Car audio experts... need some sub advice

[CorsePerVita]

So here's the dealio... I want to make as stealthy of a setup as possible in my car. But the problem is... I have limited room. The storage area is quite small, and the reviews I've seen of boxes in there are drowned out far too much.

Some people have done custom sub enclosures that replace the passenger seat in the rear (and I MIGHT be okay with that, on one seat).

Apparently this fits under the seat:
http://www.kenwoodusa.com/Car_Entert...ofers/KSC-SW10

However, I LOVE electronica, dubstep, and the system in my 944 would rattle and shake your kidneys but had nice enough speakers that the entire system was very well balanced and just sounded awesome.

The speakers in the doors and rears I'm installing are JL and sound awesome. However, it lacks a nice sub to really kick.

I did see one setup where someone fabricated a box out of fiberglass that fit flush behind the driver's seat near the back seats, I am somewhat open to this idea but know nothing about making a sub box, and definitely wouldn't know where to start with a fiberglass box.

There is also a box enclosure that takes up the whole rear up by the rear seats, and it's nice, but, you give up the back seat entirely, no one can sit then. Somewhat looks stealthy, isn't too bad.

I sort of like the idea of one of the rear seats being removed and a box in the shape of the seat in it's place, didn't look bad.

the interior is damn near immaculate, no rips or tears, so i want to keep it original, if i remove one of the rear seats it can always be glued back in professionally so that's not really a big deal. I just don't want to cut and entirely bork my interior for a sub.

Ideas?

[CorsePerVita]

Errr i guess this should be in misc projects, brainfart, sorry.

[crenn]

For a custom sound system, I recommend these:

[CorsePerVita]

Hard to beat that at home

[OvRiDe]

I would look at the rear deck or the side panels next to the rear seats. The side panels usually have some airspace hiding in there. You could remove the original panels and create custom boxes using fiberglass. A bit of upholstery work and they could look pretty stock, and you would still have the originals to revert it back later. The rear deck could be a good spot as well, but it might be pretty obvious that they are there so it could be a security issue.

[jdbnsn]

Well, I do have experience with this situation. I used to have a 93' Celica convertible and wanted a bassy system in so I had to compromise. I gave up the trunk and built a box that took up most of it. It was a horizontal box though so I could still use the trunk for smaller things to lay on top of it. It was a mix of fiberglass (which I didn't do myself, I had a friend who did fiberglass do it for me, we have a tutorial by Franklin in the forums if you want to learn). The box's airspace came from the wheel-well where the spare tire was supposed to be, lol, so there is always a compromise, but the airspace came out to just a bit more than the recommended for those subs. Pics below. It actually did sound phenomenal, so facing the subs upward thus far has sounded better than any other arrangement I have tried, I recommend that route if you are giving up space anyway, that way you keep your backseats and your system is invisible. You will lose alot of bass no matter what you do though because of the convertible top, but the fiberglass and wood combination box is really the way to go if you want to make up for it, the combination of flexible fiberglass which worked a little like a passive radiator and the rigid double layered MDF top makes for a perfect enclosure for crisp sounding thunder. Another thing you can consider is high-end treble, separated mid range, and use some fairly small subs that can be mounted in your rear side panels (you will need to build small enclosures for them though, done this too and it works pretty well), I would recommend Morels for the large/mid range, they are power hungry but they are devils. Look into adding an EpiCenter pre-amp to the midrange speakers to fine tune your mids, it is a fantastic device and works wonders. Then, you can skip the subs and use bass shakers instead. In a convertible, since you will lose much of the bass at highers speeds anyway, these make a great space saving solution and actually improve your sound since it's not your ears that make the bass experience anyway these things trick your mind and in the end it ends up sounding just as good. I was surprised actually when I first heard a system that used these, just like any other high bass stereo than boomed along. You mount them under the seats so once again, invisible/concealed and you don't need to give up any room in the car. I would not recommend building a large box in the backseat. For one, your car looks tacky, two you lose seating, three your stuff is right out in the open just begging to be stolen, four your sound sucks because placing subs that close to you always sounds distorted. The bass coming from your stereo has more to do with the enclosure and the room you're in than the actual subs, the resonance from reflecting off surfaces and the flexibility of the enclosure are like a fine tuning mechanism and it's hard enough to get it just right with all that space to work with, but when you eliminate all of it and try to rely just on the subs placed behind your head, you will regret it.

