mfg enclousure recommendations
Printed From: the12volt.com
Forum Name: Car Audio
Forum Discription: Car Stereos, Amplifiers, Crossovers, Processors, Speakers, Subwoofers, etc.
URL: https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp?tid=119572
Printed Date: April 28, 2024 at 7:26 AM
Topic: mfg enclousure recommendations
Posted By: budumbudum
Subject: mfg enclousure recommendations
Date Posted: January 23, 2010 at 6:49 PM
Hi, I have a Phoenix gold rsd10. This is in a tight space (350z roadster) in a sealed mdf box. The manufacture calls out a .5cu ft. SQ and .3 cu ft SPL. I had a sub box made before by a professional and when I checked the size today it was about 1.0 Cu ft. This is the max size you could possibly fit in the space and double the mfg recomendation. I did notice at higher power levels and music with very deep bass it sounded like it was distorting or breaking up. For most Rock and Roll it was fine. I bought a second sub and will be making two of my own boxes including repositioning the direction the subs so they fire into the cabin vs hidin behind all the plastic and metal covering. These are each powered by Phoenix gold 300.1 mono amps. Should I build the box as close as possible to the Mfg .5 cuft SQ to get the best quality all round sound? The previous builder's size was 2x the mfg recommendation. Is this bad? How far can you go safely above the mfg recommendation and still have good sound quality in a sealed box? I prefer quality over loudness but want both :). Thanks
Replies:
Posted By: incognyto
Date Posted: January 23, 2010 at 8:16 PM
I only did a quick search did you car have a stock bose sub-woofer?? and you had that one removed?? also if you stick with the manufacture's spec's or anywhere in between the two that you said (.5 or .3)it will sound awesome. I prefer bigger box's they seem to hit a bit lower, but could be a placebo of of some sort, I would say just build them as small as possible just because of the lack of space you would have, (if I found the right car) it may give you more space to place amp's and such. the one site i found the guy had put the amp into the stock sub box because there was no other place to put it. which will obviously lead to heat issues if you pound the sub's long and hard.
Posted By: budumbudum
Date Posted: January 23, 2010 at 8:47 PM
Hi Thanks for the response. Yes the Z had a bose speaker stock and no enclousre at all. see attached pics (if this works) on the parts i took out today. The amps are in the trunk on a nice clean amp rack. [IMG]https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Smasher350z/002.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Smasher350z/003.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Smasher350z/004-1.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Smasher350z/005.jpg[/IMG]
Posted By: budumbudum
Date Posted: January 23, 2010 at 8:51 PM
Well it looks like I cant add pics, and I dont have any small files so try this link if you want to see the pics. https://guelphracing.com/cgi/forum/GRforums/upload/showthread.php?p=10723#post10723
Posted By: incognyto
Date Posted: January 24, 2010 at 1:01 AM
fantastic!! glad to see someone cutting and slashing on such a nice car!! the stock sub is free-air, which usually seem to be not quite that good, otherwise everyone would do it. 2 10's are better than 1 for sure, i'm partial to 12's or bigger, just got 15" alpines in the trunk of a civic :)
keep up the good work it look's like you have it under control!! that box look's huge too! maybe even bigger than 1 foot cubed?? also if that box fits keep it. my first system was a pawn shop slap together in a big ol 1980 malibu. 2 different 12's 2 different amps powering each. box's were different sizes. sounded better than a couple buddy's system's with huge money in them. maybe just build the second box for the passenger side and your off to the races!!
Posted By: incognyto
Date Posted: January 24, 2010 at 1:02 AM
you definatly don't need box sub box's to be exactly the same size... not sure what it would do to the system, but i'm sure even the most trained ear wouldn't be able to tell one box is .5 of a foot bigger!! :)
Posted By: budumbudum
Date Posted: January 24, 2010 at 6:19 PM
Thanks again incognyto So today I started out to build the front plate of the sub box. It started out fine and then ended up later with about 3 hours of thinking what to do next. The front plate will act as a flange and the box itself will be smaller behind it so it can go through the smaller rectangular openings. Well as it turns out it is not that simple. The hole height after you take into account the 5/8 mdf to build the box is only 6 7/8 across and the speaker hole needs to be 9 1/4 for these 10's. Of course the speaker tapers down but not enough to fit into the 6 7/8 opening until about 2 1/4 inches above the top plate. This is hard to describe in words but i hope you can get my drift. The only way i see around this without cutting into metal is to build 3 each 3/4 mdf rings to go on top of the front plate so the speaker has enough room to fit. I am concerend on how to make this look good when complete because the speaker will be sitting 2 1/4 inches higher than the main plate. It is sounding like fibre glass, resin and fleece is a definet. Do you think the sound will be hampered with the space the speaker fits into tapering down to ~ 6 7/8 on the height side (width is fine) before it opens up to the full enclousure. I might just have to try it but was wondering if anyone else ran into this type of thing. Thanks
Posted By: budumbudum
Date Posted: January 24, 2010 at 6:28 PM
Oh and I am keeping the original box just in case this does not work out well. I could make a second similar box for the second speaker but my whole intention was to have these speakers exposed look good and fire into the back of my mesh seats. Yes the ZRoadster has Mesh seats in the middle to help keep you cool on a hot day with the top down so its like a back massage LOL.
