I've had the Stealth boxes for the older gen Explorers and they were terrible. They only sound good on low volume. The boxes just didn't have the volume to make decent sound. I know a few people that had fiberglass custom enclosures made and they sounded pretty good. Do they have the volume of the box listed anywhere?
My 1997 Explorer with a Stealthbox was amazing, and I mean really amazing. I had a Nakamichi CD-700 head unit, old-school Phoenix Gold ZX amps, and a Dynaudio 3-way all-active component set up front. That Stealthbox actually did VERY well keeping up with all the other high-end stuff I had. I got compliments on the bass everywhere I went, many from seasoned car audio peeps like me. Also had one in my 2006 Mustang that sounded very decent, same thing with my 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
No, JL Audio was unwilling or unable to give me the box volume. Although they would tell me that the box was custom made for the 10W3v3, which calls for a sealed enclosure at .625 cubic feet. LOL
Here is a quick terst you can do to narrow down the issues. Take your phone (or mp3 ect) and run you phone directly into the amp that poweres to sub with a 1/8th to rca cord. MAKE SURE THE VOLUME IS DOWN ON THE SOURCE!! lol If the amp is full gain it could cause some damage. Try to get a cord long enough to go from the amp to the front seat. This will give you clean signal and you will know if you need to find anout source to tap into. The placement of the sub should be ideal for the driver seat (Bass like to build up in long waves.)
I Will alway try to feed off a full range source, fronts are damn near full range from what I can hear but you would think the sub output would be the best bet. My guess is they have doctored the output to offer a smooth and distortion free factory sub(which are commonly crappy quality) They may have added some sub sonic cut out on the fronts or maybe cut 40hz and below but hopefully not) Has any one confirmed if the feed from the source unit? I would like to feed pre processor but unsure of how the souce is sent to the amp or it may be all in the same unit.
That's actually very good advice, thank you. I'm not sure why I didn't think of that myself.
I can't comment on the quality of the signals from the OEM sub wires I tapped into, other than it's what I've done for many of the vehicles I've owned and I've never been as disappointed as I am with this particular Stealthbox.
Hey Tony407, did you ever figure out your issue?
Sort of. I've always suspected that one of the reason(s) it sounds so awful is that the physical mounting location is pure crap (not to be confused with the placement of the subwoofer driver, which is likely very optimal in my opinion). Even with my DIY mounting hardware upgrade (courtesy of the Stealthbox coming loose while driving around last year) the box isn't solidly attached to the vehicle. I have no doubts it'll stay in place now, but I can easily move the entire enclosure around with my hands (I could do this before as well). I'd say probably about 1/2-inch movement in all directions. AKA wobbly.
So I used a section of a 2x4 to press up against the bottom of the Stealthbox on one side and the lower rear cargo area on the other side. I had to really jam it in there so the box was pressed HARD into the side of the vehicle. And the sound improvement was SUBSTANTIAL. I really don't have anything to compare it to because the box has always sounded that way, but the sound quality was night and day different.
When I called JL Audio back about this revelation they told me I needed to sound dampen the area. So I did. Very meticulously. Absolutely zero change.
Having said all this, I recently decided (after 3 years with this Explorer) that I'm going to invest a ton of money and time into installing a really, really, really good sound system. Just yesterday I took out the third-row seats (never used 'em) and I'll be making a custom-fit sub in the spare tire well/lower cargo area. There appears to be ample room down there and underneath the new floor I'll be making to fit everything I need: amps, battery, sub, sound processor, etc. I'm pretty excited.
Here's what I have planned so far:
Possibly two JL Audio 12W7AE subs.
Audio Control DM-810 processor
Maybe an Audio Control Epicenter
JL Audio HD 1200/1 Amp for the sub(s)
Arc Audio SE 2150 amplifier
Arc Audio SE 4200 amplifer
Dynaudio System 362 (8-inch midwoofers, 3-inch mids, 1-inch tweets) in the front doors (no passive crossovers, all active).
XS XP950 secondary battery
Thanks, everyone for the help!
Tony