[jdbnsn]

BTW, is that a Porsche?

[BuzzKillington]

Have a center console made and have the sub out the back towards the rear seats?

[CorsePerVita]

THANK YOU for all the advice guys!

I would look at the rear deck or the side panels next to the rear seats. The side panels usually have some airspace hiding in there. You could remove the original panels and create custom boxes using fiberglass. A bit of upholstery work and they could look pretty stock, and you would still have the originals to revert it back later. The rear deck could be a good spot as well, but it might be pretty obvious that they are there so it could be a security issue.

Not sure how much room is in the side panels. I'll take a look and see if there is much. The rear deck is housing my other speakers, but, there is enough room under there I might be able to do something, there is actually decent room under the rear deck. A guy at the local audio shop I get my stuff from said that he's seen people raise the decks on them, the way he explained it sounded kind of ugly and would make it harder to see out the back. But something /under/ it may be an option. I can measure and find out.

Well, I do have experience with this situation. I used to have a 93' Celica convertible and wanted a bassy system in so I had to compromise. I gave up the trunk and built a box that took up most of it. It was a horizontal box though so I could still use the trunk for smaller things to lay on top of it. It was a mix of fiberglass (which I didn't do myself, I had a friend who did fiberglass do it for me, we have a tutorial by Franklin in the forums if you want to learn). The box's airspace came from the wheel-well where the spare tire was supposed to be, lol, so there is always a compromise, but the airspace came out to just a bit more than the recommended for those subs. Pics below. It actually did sound phenomenal, so facing the subs upward thus far has sounded better than any other arrangement I have tried, I recommend that route if you are giving up space anyway, that way you keep your backseats and your system is invisible. You will lose alot of bass no matter what you do though because of the convertible top, but the fiberglass and wood combination box is really the way to go if you want to make up for it, the combination of flexible fiberglass which worked a little like a passive radiator and the rigid double layered MDF top makes for a perfect enclosure for crisp sounding thunder. Another thing you can consider is high-end treble, separated mid range, and use some fairly small subs that can be mounted in your rear side panels (you will need to build small enclosures for them though, done this too and it works pretty well), I would recommend Morels for the large/mid range, they are power hungry but they are devils. Look into adding an EpiCenter pre-amp to the midrange speakers to fine tune your mids, it is a fantastic device and works wonders. Then, you can skip the subs and use bass shakers instead. In a convertible, since you will lose much of the bass at highers speeds anyway, these make a great space saving solution and actually improve your sound since it's not your ears that make the bass experience anyway these things trick your mind and in the end it ends up sounding just as good. I was surprised actually when I first heard a system that used these, just like any other high bass stereo than boomed along. You mount them under the seats so once again, invisible/concealed and you don't need to give up any room in the car. I would not recommend building a large box in the backseat. For one, your car looks tacky, two you lose seating, three your stuff is right out in the open just begging to be stolen, four your sound sucks because placing subs that close to you always sounds distorted. The bass coming from your stereo has more to do with the enclosure and the room you're in than the actual subs, the resonance from reflecting off surfaces and the flexibility of the enclosure are like a fine tuning mechanism and it's hard enough to get it just right with all that space to work with, but when you eliminate all of it and try to rely just on the subs placed behind your head, you will regret it.

