door panel sound

The literal term is infinite baffle...a "free air" technically would produce no low end at all..but I know both terms are used to describe the same thing.(althought incorectly) .I do it myself all the time.

But regardless, most car speakers (not subs) are designed for an infinite baffle which basically means that as long as the front sound wave from the speaker is not meeting with the rear wave ("cancellation") it will produce low response well with alot or an "infinite" amount of airspace. This is not to say it won't work in an enclosure per say..but if you are having "sound" problems with the speaker it is most likely the enclosure.

what I would do is experiment..either making the enclosure larger if possibe..or removing the back of it allowing the speaker to "breath" so to speak. It can't hurt. also as mentioned make sure the door panel is not resonating...dynamat or any good sound deadner designed for car audio strategically placed will greatly reduce or eliminate resonance and other rattles and help keep out some road noise as an added bonus.

Good Luck

As far as putting them in kick pods with an open back..kind of the same thing..you might need to experiment until it sounds the best to you by ear. If the pods can be mounted in a way that can limit cancellation, it should sound fine open back and have enough low end response. I tend to seal kick pods but I make them pretty large and usually use them in tandem with a properly enclosed mid bass.

The real benifit you will realize in the kicks vs. the door is the placement is far superior for sound quality overall. Think about what a sound stage is. In a perfect world you want it right in front of you..like the hood of the vehicle is actually the illusion of a "stage". Now speakers in the doors generally point to your legs..not really condusive to a good stage considering how directional the upper frequncies are.

Now imaging as well is improved with kicks. This simply has to do with the physical distance between the left and right speaker from the listeners ears. In other words although you will not be in the center of the speakers for the best stereo effect in either case..having them low in the kicks and firing up puts the listeners closer to equidistant from left and right then a door, dash or pillar location ever could...simply put. and a simple time delay is not the answer because if you were to delay the right speaker for example so the sound hits the same time as the left....the effect would be worse for any listener on the right.