[news.rcn.com]

Question about sub placement in trunk: I have nowhere I can put a sub in the
car. And the gas tank plus tons of fittings preventing me from porting
anything from the trunk to the interior.

What is a trunk subwoofer? Can it be used in any way successfully WITHOUT a
port, in a sealed trunk compartment?

I can easily mount an amp plus sub in the trunk. Will it achieve anything?
Conventional wisdom tells me that low frequencies are omnidirectional and
the fact that it is resounding will produce some effect. Unfortunately
conventional wisdom also tells me that without a port into the interior, it
shouldn't do much.

Which conventional wisdom is right?

[MOSFET]

Subwoofers work surprisingly well in trunks even when the trunk seems sealed
from the rest of the cabin. There's several reasons why this is so. First,
bass is omni-directional so no matter which way the subs are pointed, the
sound travels in every direction.

Second, bass can travel through cardboard, plastic and fabrics with almost
no loss in sound pressure levels. This means the bass will come through the
back seats, no ports are necessary.

Another reasons why the trunk works particularly well for subwoofer
placement has to do with the way bass "loads". If you have a home
subwoofer, you already know that it works best if placed next to a wall, or
better still, in a corner. It is exactly the same in a car. By placing
subwoofers in a corner, you have the least amount of standing waves and
cancellation (BECAUSE low bass is omni-directional, subwoofers can actually
produce bass waves that cancel one another out). This happens the very
least in a corner where the corner sort of acts like a horn (this is not a
very good analogy, but you get the idea) and you will have the least amount
of cancellation. Again, this is also true in a car, so placing a subwoofer
in the trunk with the woofers pointed towards the rear, or best towards the
trunk's rear corner tends to work best.

The only time trunk placement is a bad idea is if you have some type of
structural barrier between the trunk and passenger cabin. Mercedes used to
place fuel tanks between the trunks and passenger cabins. In these cases,
it WAS necessary to port the bass into the passenger cabin. With any other
typical kind of car, however, a port really isn't necessary (because
structurally, the trunk REALLY IS part of the larger passenger cabin, even
if it doesn't appear that way, it is usually just cardboard, plastic and
fabric that separates the two). The bass will find it's way into the
passenger area, no problem.

MOSFET
"news.rcn.com" news.rnc.com wrote in message
...
Question about sub placement in trunk: I have nowhere I can put a sub in
the
car. And the gas tank plus tons of fittings preventing me from porting
anything from the trunk to the interior.

What is a trunk subwoofer? Can it be used in any way successfully WITHOUT
a
port, in a sealed trunk compartment?

I can easily mount an amp plus sub in the trunk. Will it achieve anything?
Conventional wisdom tells me that low frequencies are omnidirectional and
the fact that it is resounding will produce some effect. Unfortunately
conventional wisdom also tells me that without a port into the interior,
it
shouldn't do much.

Which conventional wisdom is right?

[KU40]

The obstructions mosfet was talking about in mercedes have brought in a
number of people to our forum asking for help because their setup isn't
as loud as it should be. unfortunately the only thing we can tell them
is to create some sort of hole on the rear deck, either by taking out
the rear speakers or just taking a sawzall to it and creating your own.
we understand reservations about defacing your car in such a way, but
unfortunately those are about the only options.

one other thing you can do is place the enclosure at the back of the
trunk (nearest the bumper) on the passenger side, and face it into the
corner of the bumper. this is normally the best way to load for the
driver's seat.


--
KU40

[bob wald]

well it really doesn't matter. my sub in my trunk, is rarely in the same
place each time i go to the trunk.
lol.....
i have resently placed some tools by it. it should to in 1 place for
awhile....

[MOSFET]

unfortunately the only thing we can tell them
is to create some sort of hole on the rear deck, either by taking out
the rear speakers or just taking a sawzall to it and creating your own.
we understand reservations about defacing your car in such a way,

What I did was to remove the first-aid kits that sit in the rear deck of
older Mercedes. In it's place, I would create (I did this for three
different Mercedes) a removable speaker grill that would sit in place of the
FA kit. Then I would construct a ported subwoofer enclosure that had the
port aimed up, right below the first aid kit spot (so the bass came through
that grill). This worked pretty well and did the least amount of damage to
the car.

MOSFET

[GregS]

In article , "MOSFET" wrote:
unfortunately the only thing we can tell them
is to create some sort of hole on the rear deck, either by taking out
the rear speakers or just taking a sawzall to it and creating your own.
we understand reservations about defacing your car in such a way,

What I did was to remove the first-aid kits that sit in the rear deck of
older Mercedes. In it's place, I would create (I did this for three
different Mercedes) a removable speaker grill that would sit in place of the
FA kit. Then I would construct a ported subwoofer enclosure that had the
port aimed up, right below the first aid kit spot (so the bass came through
that grill). This worked pretty well and did the least amount of damage to
the car.