Posted By: incognyto
Date Posted: January 25, 2010 at 11:23 AM
man that sounds fun to ride around in!! i know what you mean though the speaker will have to sit quite a way's outside the hole, with spacers so it won't look good. possible that that entire glove box can be taken out without it lookin like poo?? also I've searched a bit but I think that most of the 350z's I'm finding are the coupes not the convertables, where guy's are putting 3 12's firing back or upwards into the glass. there has to be someone out there such as yourself that isn't impressed with the stock 10 and want's 2!! thorough searching may result in something you haven't found :)
Posted By: KPierson
Date Posted: January 25, 2010 at 12:24 PM
I like to stay within 10% of the manufactures recomendations. For a 0.5cuft box that means 0.05cuft! Of course you also have to factor in displacement of the sub so that will add a small amount to the 0.5cuft. The right sub in the right box will sound much better then the right sub in the wrong box so I would expect noticably better results with the correct enclosure. ------------- Kevin Pierson
Posted By: budumbudum
Date Posted: January 25, 2010 at 8:33 PM
incognyto wrote:
man that sounds fun to ride around in!! i know what you mean though the speaker will have to sit quite a way's outside the hole, with spacers so it won't look good. possible that that entire glove box can be taken out without it lookin like poo?? also I've searched a bit but I think that most of the 350z's I'm finding are the coupes not the convertables, where guy's are putting 3 12's firing back or upwards into the glass. there has to be someone out there such as yourself that isn't impressed with the stock 10 and want's 2!! thorough searching may result in something you haven't found :)
Yes you got my point exactly about the spacers. I have seen some pics of other Z Roadsters with two subs behind the seats but i am not sure if they built a sealed box to the right spec behind or just slaped it on with a nice face plate to look good. I think one guy fibreglasssed the interior space but it would be extreamly hard to judge the cubic area not to mention the difficulty of making sure its air tight. I didnt want to start cutting metal on this car but it would make the job easier for sure. I have the complete glove box out and the max space i have to pass a finished box though is 18"x8". I wont need to go 18 wide to get the .5cu ft area, maybe only 16" as I have about 10" depth as well before i hit more brackets that would have to be cut out.
Posted By: budumbudum
Date Posted: January 25, 2010 at 8:41 PM
KPierson wrote:
I like to stay within 10% of the manufactures recomendations. For a 0.5cuft box that means 0.05cuft! Of course you also have to factor in displacement of the sub so that will add a small amount to the 0.5cuft. The right sub in the right box will sound much better then the right sub in the wrong box so I would expect noticably better results with the correct enclosure.
Thanks I will stay withing the 10% as best as possible. Dont know why the first box was made about 1cu ft inside though when the mgh spec reads 0.5 cu ft.
Posted By: budumbudum
Date Posted: January 25, 2010 at 8:48 PM
You know as I was typing I was thinking about the narrow space i have to work with. 4ea ~6 3/4 subs instead of 2ea 10" would have fit so much easier except that I would have to buy those and i'm not sure if i would get the same end results for sound and quality in a car.
Posted By: incognyto
Date Posted: January 25, 2010 at 10:24 PM
another thing is you may be able to get something bigger than 8x18 in there if you pull the seat's out. it's unbelievably easy to pull seat's out usually. my air bag light is on now though haha, I put my amp's under my front seats, I think trying to stay withing 0.05 of a cubic foot is a little anal I think anything close is fine. any chance you can uplaod some pics of the glove box ripped out??
Posted By: j.reed
Date Posted: January 25, 2010 at 11:34 PM
incognyto wrote:
another thing is you may be able to get something bigger than 8x18 in there if you pull the seat's out. it's unbelievably easy to pull seat's out usually. my air bag light is on now though haha, I put my amp's under my front seats, I think trying to stay withing 0.05 of a cubic foot is a little anal I think anything close is fine. any chance you can uplaod some pics of the glove box ripped out??
Nothing anal about that. Staying within 10% is a standard for me and any other respectable box builder. To put it into prospective. His .5 Recommended is 50% larger at the 1.0cu.ft. With what your saying. If i used a 1.5cu.ft. recommended enclosure and made it 3.0cu.ft. it would be fine and not going to make a difference. I think not. .5 may not seem like much, but with the parameters of that sub it is a huge difference. ------------- 
Posted By: blackcivichatch
Date Posted: January 25, 2010 at 11:44 PM
j.reed wrote:
Nothing anal about that. Staying within 10% is a standard for me and any other respectable box builder. To put it into prospective. His .5 Recommended is 50% larger at the 1.0cu.ft. With what your saying. If i used a 1.5cu.ft. recommended enclosure and made it 3.0cu.ft. it would be fine and not going to make a difference. I think not. .5 may not seem like much, but with the parameters of that sub it is a huge difference.
I second that.
10% error is FAR from anal....
------------- UNLABELED Custom Car Club President
Posted By: incognyto
Date Posted: January 26, 2010 at 12:04 AM
Sorry anal was most definatly the wrong word and I do actually agree with the 10 percent rule, I just thought of .05 of a foot to be trivial but 10% is actually 86.4 cubic inches it seems bigger that way hehe again no offense intended. :)
Posted By: budumbudum
Date Posted: January 26, 2010 at 7:24 PM
I made some good progress today. It turns out i dont need three rings to make the speaker fit. After I cut the base plate to size and made the top ring the speaker fell right in like a glove. :), So instead of a ring I decided to just make a second full panel with the only diff being the size of the holes in each. The box is wedge shaped and follows the 2nd wedge caculator. I will be making it as follows, Width =15", Height 1=13", Height 2 =10", Depth = 8" thickness =.75 Total cu ft = 0.5078 The only part I don't have caclulated is the 2 hole's that are approx 9" round each less the space the speaker takes up. So over all I think it sould be pretty darn close to the mfg spec of 0.5 cu ft. The manufacture says to use between 1-3" of that speaker baffel stuff. What is amount better and should I line all 5 sides of the box equally? ( the previous box only have one thin layer and on the bottom opposite the speaker) Can I use that white stuff they use to make furniture as i have a little? Sorry if this info is on here somewhere already. I would post some pics but i think I need to be a Silver or gold member?
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