Kicker L7 loud & not hitting hard,advice?

Hi. Long time/first time... this forum is great, hopefully I can get some help on my problem here:

I have (2) 2004 10" L7 4ohm subs, bought from hificonnection as refurbs, and installed just over a week ago. They are LOUD, but sound muddy, not precise for my rock music, and they don't HIT hard. Not tight - they boom. Loud enough to ring my ears, good for low bass rap, but I don't feel those fast, tight bass drum kicks in my chest like I think I should (and would like to).  SQ absolutely sucks.

They are new, so they can be stiff out of the box, from what I've read. But is what I'm experiencing a symptom of newness/stiffness and will it break-in after a while and start hitting me in the gut and improve SQ???!!!

Stats: each sub is in a .82cuft sealed box with approximately .5lbs of polyfill in each box. Box has angled back to contour to the rear seats in my 4Runner with subs facing the rear. The DVCs are wired so that each sub is 8 ohms and they are wired n parallel to the amp for a 4 ohm total load. Powered by a Soundstream mono amp, 600w rms at 4ohms. (with 4and8awg power/ground wire, I didn't want to go 1000w/1ohm, plus I don't need that much bass). JVC aftermarket head unit.  HU and amp adjustments/gains set per generally accepted guidelines - and I've tweaked them a bit too, but no different results. 

I also rewired one sub to 2ohms and just wired that up to the amp (800Wrms). No difference.

Anything else I need to tell you?

HELP?!

Thanks in advance, all....

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05 4Runner, some mods....

Usually too boomy sound indicates the enclosure is too large.  First try removing the polyfill.

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Sorry to say ..... but if you want the killer SQ that you crave, then you made a poor choice for subs. Those Kicker L7's you got are doing EXACTLY what they were meant to do - pound. They are not known for great SQ. I really hate telling someone that the subs aren't good for the application they want, (especially when there is nothing wrong with your L7's) but I feel that there isn't too much you can do to bring the SQ to life in these subs.

Note ---- Both Eclipse and Infinity offer great SQ. Alumapro as well. Either of these three will blow you away with how great the SQ is.

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Do whatever makes you happy in life without diminishing the happiness of others

Thanks for the advice guys...

DYohn:   Kicker recommends .62 - 1.0 for a sealed enclosure.  Mine is .82... add a bit because of the polyfill and I still should be ok, but I'll try that. 

willdkartunes:  agreed on that... but I'm not competing here, even though these might not be the best SQ subs in the world, I "think" that they still should sound better than they do.   I'm not really looking for killer sound quality, just something decent.    I can only compare them to what I've had in the past (and current) in my other vehicles:   8" 100w Bazooka,  IDQ10 SVC @ 200w, and a JL 10W0 @ 250w.  And ALL of those sound better than 1or 2 of these L7's for some reason.

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05 4Runner, some mods....

Agreed with both...the boominess indicates too big of an enclosure, but your box is exactly as spec'd for the '04 10L7 model.  And agreed that it is the wrong sub for the type of sound you are looking for.  Before you go to the expense of changing subs (and I hope the removal of the polyfil works, first), look at how you can increase the SQ overall in the system...

...do the mid drivers pick up the freq at 80 Hz and pound in the front soundstage?  Most of the music you are listening for is in the upper sub bass and lower midbass area.  Do you have superior damping in the door cavities?  Do you have the crossovers set at good, steep slopes to separate the sub bass from the mid bass?  Or are you relying on the subs alone to provide that kick in the 80 - 120 Hz area?

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Build the box so that it performs well in the worst case scenario and, in return, it will reward you at all times.

You don't have to compete to enjoy great SQ. I know plenty of people that aren't interested in competing, but LOVE listening to great sounding music. Not that I don't like Kicker or anything, because I love loud stuff, but when I think of sound quality the L7 is certainly not the speaker that comes to mind. I too hope that removing the polyfill helps you.

Not sure if you wanted to spend the $ but two 10w6's would have been pretty awesome....

You also might wanna look into what stevdart is saying...

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Do whatever makes you happy in life without diminishing the happiness of others

All good ideas, thanks alot for the help...  I'll try removing the polyfill, but I'm also going to hook up my JL 10w0 box to this system and see how it sounds.

The rest of the system is pretty tight, as much as I can see.  85hz cutoff at the midbass (Infinity Kappa components, powered by a Soundstream, @ 90wRMS/channel)  and that's what I'm using for the sub's HPF level too.

The punch/kick I'm looking for - and not getting - is not in the 80-120hz range, it's low end (bass kick).  I'm getting mud.

Q) since I have square cutouts in my boxes, would an L5 be any better for my application, or is it just an L7 that handles less power?    If it's the latter, I may have to make (screw/glue) another baffle to this box so I can make a round cutout for a better speaker.  Uuuuugh.

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05 4Runner, some mods....

The L7 is the big brother of the L5. It handles more power, but as far as sq I cannot say which is better. As mentioned earlier Infinity is awsome for sq while still keepin a good bump. I have 1 10" hooked up and I love it. JL is also known for their sq (while being on the expensive side though). To get better sq i'm affraid a new sub may be needed as the L7's are a sp beast.

i know this will sound weird, but we really like the sound of a ported box over the sound of sealed....we compete with the L7's for SPL, but we drive and listen to a set daily

for our 2 12' 05 subs we used

2.5 cuft internal for both subs, 1 4in by 36in aero port.

you might be able to go off something like that

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