alpine or kicker

should i get the alpine 12 type x sub or the kicker L7?

Both of those subs will pound like no tomorrow. However, the L7 is pretty much a SPL only sub, with little SQ to speak of, the type x puts out great SPL numbers while still maintaining SQ. My advice, listen to each sub, preferably in a vehicle, and see which one you like better. But it will ultimatly boil down to whether you car about SQ or not.

i would go with the kicker if you want splA person who carries or proclaims important news; a messenger.

This is kinda funny because I was logging on to write about my little listening demo I had today. One of my friends who works at a competitor of mine called me and asked if I wanted to come in for a little demo they were going to do. They had in stock a Alpine type X, a JL W7, and A MTX 9500. All twelve inch subs. They built sealed boxes to factory spec for each sub and broke them in for a period of 24 hours on a test bench. I will say right off the bat that I dunno exactly what they did to break them in, I just went with it. They used one of their boards and used a JL 1000/1 for all 3 subs so they were all provided with the same amount of power running with a Alpine deck, didnt get the model number but retail was about 750 bucks canadian so it must be high volt. Anyways on with the tests. The first up was the JL W7 which most of us thought would sound the best and about 50-60 percent figured would be the loudest. After playing 5 sample tracks and after all was said and done it did sound the best outta the 3 subs, The next sub we played was the MTX 9500 which was my personal pick to be the loudest sub, even though I did stand alone on this point. After all was said and done I was definatly right as it was noticably louder than the JL and really just embaressed the Alpine, however it did not sound as good as the JL, it wasnt a huge gap between the two but was definatly noticable. Now on to the Alpine, I have heard a ton about this sub and was really interested to hear what this thing could do. After the first track I could tell I wasnt gonna be impressed. Then about half way through the 4 track I saw somthing that just made me shake my head and laugh. The sub tore its cone from the surround. Thats right, after a 24 hour test period and 4 songs this thing calved out. I was pretty disapointed and it sure didnt do anything to boost my confidence in a company that already doesnt have my confidence. We pulled that driver out and replaced it with a new one but it still didnt come close to the other two. In the end as I said earlier the JL was the best SQ outta the 3, the MTX curb stomped em in the SPL contest and the newest kid on the block from alpine that was apperently made to crush the W7 and the 9500 did nothing of the sort, it just kinda rolled over and died. I figured I would post this being that I had said before I new this test was comming and I said than that I would post my findings and there they are. So in the end I am basically telling the poster that started this tread that if his only two choices are the kicker and the Alpine than I would go kicker but if you have the option of either the JL or the MTX I would take one of them over both other companies. I used to sell kicker so I can make asimalr comparison with them and confidently say they arent going to keep up to the MTX spl numbers and they damn sure arent going to be a better SQ sub than the W7.double-secret reverse-osmosis speaker-cone-induced high-level interference distortion, Its a killer

any reason why those are your only two choices?Kevin Gerry

Certified Electronics Technician

MECP First Class Installer

Owner/Installer

Classic Car Audio

since 1979

well cause i was gonna get the type x and a guy told me to look into the kicker and i did and i couldnt decide and the price is down on the kicker but after hearing the post about it falling apart makes me wanna go with the kicker i like the kicker but idk what sub i should get and with the price low, so ill take any idea's what kind of sub i sould get.

oh and i might power them with a alpine mrd-m1000 or the orion 1200D and what 1 should i getfor the kicker if i get the kicker

Dont go only on my experience, all companies haev products that fail outta the box, I just thought it was pretty funny that it was thier flag ship sub that did it.double-secret reverse-osmosis speaker-cone-induced high-level interference distortion, Its a killer