is this crude?

So I have been on the fabrication side of my shop for a few years, during that time I have built a few body kits from fiberglass. Our side of the shop is usually fairly slow due to the smaller city but the stereo side stays pretty active so instead of hiring a new installer they decided I could pull double duty. I know the wiring side and the fabrication side fine but i'm still learning the acoustic side of things so some help here is needed. Its hard to find the exact volume of a box when its an odd fiberglass shape so i'll go by the factory specs for the woofer using packing peanuts and build it a little bigger then that calls for. after installing everything in the car i'll pull the woofers out start screwing wood down inside the box (i always try to have at least part of the box mdf) Untill i get the woofers "tuned in" to the sound i like. My question/ is this just a crude way of going about this? If you saw a nice box and took a woofer out and saw a 2x4 screwed down would you smack the installer upside the head with it??

-------------
Dustin Rockney

Rockstar Autosports

I've heard that another good way to decrease the volume is to take a piece (or multiple pieces) of styrofoam and completely wrap it with electrical tape. This effectively decreases the volume internally, while not adding significant weight.  Of course you would calculate the volume of the styrofoam and subtract that from the internal volume of the box to determine your "effective" volume.

As far as how it looks if the woofer is removed, you might inform the customer of your volume adjustment. I would lead the customer to believe that this is an ingeneous idea (since it is), and that you are actually going the extra step to imrpove the way his/her stereo sounds.

-------------
Team Edge Audio

what is the purpose of the electrical tape?

-------------
Dustin Rockney

Rockstar Autosports

Guessing to keep the styrofoam together...

-------------
M.E.C.P & First-Class
Go slow and drink lots of water...Procrastinators' Unite...Tomorrow!

To seal the styrofoam. Otherwise the styrofoam will not take up the full volume as it is very porous...

-------------
Team Edge Audio

d_rock_81 wrote:

---

So I have been on the fabrication side of my shop for a few years, during that time I have built a few body kits from fiberglass. Our side of the shop is usually fairly slow due to the smaller city but the stereo side stays pretty active so instead of hiring a new installer they decided I could pull double duty. I know the wiring side and the fabrication side fine but i'm still learning the acoustic side of things so some help here is needed. Its hard to find the exact volume of a box when its an odd fiberglass shape so i'll go by the factory specs for the woofer using packing peanuts and build it a little bigger then that calls for. after installing everything in the car i'll pull the woofers out start screwing wood down inside the box (i always try to have at least part of the box mdf) Untill i get the woofers "tuned in" to the sound i like. My question/ is this just a crude way of going about this? If you saw a nice box and took a woofer out and saw a 2x4 screwed down would you smack the installer upside the head with it??

---

i wouldn't care. most people wouldn't even add the volume to get it to sound right.

-------------

As long as it sounds good and looks good once assembled, i don't see the problem.

There's a lot of things that look great once completed, but rag tag once disassembled.

-------------
Look twice, think thrice, 1 splice/ 1 slice!
This is a phrase i came up with and something i will now live by.

2 x 4 s, MDF, or, Styrofoam, is all fine. As long as it takes up volume and is well mounted. Styrofoam by the way is air tight. I have been building subwoofer enclosures for a living for 16 years now. The way that I did things a decade ago and the way that I do them now are often the same, though one thing has definitely changed. I have come to realize that the perceptions of my customers and my competition do amount to something. So if I ever find myself in a situation where something is acoustically and structurally sound but looks out of place I take the time to make it look in place. Duplicolor spray on truck bed coating goes a long way, as well as trimming and mounting your volume compensation blocks properly. Someone will always be able to pick out something about your install and say it isn’t right. Sometimes when you are confident that everything is logical, practical, and functional, you just have to tell the critics to eat your AS_.