Here is the deal, I want to go light on the sound equipment in one of my cars but I still want good full sound. I was thinking about component speakers in the kicks powered by the reciever or I have a 75Wx2 Alpine amp. I would then run 8" subwoofers in the sail pannels. I figured that would give me the imaging I want in the front and enough fill in the back for my tastes. My 2 questions are:

Who makes a good 8" sub? I see JL has their 8W0 and Kicker also makes an 8" sub. Anyone have these or have experinece with a diffrent brand?

Second, what should I do to the sail pannels to get them ready for subs? Will I be ok going free air or should I try and hack up a set of the bose boxes or try lining it with dynamat? Anyone have any experience or sugestions?

 

Jim, I saw you mentioned these dayton 8"subwoofers in another thread:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=295-480
Are they going to sound good? The powerhandling is right where I need it to be with the amp I have and they are cheap as well! Can I get .5 cubic feet out of the sailpannel?

Also looking for sugestions on quality but cheap speakers for the kicks.

 

you probably dont want to put subs in your sail panels. that would retardedly loud and directly at your ears....just my opinion

 

I always wondered how they would sound.. if they would rattle and vibrate too many things..

Has anyone done this? 8s in the sail panels?

 

I am putting 8's in my sail panel but I think I am doing it a little different than most people would. I am still working on them because I think I am putting in a set of 6.5's and tweeters on them as well. Just dont have the speaker rings all cut out yet.

 

what the hell? i cant even begin to imagine what your doing. but i am damn interested just to see, so post pics as it ocmes along.

 

I see what he is doing. The subs are going to be pointing sideways in the sailpannel towards the driver.

Did you use resin on the sail itself to seal it and then you are going to fiberglass around that?

Where is the sound going to come out? Bass is unidirectional but I think hte speaker has to move into the cabin for it to work....I think. I am very interested to see how this works out though.

EDIT: I looked at the pictures some more...are those going to be firing backwards towards the hatch and be on the inside of the car?

 

The subs will be firing right at the back of the driver and passenger seat. I did use resin on the sail panels to strengthen them up. When I get the 6.5's on the sail panel, they will be firing towards the opposit sides of the car. The drivers side will be firing towards the passenger front seat and the passenger side will be firing towards the drivers front seat.

 

the JL's would probably be your best bet, but the company tends to have some big magnets so im not to sure on how you are going to fit those in the pannels

 

There is plenty of room there for a deep magnet. If there isn't I will just fiberglass the sail pannel and mount it dirrectly to that.

 

I am really curious as to how it will sound, Subbass is one of those things where you have to experiment with placement to get the desired sound you want.

 

From what I remember about the length of sound waves those 8" subs in the B pilars may have a better bass response if turned around and faced backwards. Same concept as why boxes in the hatch can generally put down more SPLs then their counterparts either sitting on the rear shelf facing foreward or setups in the back seats. Sometimes you can really hear the effect if you take your t-tops off (assuming you have them) and the bass gets deeper and sounds better in general.

 

it really depends on the frequency that he is trying to reproduce with them, personally i'd use them as more of a midbass.

 

Yeah, that is true, I was thinking they where going to be used as subwoofers, not for midbass.

 

Well, since my car is in the shop getting the head gaskets replaced I figured I would work on my sail panels a bit. I got the 6.5 speaker rings cut and mounted to the sail panels. I still need to cut out the ones for the tweeters then I can fiberglass the entire thing so I can see how it will look. Here are a few pics of what they look like now with the new speaker rings mounted.

 

Lookn good Gambit69! Cant wait to see the finished product. As for the original question, I'm not sure if you plan to mount these 8" subs flush in the sail panels or not, but I'm thinking the JL Microsubs would be the way to go. Cuz the sub itself is only part of the equation. The other part is the enclosure. The Microsubs are a sub/enclosure combo and they were designed by JL engineers to take up the least ammount of space possible. Unless you are bent on making your own enclosure, this might be a lot easier. Two JL Audio 8W6 v2 Microsubs (its called the 8.1).

 

i put subs in a long time ago it was cool for about 1 weak it just did not sound good to tinie

 

Dayum, I can't wait to see completed pics!

 

Here are some pics of what I have done with it so far.

 

A few more with both speakers in the pod.

 

The last ones with the pod mounted in the car.









I still have to do the other pod and a lot of finishing work on both of them before they will look the way I want them to but at least now you get the picture of what they look like.

 

do they pose a problem being in that high traffic area for rear seat passengers.