I like the idea, your pics are great. I hadn't considered the spare well. In fact, I have yet to see anyone actually make a box in the spare tire well and there IS a good bit of space in there. After looking at your pics if I removed the spare well I might be able to fit something in there. I'll take it out in a little bit and snag some pictures and see if I can get some second opinions. The boxes I saw were small, bulky boxes that were pushed up against the storage area, they didn't really look that great and took up a big bit of space. I think with your idea of the trunk and taking out the spare tire area I could probably still keep some storage space.

I like your bass shaker idea too. That's a good point that most crazy bass is felt and not heard. The other thing is with those I may be able to get away with a SMALL sub and those to compliment it since those appear to be pretty small and easy to hide from looking at them. I had never heard of those before, I'm open to the idea. I'm assuming those would be best mounted under the seats.

BTW, is that a Porsche?

Yes, it's my 82' 911 SC.

Have a center console made and have the sub out the back towards the rear seats?

Do you have an example? Are you talking like a bazooka style? There isn't much space inbetween the seats. I know it looks roomy in the pictures, but once you get in the car and look around it's quite small lol.

[jdbnsn]

Ah, the porche is a rear engine car then right? The spare well in the front. Some cars has the spare under the vehicle and not in the trunk is why I ask, not sure about the porche. I googled it but the results just said "you cannot afford to even look at this car" lol

Anyway, building a box in the spare well will only be useful if you use the fiberglass bass keep in mind. Any square box you try to squeeze in there will not likely sound well due to the corners bouncing off the vehicle when you drive and the box will not have enough contact with the frame of the car. Much of the bass you feel in the car is from the direct conduction of the vibe transmitted through the frame to your car seats. So you want as much of the box's surface area as you can get to be in contact with the frame and tightly fastened or even bolted down if possible. That is where the fiberglass proves most useful and it uses the full volumetric area of the well giving you the deepest bass for your buck out of a wheel well. It's not a difficult as you might think, after seeing it done I though "why in the hell didn't I just learn how to do this? You'll need to first line the well with a plastic sheet so the fiberglass doesn't adhere permanently to your porche and it's another layer of moisture barrier. Then get a big sheet of something cheap like peg-board or masonite and cut a hole in it about the same diameter or slightly smaller than the diameter of the wheel well. That is to make the top mounting rim for the fiberglass since you won't be putting your MDF in until later and your fiber glass won't dry into a nice flat ring at the top on it's own. then line the inner surface with the fiber fabric and mix up your resin and kind of quickly pour and paint it on while in a well ventilated garage and wearing a high quality respirator. once you have the resin thickly painted on the sheet place the MDF ring on the top and with your gloved fingers pry under the edges to press the sheet up against the bottom surface all around the circumference to ensure the fiberglass is tightly sealed against the ring and you won't have an airleak later when it drys. then just leave it alone and let it dry for the time recommended by the resin directions, trunk open in a well ventilated garage. Once it's dry all you have to do is add the MDF top. Add the first layer with the measured sub holes already cut and screw it down tighly to the masonite ring using counter-sunk holes and lots of them with fairly small wood screws. That sheet you see in mine is the first layer and unfortunatly when we did this I didn't take many pics of the whole process but you have several options. We figured out the wiring diagram based on a 4 ohm circuit on Rockford Fosgate's website which has a wiring diagram calculator and I recommend it, great tool. You can choose the desired ohms and it will show you how to wire the subs for that specific loop. we routed the sub holes before mounting it and then wired and fastened the subs in place before adding the next layer. This way we could add the next layer on top with the holes being the same size and the screws could not be accessed without removing the top later making the whole box somewhat theft proof without a lot of time and effort. Then pre-carpet the top layer so you can manage the inner edges of the sub holes more easily and then screw it down tightly to the bottom layer with larger wood screws. Then you are done. You end up with a very clean looking yet concealed and theft resistant whopper of a sub box that sounds amazing and you still have a little room on top for storage if you mount grills over the subs to avoid items rolling on top of the subs damaging them. Good luck with the project and show us pictures if you do this!

Jon