MOSFET

Bandpass boxes can have the port extending out of the box, as
well as regular ported boxes. Then the port will be right aimed into
the interior without any gap.

greg

[news.rcn.com]

"MOSFET" wrote in message
m...
Subwoofers work surprisingly well in trunks even when the trunk seems
sealed
from the rest of the cabin. There's several reasons why this is so.
First,
bass is omni-directional so no matter which way the subs are pointed, the
sound travels in every direction.

Second, bass can travel through cardboard, plastic and fabrics with almost
no loss in sound pressure levels. This means the bass will come through
the
back seats, no ports are necessary.

Another reasons why the trunk works particularly well for subwoofer
placement has to do with the way bass "loads". If you have a home
subwoofer, you already know that it works best if placed next to a wall,
or
better still, in a corner. It is exactly the same in a car. By placing
subwoofers in a corner, you have the least amount of standing waves and
cancellation (BECAUSE low bass is omni-directional, subwoofers can
actually
produce bass waves that cancel one another out). This happens the very
least in a corner where the corner sort of acts like a horn (this is not a
very good analogy, but you get the idea) and you will have the least
amount
of cancellation. Again, this is also true in a car, so placing a
subwoofer
in the trunk with the woofers pointed towards the rear, or best towards
the
trunk's rear corner tends to work best.

The only time trunk placement is a bad idea is if you have some type of
structural barrier between the trunk and passenger cabin. Mercedes used
to
place fuel tanks between the trunks and passenger cabins. In these cases,
it WAS necessary to port the bass into the passenger cabin. With any
other
typical kind of car, however, a port really isn't necessary (because
structurally, the trunk REALLY IS part of the larger passenger cabin, even
if it doesn't appear that way, it is usually just cardboard, plastic and
fabric that separates the two). The bass will find it's way into the
passenger area, no problem.


Yes, but you didn't really answer my question , you just repeated it: This
is a 1984 Silver Spur with endless amounts of gas tanks, suspension parts in
sealed compartments, bulkheads, padding, double bulkheads, seatbelt
anchors in their own sealed compartments, carpeting covering all this up etc
separating the boot compartment from the passenger cabin. There is
absolutely no question of there being any easy-to-port "cardboard, plastic
or fabric"

How much bass thump is actually going to get through all of this or is it
all going to be a matter of turning up the volume and hoping that some bass
penetrates all of this (I concede that a lot will presumably go straight out
of the lid)? Is this what the volume control on the bass part of the amp is
supposed to be for or am I kidding myself? I DO have a Sony XM752X which
puts out a whopping 75 watts, only a tiny amount of which will need to pass
through to the (unknown qualtity) mid range and tweeters in the passenger
compartment. Has anyone any experience of putting subs in a boot with NO
port and adjusting the bass volume control?

(There doesn't SEEM to be any n/g where Spur users exchange experiences with
playing around either with their cars or with installing stereos in them)

I did have a low flat sub made by a company called AudioTop which would sit
under the seat but someone lost it for me and I cant find ANY such sub to
replace it at the moment. I contacted the company in Italy and they seem to
be saying they dont make it any more.

Does ANYONE make anything like this?





MOSFET
"news.rcn.com" news.rnc.com wrote in message
...
Question about sub placement in trunk: I have nowhere I can put a sub in
the
car. And the gas tank plus tons of fittings preventing me from porting
anything from the trunk to the interior.

What is a trunk subwoofer? Can it be used in any way successfully WITHOUT
a
port, in a sealed trunk compartment?

I can easily mount an amp plus sub in the trunk. Will it achieve
anything?
Conventional wisdom tells me that low frequencies are omnidirectional and
the fact that it is resounding will produce some effect. Unfortunately
conventional wisdom also tells me that without a port into the interior,
it
shouldn't do much.

Which conventional wisdom is right?

[MOSFET]

Yes, but you didn't really answer my question , you just repeated it: This
is a 1984 Silver Spur with endless amounts of gas tanks, suspension parts
in
sealed compartments, bulkheads, padding, double bulkheads, seatbelt
anchors in their own sealed compartments, carpeting covering all this up
etc

First, in your original post you didn't state what type of car you had AND
you had asked the question "what is a trunk subwoofer?", so I thought some
"Bass 101" fundamentals were needed (that's a pretty basic question, not
that there's anything wrong with basic questions).

I have never worked on a Silver Spur so I can give you no specifics, but
everything I said in my first post IS RELEVANT TO ALL CARS, INCLUDING YOURS.

Again, if there is a structural barrier between the trunk and passenger
cabin (like a gas tank or sheet metal), then some type of porting between
the trunk and passenger cabin will need to be engineered as I mentioned
doing with Mercedes in the past.

