Need Advice on Sub Enclosure/Location

[rpr]

I just upgraded my stock system, and am considering adding a relatively small sub and enclosure to my '97 XLT. I'm not looking for anything crazy, just some solid support for lower frequency bass to complement my 6.5" components and 6.5" coaxials in the doors.

If I want to syick to the rear storage compartment soi I don't loose any cargo space, what are my options? Does anybody sell sub enclosures "off the shelf" for this application. If so, are they any good?

Alternatively, has anybody "blue-printed" any plans for an enclosure in this location that I could try to build myself?

 

[aldive]

Look at the powered MYX Thunderform made for the rear enclosure.

Good luck.....

 

[Robert]

Q-Logics sells a bolt in box with your choice of an 8" or a 10" subwoofer. The subwoofer isn't included, and the 10" box is about $279 versus $179 for the 8" box. There is another manufacturer of a bolt in box that includes the sub-woofer. It is probably the MTX that Al referred to. Q-Logics is available through www.crutchfield.com. I also think MTX is as well. I have the 8" Q-logics box in mine with a Rockford Fosgate 8" punch and 150W amplifer tied in to my rear speakers. My rear speakers were replaced with Kenwood 5"x7" speakers with a pair of tweeters mounted on the front doors. I kept the factory head unit and CD changer. It is a huge improvement over the original sound. The only problem I am running in to now is the seat belt mechanisms make a bad rattleing sound when the volume gets turned up. I used some tie-wraps around the mechanisms to apply some pressure which helped somewhat. My roof rack has a noticeable rattle when standing outside. I was impressed at how much better the Rocford Punch sounded in my box compared to my original MGT subwoofer that I had in the box.

 

[410Fortune]

Take a look at Boston Acoustics Competitor series woofers. 1-10" woofer will outperform most dual 12" systems. These speakers are designed to use tiny enclosures. I have a single 12" Competitor in my BII, after years of running 2-15"'s or 2-12"'s I finally wanted my cargo space back. I bought a single 2 ohm BA competitior 12" and built a 1.25 square foot enclusure (about 14"x14"x12") and it outperforms my old Soundstream dual 12" subs. I am running 450 watts at 2 ohms to this woofer and the box is simply held in place in my cargo area with a ratchet strap, so I can fold the back seat down and slide it all the way forward, or take it out completely if I need too....

 

[aldive]

Robert,

How do you have the sub and amp wired?

Thanks.....

 

[Robert]

VERY STRANGELY (but hey, it works ). I initially had both factory rear speaker wires tied in to a line level converter and then took the RCA pre-amps out of the line converter and fed an active low-pass crossover. The crossover then went into the RCA inputs on my amplifier which I had bridged to feed my single 8" subwoofer. When that amp died, I replaced it with another amplifier that has 150W RMS when bridged and also has a built in electronic crossover. Since it had the built in crossover and I was having problems with my electronic crossover and line-level converter, it was a good opportunity to get rid of them altogether. My original intentions were then to wire the four rear speaker wires directly in to the speaker inputs on my amplifier. When I did, the power was very low and cut in and out. I thought it had something to do with the connectors I was using so I removed them and soldered directly to the speaker wires. When I did, my output was very low all the time. This was the opposite of what I was expecting. I figured that my connectors weren't making a good connection so when they connected, my output went up to where I expected it. Instead, now that I had a solid connection my output was bad. I started removing the speaker wires where they went in to my amplifier and found that when I removed two wires my output was very high since I didn't back the gain & bass boost from my previous tests.

I can't remember the colors and I meant to take a picture of everything before I put my panel back on but when you're working in a 110F garage, you forget things. What I do remember though is I tied in to one wire from the rear left speaker and one wire from the rear right speaker. I believe it was the two positive wires. They both go to the two positive speaker inputs on my amplifier. I tied in to them right at the connector on the Ford amplifier. The connector was the larger one on the left when looking at the amplifier. One of the wires I am pretty sure I tied in to was a brown wire with a stripe. I can't remember the color of the other wire. It turned out sounding better than I expected it to. Most of it had to do with using the correct sub-woofer for my box. My Q-logics bos requires a driver designed for small sealed enclosures. I had been using a subwoofer that I bought for a different box back about 15 years ago. With my first amplifier it didn't sound too bad. Since the amplifier was as old as my subwoofer was, it died on me forcing me to rethink my system. When I chose my amplifier just out of curiosity I looked at subwoofers. The amplifier I chose had 150 W RMS when bridged, but my original subwoofer had 150W max on the back. The Rockford Fosgate 8" Punch was rated at 150W RMS, had a magnet twice the size of my other one and was recommended for small, sealed enclosures. I tried it out and was amazed at the sound difference. It actuall has a very low, deap sound that works very well. My original setup had more of a pop, thump sound that you could barely feel if the volume was up 3/4 of the way. Now at 1/2 volume my entire inside will thump, enough so that I had to go and find all of the rattles that weren't there before.

The next time I take the panel out, I will try to remember to get pictures and make a note of the two wires I tied in to. Now that I have the worst of the rattles fixed, I hopefully won't be taking it apart any time soon. It sucks doing it in a garage when it is 115 outside

Another thing I remembered. I ran a 10 guage wire directly from the positive battery cable for power. I grounded it to the body with a 6" long 10 guage wire. For the switched power, I used the 12V wire going to the radio. I ran the 12V accessory wire into my center console where I installed a switch so that I could turn off my sub-woofer amplifier whenever I wanted to. I then ran it from there under the carpet to the new amplifier.

 

[erkp6]

Need advice:
I have an '02 Sport. I bought the MTX amplified Thunderform. It came with 2 RCA wires that had pig tails on one end, which I connected to both my rear speaker connectors. The sub works, but doesn't seem to hit when I think it should. It seems like it doesn't hit when drums are played, but does hit when it's more of an electric or sysnthesized bass is played.

There is a blue equalizer wire coming out of the sub's power wire harness. The instructions say that it should be connected to the vehicles equalizer if it has one. Does anyone know what I can do to get the right sound out of my sub? Can I connect this blue wire to one of the wires on the HU wire harness?

Eric

 

[JChrisMarion]

Yes, I did the best I could on the blue print/drawing of my enclosure. I didnt give full specs on for every individual piece due to the fact that common sense will tell you what size it needs to be after you have madethe main 4 pieces. I guess I could break it down more, but anyone should be able to understand dimension drawings with the size labeled.

To help you on your decision for some good clean bass WHILE keeping your cargo space, I have good news!! The chocolate santa (UPS) just delivered my MA Audio 8" sub (MA800XL) and I installed it and hooked it up. I have honestly never been this impressed with a speaker in my life. With all honesty it does sound like two 10's in there. And thats 400w going to it which is the RMS wattage. My buddy cannot believe how good it sounds and loud it is for an 8! He has two JL 12's. I still cant believe this little ******* is an 8 and the pictures of this sub are exact. This sub is big for an 8. Fits perfect, tight and has .4 inchs of pole vent space. And I will say this, the cubic feet of airspace is .4 right now. Optimum per MA Audio for more sound is .83, so I will be getting some polyfill tonight!!

 

[410Fortune]

??? this thread is from 2002 and the last 3 posts seem to be in the wrong places

werd

 

[Dan Whitaker]

At least some one knows how to use the search function

 

[JChrisMarion]

At least some one knows how to use the search function

Exactly! Thats what its there for.