trying to solve my problem, first by bypassing the dsp and running directly off the head unit, if this doesn't work i will drive to the store and buy a case of beer before shedding a few gallons of tears over my stereo.

tbone....Thanks for the info on your quart pwe302, i wish i could be a beta tester for mb quart. By bd1500 are you referring to the rockford fosgate bd1500? I was hoping to keep my car all eclipse with the amps but if i am going to need more power if i ever get the pwe's for myself than i may have to look elsewhere in the amp department. Probably get a bp1200.1 and forget about the looks of matching my amps... Eclipse has two new class d amps that will perform like the fosgate bd1500 but they are waaaaaaaaay waaaaay waaaaaay out of my price range.

tbone, are the pwe's similiar to the pwd304's or did they completely remake that sub? Is quarts new sub much larger and able to handle all of the power that you say they need? I've never seen a pic of their new subs, just read thier release form on the website, if you have pics of the pwe send me a pm or let me know, i'd like to have a look at them if possible

 
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Well, the problem with your sub sounds like its getting a solid 12V current as soon as you plug it in.....so maybe your wires are hitting a power wire or something? Just a guess....thats an odd problem if its hooked up correctly.

 
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i disconnected my dsp and found that one of the rca's for the input was broken, the end piece was kind of melted and was seperated from the wiring. i'm guessing this is where my problem came from. i redid ground for my amp, scraped away more paint and everthing and hooked everything up straight from the HU, bypassing the dsp and now it works fine. the dsp i got less than 2 months ago and i have a yr warranty on it so now i guess i'll be sending it out to be fixed.

i'm thinking i had a bad ground because i did a pour job of scraping the pain away, and maybe the amps ended up grounding through the rca's, killing my dsp. ah well, gotta learn somehow.

 
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Tom, yeah I am using a Rockford BD1500. When I boughtmy Eclipse amp a few years back, the 34230 was the biggest they had. Their new class D's look pretty nice but I don't have any experience with them.

These subs are a whole new design, designed by new engineers, from what I hear (both inside the company and out) is that the old Quart subs sucked. I haven't had a chace to listen to the old ones but the new ones are nice and YES, they do handle the power. They have a braking system (coils wired in the opposite direction) outside of the magnetic gap so it is impossible to make this driver leave its operating region. I'll take some pics of them tomorrow for ya...I don'thost a server tho so I can't post them, so PM me your e-mail address and I can send them over.

~Tbone

 
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The problem Tom was having is not 12V DC. If there is DC on your speakers, you will not hear anything, they will simply be displaced from their normal resting position. If the amp is working correctly, any DC injected into the amps RCA's, WILL NOT produce DC at the amps outputs. Just some info if you ever need it in future troubleshooting I'm only here to help.



~Tbone

 
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The reason i first assumed that i had broken my dsp was due to the fact that

1) I rechecked my new grounding job which i halfa$$e did and noticed that for some reason i wasn't thinking straight when i determined what paint to scrape

2) I've read on this board before that one possible result of a bad amp ground is that the head unit gets fried, ground through whatever way it can find...ie...the rca's to the headunit

3) If number 2 was true, it would ground through the DSP first because it's the next in line up from the amps


This is proof that reading this message board all the time for info on car audio is a good thing!! Regardless of how pissed my gf gets for always being on this website