Hello

I would like to upgrade my sound system. What kind of comparison is there between an cheap 10 inch pioneer sub in a sealed box vs. a 10 inch bazooka bass cannon?

Also what would be better...
1.a ten inch sub in sealed box in trunk
2.a ten inch bazooka bass cannon in trunk
3. two 8 inch bazooka bass cannons behind front seats on floor
4. a combo of 1 and 3
5. two 6x9 three ways behind front seats on floor
6. a combo of 1 and 5 or 2 and 5

Remember... i listen to rock,metal, and country.... no rap or dance music!

thanks so much

Speed

 

no one can give me any feedback on this?

Speed

 

There's not really a whole lot to say.

1.a ten inch sub in sealed box in trunk
Good idea.

2.a ten inch bazooka bass cannon in trunk
Eh. You're going to get pretty peaky output with one of these (little box + port = peaky output).

3. two 8 inch bazooka bass cannons behind front seats on floor
See #2. You're also better stuffing both in the hatch as you will get a lot more cabin gain back there. Moving the sub from the back seat to the hatch will literally gain you a few dB. Also, two 8’s should be as louder than the 10 assuming they’re capable of the same excursion.

4. a combo of 1 and 3
Mix and match = bad. The only exception is if you're using different drivers to play different frequency ranges (ie an 8" woofer to play 50-100 Hz and a 15" woofer to play 50 Hz and down).

5. two 6x9 three ways behind front seats on floor
What's with you and putting stuff on the floor, really? Stick em in the sail panels. Speakers on the floor behind the seats = muffled = impossible to aim right = what's the point especially when you have the stock locations as a better alternative to that? Better than the floor would be screwing boxes down to the top of the hump behind the rear seat.

6. a combo of 1 and 5 or 2 and 5
1 & 5 = not a bad idea if you keep the sub in the hatch and the 6x9s in the sails
2 & 5 = boo, hiss

Remember, this is just my opinion

 

ill help you out. I recently did 3 installs all by myself. First one i had an 8" audiobahn amped tube running 100 watts in my firebird which i stuck in my friends VW passats trunk. Next i did my friends 2 12" cheap visoniks in a sealed box with 100 watts going to each sub in his grand ams trunk. The VW had a high end HU and the GA on had a lower model but good quality. Today i messed with the grand ams and now the 2 12s put out lots of punchy bass and still rattle the seats but the VW's 1 8" puts out lots of bass and shakes the **** out of her car. The 2 12's dont shake as much but the 8 shakes like crazy.

Point being it depends on what HU you have and what youre looking for i find the 8" to sound deeper and louder from the port and the 2 12's sealed to be punchy and slightly loud. Also how much and what kind of bass are you looking for i was happy when i had the 8" in my firebirds well. The hatch effect sets it off nicely and it did move my hair. All on what you like

 

Well it sounds to me like doing one SEALED ten inch box in the trunk is the best thing to do. Or would a 10 inch PORTED box be better?

I have a few questions about this box.

1.How big does it need to be for 1 ten inch
2.should the sub go in the middle of the box or on the side?
3.What is the best 10 inch sub for a fairly cheap price? I know future shop sells 10 inch pioneers for like $75
4. I need new 4x6 for my dash, what would be good for there? Alpine 3 ways [like my sail panels], bazooka, etc?
5.WHAT BRAND SHOULD I GO WITH FOR MY SUB AND MY 4X6s?

Thank you guys so much

Speed

 

I would recommend the 10in ported enclosure in the hatch area, do you have T tops? I would recommend a JL, DD, Resonant Engineering, Diamond, Phoenix Gold Xenon's, or a similar quality sub. I would recommend stepping up to 5.25 speakers in the doors, or the kick panels, those dash location speakers are terrible about imaging (your left ear won't love you anymore). You can usually get good quality merchandise for slightly more than you can get mass produced stuff like Pioneer or Sony but they don't advertise as much so you have to educate yourself on what's quality. I've used a 10in W3 in a 1.5 cubic foot ported enclosure in my hatch area, it fit nice and tight and sounded wonderful getting 300 watts from my Rockford Punch 600.4. Good luck with your setup.

 

yes i do have t tops, and thanks for the info.
Now about the kick panels.. that is is mod i would like to do but i have no clue what must be done. Is there a how to build post here on tgo?

Speed

 

I've had Q Logic kick panels, avoid them like the plauge! Guys on these boards make some nice kicks if you want to go that route, it's not really an amatuer job but there used to be how to write ups on here. I made a pair of MDF panels (3/4) and carpeted them, then screwed them on from the back, here's a pic of what I made; it took maybe 3 hour to complete the pair of them and I'm satisfied with them.

