new system ideas

ok here's the story so far. i used to run a kicker comp 12 in a sealed box. it was a nice sub, but i t had some electrical failure.
so in my haste/empty wallet i bought a shitty dominator sub. needless to say i'm a little dissapointed with the quality.
so now i'm in the market for a new system. i want good sound quality and tight response. loud is no longer required.
i'm considering going to a bass tube. does anyone have experience to share regarding these? all yay or nay responses are appreciated.

oh yeah i have a JBL BP150.1 amp. the little amp that could.

I have heard a base tube.. it's alright. Really, the one I listened to, delivered about the same amount of bass I get from my 3 way pioneer speakers I just got.

i like my Alpine type S sub. it is not loud to be heard 5 blocks away, but it is loud for me.

yeah i say go with a single 10 or 12 sealed, both will be tight and play decent but wont be loud. Bass tubes to me sound sloppy and they wont play nearly as clean or accurate or as low as a nice single 10 or 12 sealed.

thanks for the input guys.
i think i'm gonna try to save $$$ and bust out the table saw and reduce the size of my existing box too see what kind of difference tha makes with my existing sub.

I had a bandpass box and it sucked and the speakers blew so I "upgraded" to a super cheap sealed box with a 10" Jensen with a huge surround. I have the sub hooked to a cheap amp at 200watts max bridged, it is surprisingly loud and extremely tight sounding for the junky 10" that it is. Most people are surprised both by that it is a jensen and that it is only a 10".

If I had to do it again I would go with a high quality 10" and a 200watt rms amp. I love the sq and it is just loud enough for me to feel the amount of bass I want.

badpass is jsut dumb i think, bass is all muffled and sloppy, 2 12's in a SEALED box in think is the best, but it all depends on your car and what you want

150 watts off the JBL= go ported

Build a ported box, tuned low, as big as you can spare. I can easily fit a 4.0 cubic foot box in the trunk of my 89 coupe, so I'm sure you could too.

Large ported boxes increase a subs efficiency, which will allow the 150 watts to push it to it's best, but you should also try to find a sub that is pretty efficient to be mated to the 150 watts.

Also, large ported boxes tuned low will have excellent transient response, depending on the driver used.

is there anything critical i should know about building a ported box like placement of port, genaral shape etc?

IMO bandpass boxes sound great. If they are built to the specs of the sub, and are given enough room to move air, it will sound even cleaner than a sealed box and you will get the nice low bass. I will take pics of my box that my friend made for me and I will show you what i mean.