I upgraded the stock TL stereo with a 3sixty, a Kicker 5-ch amp, and a 2x10 sub box. I'm not very happy with the sound of the sub - it's kinda "muffled" sounding. It has a fuller low end than I'm used to, but there's no punch to the kick drum in most rock songs I listen to (I've played with the amp crossover, the head unit tone, and the 3sixty EQ without much improvement).

My old Grand AM had a similar Sub and it sounded great.

I'm thinking it could be one of these things:
1- The 3sixty I have is the cheaper one without the wide EQ, so maybe I just don't have the "tweakability" that I need?
2- The trunk lining needs to be removed because it's muffling the low end.
3- The sub box I have is tuned to too low of a frequency.
4- The TL trunk in general has worse sonic characteristics than my old Grand AM.

It's gonna cost some money and time to debug this, so I'm just wondering if someone else had a similar experience with their TL sub upgrade and what they did to solve it.

 

My bass lacked punchiness with two 12W6s in the trunk. It had good low end though.

The only way I was able to solve it was by facing the subs forward toward the rear seat with the subs close to the rear seat and sealing them off from the trunk completely.

Now it has the punchiness of a couple of 10s with the low end of the 12s. Bass is much, much more detailed now. A benefit is it has absolutely no rattles even with it loud enough to flex the roof. I spent a year trying to get rid of all the rattles with no success with them facing rearward.

 

Thanks, but that's not an option for me. My 3sixty and power amp are mounted to the back of my rear seats . At least from your response it sounds like the problem's related to sound dampening, so maybe removing the trunk lining behind the rear deck will help me out.

 

FWIW, I moved these exact same speakers and amps from my GN and they sounded fine in that car facing to the rear. The TL has been a headache trying to get it to sound good.

 

JL Sub + Uncald4's custom fiberglass box FTW. Search if you don't believe me.