Beyond that, I don't know what else to tell you.

MOSFET

[MOSFET]

Bandpass boxes can have the port extending out of the box, as
well as regular ported boxes. Then the port will be right aimed into
the interior without any gap.

greg

Yes, that truly would be the very best set-up. That way, you would have no
bass (theoretically) getting into the trunk, it would all come out that one
port right into the passenger cabin. I never tried this as I was not adept
at building bandpass boxes (for me they were tricky beasts to make sound
right), but this TRULY would have been the best solution.

MOSFET

[Dark1]

"news.rcn.com" news.rnc.com wrote in message
...

"MOSFET" wrote in message
m...
Subwoofers work surprisingly well in trunks even when the trunk seems
sealed
from the rest of the cabin. There's several reasons why this is so.
First,
bass is omni-directional so no matter which way the subs are pointed, the
sound travels in every direction.

Second, bass can travel through cardboard, plastic and fabrics with
almost
no loss in sound pressure levels. This means the bass will come through
the
back seats, no ports are necessary.

Another reasons why the trunk works particularly well for subwoofer
placement has to do with the way bass "loads". If you have a home
subwoofer, you already know that it works best if placed next to a wall,
or
better still, in a corner. It is exactly the same in a car. By placing
subwoofers in a corner, you have the least amount of standing waves and
cancellation (BECAUSE low bass is omni-directional, subwoofers can
actually
produce bass waves that cancel one another out). This happens the very
least in a corner where the corner sort of acts like a horn (this is not
a
very good analogy, but you get the idea) and you will have the least
amount
of cancellation. Again, this is also true in a car, so placing a
subwoofer
in the trunk with the woofers pointed towards the rear, or best towards
the
trunk's rear corner tends to work best.

The only time trunk placement is a bad idea is if you have some type of
structural barrier between the trunk and passenger cabin. Mercedes used
to
place fuel tanks between the trunks and passenger cabins. In these
cases,
it WAS necessary to port the bass into the passenger cabin. With any
other
typical kind of car, however, a port really isn't necessary (because
structurally, the trunk REALLY IS part of the larger passenger cabin,
even
if it doesn't appear that way, it is usually just cardboard, plastic and
fabric that separates the two). The bass will find it's way into the
passenger area, no problem.


Yes, but you didn't really answer my question , you just repeated it: This
is a 1984 Silver Spur with endless amounts of gas tanks, suspension parts
in
sealed compartments, bulkheads, padding, double bulkheads, seatbelt
anchors in their own sealed compartments, carpeting covering all this up
etc
separating the boot compartment from the passenger cabin. There is
absolutely no question of there being any easy-to-port "cardboard, plastic
or fabric"

How much bass thump is actually going to get through all of this or is it
all going to be a matter of turning up the volume and hoping that some
bass
penetrates all of this (I concede that a lot will presumably go straight
out
of the lid)? Is this what the volume control on the bass part of the amp
is
supposed to be for or am I kidding myself? I DO have a Sony XM752X which
puts out a whopping 75 watts, only a tiny amount of which will need to
pass
through to the (unknown qualtity) mid range and tweeters in the passenger
compartment. Has anyone any experience of putting subs in a boot with NO
port and adjusting the bass volume control?

(There doesn't SEEM to be any n/g where Spur users exchange experiences
with
playing around either with their cars or with installing stereos in them)

I did have a low flat sub made by a company called AudioTop which would
sit under the seat but someone lost it for me and I cant find ANY such sub
to replace it at the moment. I contacted the company in Italy and they
seem to be saying they dont make it any more.

Does ANYONE make anything like this?





MOSFET
"news.rcn.com" news.rnc.com wrote in message
...
Question about sub placement in trunk: I have nowhere I can put a sub in
the
car. And the gas tank plus tons of fittings preventing me from porting
anything from the trunk to the interior.

What is a trunk subwoofer? Can it be used in any way successfully
WITHOUT
a
port, in a sealed trunk compartment?

I can easily mount an amp plus sub in the trunk. Will it achieve
anything?
Conventional wisdom tells me that low frequencies are omnidirectional
and
the fact that it is resounding will produce some effect. Unfortunately
conventional wisdom also tells me that without a port into the interior,
it
shouldn't do much.

Which conventional wisdom is right?




http://www.phase-linear.de/produkte.asp?p=subwoofer&grp=6&ser=44&view=serie&l ang=EN

[news.rcn.com]

http://www.phase-linear.de/produkte.asp?p=subwoofer&grp=6&ser=44&view=serie&l ang=EN
No, unless i am looking in the wrong place there is nothing there which
would go under the seat in my car (or on the floor behind the seat) where
there is a relatively small amount of space