Yeah I agree... One thing I was thinking, with the 12" vs 10" was the 10" having more reaction time. So that you can listen to faster music and the subs will keep up. Another thing to think about, what do you think?

 

It's more of power handling with the size difference. It's volume vs. crispness. The larger the sub, the more distortion there is due to faster inputs than outputs. The more expensive the sub is, usually the more it can have with out distorting. I get all my stuff from Millionbuy.com You can buy just the screen with out the DVD capabilities.

 

truly in a well designed installation any sub 8" 10" 12" 15" will be able to handle playing the rock music and the rap music while sounding great on it all. Perhaps you would run into issues with the subs keeping up if your using cheap garbage like sony xplod and pyramid as well as other cheap stuff offline.
Not all of this is on the sub a lot of it is on enclosure design and how well braced the enclosure is if it has the proper airspace to perform and if the port is tuned properly. Also a lot of the subs motion is controlled by the amp. The subwoofer has voice coils that are surrounded by magnets and as the amplifier alternates the charges on the magnet it pulls the subwoofer cone surround and spyder assembly back and forth moving air and creating music more specifically bass in this case. The amplifiers ability to react and change the charges of the magnet. This is known as the dampening of the amplifier. This is a lot of the reason JBL amplifiers are so expensive. They have ridiculously good dampening.

I am not disaggreeing with you that a ten inch sub will perform better in rock and metal music than a 15" or 18" sub. while the larger subs will perform better rap and super low frequency's. But in a system that is set up and built properly these differences are not glaring. My 12" sub in ported box plays great rock music and metal music while giving me also great boom for rap music. personally that is why i love 12" subs. With tens you lose some boom but gain more pop while with 18's you get more boom but lil less pop. The 12" sub can perform both magnificently.

For example of what I mean by a well designed system. If money was of no object and you wanted a system that would play great with all music you need to use 3 or more types of speakers. For your super lows and bass you use a 12" sub or larger. this will give you great lows but you will be slightly lacking in the middle bass dept. So then you run what are called "Mid-bass drivers" these are speakers about the size of a normal coax speaker. sorta like a mini subwoofer. but they are designed to reproduce just mid-bass. Then you run your regular coax speakers or components. components are the same as coax's but the tweeter and woofer cone are not combined together. they are seperated providing overall better sound quality by not allowing the two to interfere. By using a system such as that you get great all around performance that will absolutely blow you away with any music.

but since money is not endless and i have yet found a way to pulll money outof my rear end or a tree to grow it on. I did the next best thing. i run my coax speakers that provide great highs and decent mids. And by choosing a 12" woofer I get the best of both worlds and can listen to any music and be mroe than amazed by the sound quality and loudness. I get great boom out of the 12 and also great midbass. That is why for in both of our cases with a properly set up quality 12" subwoofer with a quality amp will perform amazing.

Basically what i'm saying all goes back to the save your money buy quality idea. If you buy a cheap any size sub the differences between it and a larger or smaller one will be more glaring due to cheap construction and set up. While a quality sub from JL, RF, JBL alpine clarion will do just fine on all types of bass.

 

*** double post****


I will explain later on tommorrow exaclty what I mean aobut frequencies and amplifiers controls for subwoofers and how the different sizes are setup and how the midbass drivers are set up with the amplifiers. but its late and i need to go to bed.

Also if you want to learn lots about car audio go to forums online liek www.rockfordfosgate.com and www.realmofexcursion.com
These guys are great and many are proffesionals that do this for a living. if you want to see some sick vids of a guy I talk to on the rockford forum who is a compeitor with car audio go to www.stevemeadedesigns.com and check out some of his rides. Theres one vid where hes demoing his chevy tahoe with 4 18s and 24000 + watts of power and a lady standing at the drivers window has a fake eyeball and the bass blows her fake eyeball outta her head. Also notice how he has little looking subwoofers inthe A-pillar of the tahoe. those are the mid-bass drivers i was talking about to make up for the slight lack of midbass due to the gigantic woofer choice.