Ask Us About Car Audio, Part 4: Gasp Harder

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > Ask Us About Car Audio, Part 4: Gasp Harder

Reggie Died: Mar 24, 2004

I've got a sealed enclosure I built awhile ago. I pulled it this weekend to re-finish it, since it's a solid 3 years old, has more blemishes than solid paint, and want to finally re-do my cable and amp set up.

I noticed that, while there is significant resistance when pushing the cone in, I hear air escaping through the binding posts. Is this a concern? FWIW I think the sub sounds fine (CSS SDX10 in a .9cf enclosure), but it's audio so.....you can always do better.

Also, any opinions on Kenwood 952? I love my Alpine 9886, but the Ipod control no longer works, and I'm tired of making calls while driving with my iPhone mic and ear buds. It seems to be the cheapest BT headset with two, clean lines of text (why Alpine abandoned that on ALL their HU's I'll never know).

# ¿ Feb 4, 2013 00:52

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 16, 2024 20:46

Reggie Died: Mar 24, 2004

Lowclock posted:

Not really a concern, but if you want to fix it, fill cavities with a mixture of sawdust and wood glue and then paint over that and all the seams with fiberglass resin and some strips of nice heavy mat.

If you want to just build a new box, I highly recommend this one.

The inside corners were all caulked with silicone 2 when I built it. I ended up using bonds on the outside seams, but that was more for aesthetics and not for sealing purposes.

The only air escaping is happening at the binding posts. I have a recessed binding post box cut into the side of the enclosure, fully sealed around the perimeter. But where the posts themselves are leaking.....not sure there's much I can do but I've never read anything regarding that so was wondering ifits irrelevant (and a common issue).

As for the box....why exactly would you recommend that? It's vented (mines sealed) and vented boxes need to be designed around the sub. My sub would want a vented enclosure around 1.8cf, tunes to 24.5 (not even sure what the link you provided was tuned too). I eat to try vented eventually, but designing one seems daunting.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2013 18:33

Reggie Died: Mar 24, 2004

Lowclock posted:

Yeah I wouldn't really worry about the leak if it's that tiny. I've even heard that a little leaking is a good thing, but I don't really build sealed boxes unless I have to.

I'm just not a big fan of sealed boxes. They were a great crutch back in like the 80's when there weren't really many specialized subwoofers, and the ones that did exist were garbage by today's standards. Now we have subs with long gaps, huge excursions, big cooled voice coils, better suspension, and nicer electrical characteristics, and we don't really need any of the stuff that sealed boxes were good for anymore in the first place, except maybe for the fact you can do really tiny enclosures.

I guess they do sound a little different, but unless you're trying to impress an RTA, I personally like the sound of a good ported box more. They're louder, more efficient, have better power handling, still sound great if you do it right, they're just bigger than sealed boxes.

Just ignore the manufacturer's recommendations, even if just for that fact that those are for boxes in a house and not a car. They're an OK place to start, but just because they recommend it doesn't mean it's the best or necessarily any good or even been built outside of a simulator. 24.5 is tuned pretty low and wasting a bunch of energy for something that is in maybe 1% of all songs for any length of time. I went through my whole music collection of like 5000 songs took the one with the lowest bassline I could find and threw it in an audio editor and measured the period. 34hz. There was someone earlier in the thread who mentioned tuning to like 15hz or something silly for playing movies, which I guess is okay if you prefer earthquakes over music, but otherwise there's no point.

Pre-fab boxes aren't inherently wrong because of the fact they weren't designed your particular woofer, but because they are poorly designed to begin with. They do weird poo poo like make 2.4 cuft each of airspace for a 2 woofer ported box tuned to 35 hz or something which is fine, but they do it with a single slot port right in the center that's barely an inch wide siamesed between both parts of the box across the back wall with not even some deflection. This works fine in a simulator or in outerspace with 2 speakers playing the exact same amplitude at the same time, but we're working in a car. Even pre-fab sealed boxes end up crappy because they do stuff like glue the carpet into the seams to save time, and probably neither of them will have the correct cutout diameter for your sub, usually being too big so you end up with screws barely into the edge of the lovely particle board.

Technically the thing I linked is a pre-fab because it's not made specifically for your application, but it works very well on anything without a really tiny or huge Vas or Fs. It has just the right amount of port area and volume per box volume with great geometry that actually works in a car and real life with music.

Sorry for the wall of text.
tldr: Still build that box.

Your spot on in the fact that my sub (I think) is intended for HT use, and as such there "suggested design" is most likely meant for HT. That being said, I followed their recommended sealed enclosure to the T and really like the sound.

I went sealed because a)easy to build and b)take up much less room in my extended cab. However, I've always wanted to try a ported, especially since I recently searched some reviews for my woofer and a few people mentioned it sounded great sealed but even better ported. (audio is the WORST when it comes to upgrading/the search for better sound)

I was always hesitant in building ported due to the design aspect...I need X amount of cu, than add a port....but then I need to subtract the internal port structure from my cu...than does the port count towards cu or not....and than I get confused and go back to sealed.

I think I'll try your build just for the hell of it. I'm a carpenter so they are pretty simple to bang off, and there's always tons of 3/4, 1" and 1"1/4 MDF lying around job sites. I guess I know what I'm doing this weekend.

Sidenote: what constitutes a "tiny or huge Vas or FS"? I ask because despite only being a 10", the SDX10 is quite beefy, with a Vas of 53 and Fs of 26. I don't pretend to fully understand those numbers or their ramifications, which is why I'm asking.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2013 02:17

Reggie Died: Mar 24, 2004

I just installed a new headunit, and realized that during my previous install I labelled all my speaker wires and RCA cables. I'm so happy we my 5-years-ago self.

Protip; label your wires!

# ¿ Mar 17, 2013 22:02

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > Ask Us About Car Audio, Part 4: Gasp Harder