I'm still a big believer in "pay to play" and if you want a good system sometimes name brands are the way to go. Like I said, I stick with Alpine and Rockford Fosgate, and I'll be honest, I have blown subs and amps, but they were all under my warranty and they sent me some more, but that wasn't through insurance. The last sub I blew was my fault, but I did not find out until I re-wired the subs and found that when I wired it up to a lower ohm load I was wrong. (Wiring up in series isn't quite my thing, lol) People need to calm down about his lift and or choice on sound system stuff, I have friends with system's I've never heard of that blow mine out of the water. You just need to know what you have to work with, and how to use it. I could be mean and act like a "5 year old" and talk about proper grammer but this is a help/fun site. Let's keep it clean and nice.

 

JBL is another brand I totally forgot to mention. I really like most of their stuff I've had experience with.

JL is another popular brand but I'm just not a huge fan. I like their W7 subs but you pay a ton more than most people are going to want to put into a system. I've never had a set of their subs but have had several buddies with them. Some had W1's and some had W3's. The W1's I heard just didn't sound that great to me. The W3's sounded good but the Infinity's I had seemed to sound a lot better to me and were also quite a bit cheaper. With JL I think you mostly paying for the name with their cheaper stuff and with their more expensive stuff while it's good it costs more than most people want to spend.


JBL on the other hand seems to produce great stuff and pretty decent prices.

Rockford Fosgate is another brand I forgot to mention. Their stuff is decent too although I like a couple other brands better. That's just my personal preference though.

 

I had two w7 12" in my old truck with matching JL Gmax amps. Got the deal on craigslist for 750, which is a great deal. It hit harder than hell, but you're probably not going to find a set that cheap very easy. JL is the real deal, and I wouldn't recommend anything else. w3s would slam in your truck if you had a good box, but a bad amp cant make even the best subs hit cleanly.

I agree that your box probably blew your subs, but id buy a good amp before you bought high dollar subs. The biggest difference sound wise is the HU, I had to use my stock radio while my clarion was in the shop and it SUCKED after having one with inputs. I'd buy a cheap pioneer from onlinecarstereo.com, they have good prices

 

I haven't had much experience with name brand audio equipment but I honestly believe that my cheapo Lighting Audio 10" (don't know if their even around ne more) with a walmart 200w amp hits alot harder then I would have ever expected and sounds pretty exceptional. Then again any type of sub prolly sounds better than just stock speakers.

 

Crown amps used to be really good. My grandpa worked as an engineer for crown back in the day and was the senior engineer that invented the amp for MRI machines. It's sad the quality isn't there anymore. A lot of big audio companies are headed in the same direction. China with all it's crappy quality is taking over and it's hard to get something solid that will last for years.

 

The two best amps Ive ever had would have to be my Phenoix Gold ZX500, pushing 3 JL w3 12's, and my PPI 1800w amp. And that amp was a TRUE big-wattage amp. I had it pushing 2 JL w6 18's (yea, 18's) in my hatchback mustang.

But, Ive also had a couple Rockford amps, like the BD1000 for instance, and MTX used to be alright, I doubt it now.

My cousin Mike Bartells is sponsored by JBL, so I have to give them a nod, even though I have no personal experience. He's a multi-multi world record holder, so they must be doing something right.

Screw it, get a new HU in that thing, should change things up quite a bit for you.

 

I thought the biggest sub JL makes is a 15, and thats a W0...W7 and W6 are 8,10,12,13

if they made one, it would cost a grand....but i bet it would bounce a 10lb weight off the roof

 

I have a single 12 inch rockford fosgate p3 sub on an alpine amp with boston acoustic speakers up front and diamonds in the rear, and I have never once had a better system than this, I have had infinity, I liked my phoenix gold xenon but still wasnt quite as nice, Im only a fan of pioneers hu's, not much else though... I never much cared for kicker, a lot of punch but no tone in my opinion. Diamond audio used to be great, but ever since they lost their chief designer to rockford fosgate I think RF definitely passed them up which is why I went with Rockford Fosgate on this system. My box is just a center seat subwoofer box, cost me $175 and matches perfectly for airspace for my sub.

I think the best route to go with is just to study into what your taste in sound is before you purchase anything, find people who know about audio, with trucks like yours, who have audio setups and get a taste for which kind of sound you prefer. Many people will say many different things about audio equipment, I have heard people swear on their lives that their $75 dollar sub is the best piece of equipment ever... I dunno... lol. But still it pays to invest in the right equipment so that you dont end up disappointed and want to replace over again.

Oh, and dont purchase from mainstream stores that are variety stores for car audio, like best buy, frys, and places such as that, they usually will not have they kind of quality equipment that you will find at a true car stereo store.

 

Those are the "new school" series for JL. The ones I had were the old versions, w1, w3, and w6. JL was right in the center of the cones in big letters, not like the new styles.

IIRC, they only came in 6ohm, so they werent widely popular. I bought them for $600 with the PPI, and boy did it throw down. Had the setup for a couple weeks before someone picked my hatch and snatched the amp. The box and subs was just too biga task for a parking lot ******. I sold the subs, and went on to my RF Hx2 15's and RF BD1000

EDIT: I had these subs about 9yrs ago, Im sure they were a year or so old when I got'em, just to give ya a timeframe

 

There is a guy around town that cruises in an old Monte Carlo, rides on like 22 or 24 inch rims (not 100% on that). He has two 18"s in the trunk and holy camel crap! Idk what amp or any brands or anything but talk about thump and pure freakin eardrum busting power! The car can easily be heard coming like 7 blocks away with it only turned about half way up. It's rediculous!