 

thanks for the warning on the q logics ... i was eyeing those in a book i have.

Well first i think ill make my sub upgrade, and then go from there and see where i need to make further additions.

Speed

 

No but there are some links in the fiberglass thread on the top of the page. Jim makes them. Here's a picture of mine (he made them).



Ported = not a great idea because it's hard to acheive enough volume to fit the port (see meanGTA's thread, his bix is going to be huge). Port length is a function of port area and box volume. You can reduce port length by reducing port area or increasing box size. Reducing port area generally creates port noise and increasing box size means a very large box, something that I wouldn't think you would want to do based on your current questions. Ported boxes require fairly exacting math to sound good as well, which means that they must be built very accurately. If this is going to be your first box I defiantly recommend going sealed. It’s a lot easier and will generally sound better than ported anyway.

JL/DD are pretty pricey and again based on your (original poster’s) questions they're probably not right for you. JL is expensive as is DD. RE is a good company to think about (their lower/mid level stuff) as is Elemental Designs. Honestly, if I was buying a sub right now I would probably buy some of the Image Dynamics OEM overstock that's on e-bay right now. Good prices ($85 for a 10"). It’s almost the exact same driver as Elemental Design’s Ov.2 series (Image Dynamics was ED’s buildhouse until they started building stuff themselves). Image Dynamics had some extra stock lying around so they made these. They make a very good speaker and these are an absolute steal at $85 a pop. Image Dynamics is the entity responsible for the auction, not some weird 3rd party so you know they’re authentic.

1 – shoot for around 1.5-2.5 cubes or so. A typical well box will fit your needs nicely

2 – it won’t really matter. The sound waves are too long to be able to tell the difference below 80 Hz, that’s why you can put a subwoofer in a room and won’t be able to locate it by sound.

3 – For your price range I strongly recommend Image Dynamic’s e-bay offering. You will be hard pressed to find subs that compare for three or four times the price. They also fit your price range nicely.

4 – I second the notion for building a strong front stage with a nice component set. You might as well step up to a 6.5” set if you’re going to be building/buying kick panels anyway. Invest all your speaker money here and don’t buy speakers for the back of the car. Better to have one awesome set of speakers than two good sets of speakers.

5 – see #3 and/or my previous quote for the sub as for speakers, you’re really better off auditioning things. Check out the usual Best Buy/Circuit City offerings and your local stereo shop (tweeter, etc) and listen to some of the higher end stuff. Find something you think sounds good and don’t worry about what people have to say about it.
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This is the usual first step and generally speaking a good move. It lets you know what's in store for you in the future and tells you whether or not you're interested in further improvement.

 

I always recommend ported enclosures anymore because modern subwoofers can do very good frequency response in small ported enclosures without the need for massive ports. Download WinISD beta, it's avaliable from Linearteam just do a google search for it, it gives you frequency response graphs, and a port match calculator to prevent port noise. With enclosures, if you're building one for a single sub I always recommend doing a vented setup anymore because of the satisfaction of knowing you did something "hard" and the added output you get from the ported enclosures. However when making a ported box you must follow the "measure twice cut once" rule. Do your homework on this, and you will be extremely satisfied. The Image Dynamics 10's that're overstock on eBay would be an excellent starting points for some world class bass at an unreal price. The recommended 1 cubic foot vented enclosure with a 15in by 3in port won't be extremely hard to build to shape. A local friend of mine built a 1.1 cubic foot vented 10 enclosure for his Mustang, it was the first one he had ever built and it came out excellent. If you do begin working on building a ported enclosure, and in the end you find out you measured wrong, or your enclosure isn't correct, you can always run it as a sealed enclosure. Once again good luck on the build.

 

Been posting with WinISD for a little while

True, you can pull off a ported enclosure with relatively small volume, but for two 10's moving any kind of distance with any kind of power behind them I would recommend larger than 3" for your port. Also, port length becomes a problem. Even a 3" round 15" long port is hard to fit in the well because it needs some space behind it and the well really isn't all that deep.

http://www.icixsound.com/vb/showthread.php?t=23840 for a good discussion on ported/sealed boxes in cars.

Ported is good if you want output. Sealed is better if you want quality. There’s really not much around this unless you were to find out exactly how your car reacts to audio and build a ported box that conforms perfectly to cabin gain. This isn’t the case in a house though, but in cars sealed is generally speaking a better box if you’re interested in SQ.