I built my original box for my sub to specifications (1.1 cu ft sealed). At certain frequencies the bass drowned out the music (it made your ears feel like they were ringing), and other times it was too quiet. I used a tone generator on a laptop and it seemed to have this "bad" sound from about 30hz to 54hz (I am not sure how accurate that is). I tried putting it in a bigger box (about 2.2 cu ft sealed) and it still had the same problem. Next I tried putting it in the rear deck in place of a storage box. The sound was deeper and more of what I wanted. The only issue I then had was that it caused vibrations in the rear deck, and when turned up too loud it sounded about the same as if you lift a sub a couple inches out of a box while it is playing. I have it now with some foam in between the mount and the rear deck to absorb some of the vibrations, but I don't want it permanently like this.
Is there anything that I can do to get a deeper sound out of the sub? I am not concerned about how loud the sub will get, just the quality and depth of the bass to accent my music. Any help would be appreciated.
first thing to ask is what subs are u using????
next thing is have u considered going vented?????
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there can be only one.......
It's a Cerwin Vega HED 12.2 dvc sub. I know not a lot of people are fans of CV but I don't want to buy another driver. I would be willing to build another box and I would go vented as long as I could figure out the best box size and correct port dimensions to use. I also have all the T/S parameters if they would help.
Use a lot of sound damping material. The rear deck should be covered with it, anyway, whether the sub is mounted to it or not. I would suggest keeping it in the 1 cu ft sealed box and continue working on placement and damping the sheet metal. It's still going to sound like a budget sub (I still use one of those from about 4 or 5 years ago and I think it sounds pretty good), but it shouldn't sound bad...and the car shouldn't be rattling. But at the same time, it's not designed (nor priced) to be a strong contender much below 40 Hz, so keep that in mind as you try to get the most you can out of it.
If yours is just a badly made sub it should be replaced.
Oh yes, and this: keep trying also to reverse polarity to the sub every time you change its position, then give an extended listen while sitting in the driver's seat. It's easiest to reverse polarity at the amp terminals. While you may get deepest response with normal polarity in one position, you may get better response with polarity reversed after moving the box to another location or turning it.
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Build the box so that it performs well in the worst case scenario and, in return, it will reward you at all times.