Hey guys!

I am looking to possibly put an aftermarket sub in my car. I have never really been into the mobile audio scene. Just Home Audio. Anyways looking to possibly put a small sub in my tl sh. I would like to retain as much trunk space as possible. Who makes good subs these days? I want real clean & tight bass. I am not looking to rattle the shit out of my car just give a little extra punch. Musical taste is all over the board. Listen to everything from blues,rock,pop, big band, and rap. Does JL Audio still make good subs? I was thinking about putting a single 10 inch w6v3. What is a sufficient mono amp for this? Will I need a cap?

Thanks in advance.....

 

10" w6 would be great in a ported box....lose trunk space.

I would look at Fi audio. They only make subs. Either go with an SQ sub in a sealed box (less space/less SPL) or an Infinite Baffle(IB). Those are great if you get the trunk air tight. No box required.

Email those guys; they are handmade to your specs here in USA (cheaper price and better quality than JL's).

 

The 10w6v3 is a excellent sub, I have the 12w6v3 myself. Whats your total budget with amp and will you be upgrading speakers down the road?

 

I would recommend the sealed enclosure for a good 10" or 12" sub:

 

I would be sticking with factory interior speakers. My total budget would be about 1700. So is a Cap a necessity? where are you guys mounting your amps? I really like the looks of the uncald4 box... Can you guys post some pics of your setups??? Thanks in advance!

 

Ported custom box


4.5" midrange and 1" tweeter


7" midbass


3 way; active. No rear speakers.

 

Dont waste your money on a cap. I never run those.

Do get the Big 3 upgrade and a deep cycle battery.

Those enclosures "look" cool, but they need to be made to the specs and frequency of your subwoofer. My buddy can make those for half the price, but I think fiberglass enclosures sound muffled.

Which ever route you go.... speaker placement and sound deadening is where you go from "good" to "great". Invest in a good DSP too. That will take your TL to the next level.

 

If you want to retain 95% of your trunk space even with a pair of 15s and have amazing sound quality and great efficiency, infinite baffle is the way to go. In fact, after running several sealed, ported, bandpass, and IB setups I will never run an enclosure again.

Acoustic Elegance makes the IB15 which is one of the best sound quality subs on the market and they're only $200. A single 15 will give decent output but a pair will offer more output, higher efficiency, and less distortion.

They have incredibly low inductance (.163 mh),they have a very light moving mass (152g), lighter than a lot of 10" subs. They have good excursion at 19mm linear throw and 25mm one way total throw. Efficiency is very good at 91db 1w/1m.

What this means is you get incredibly quick, tight bass that sounds extremely good on rock. My friend describes mine as sounding like I have a pair of high end 10s on rock with its punchiness and detail yet they will play flat down to 18hz. They handle rap easily and if you listen to music that goes truly low like some pipe organ they will go down to the limit of human hearing with a sense of energy in the air that you can barely hear but you can feel. They will get low unlike any other yet they are detailed and gentle when they need to be. They play every type of music equally well.

I believe IB to be the best route for SQ oriented car audio. Output potential is the same as sealed but you will have a flatter response, and require half or less the power for the same output down low. I'm running my 15s off of 250w each and they will get painfully loud if you want them to. If you run them off of a good class D amp, current draw will be minimal.

Just keep in mind, all else being equal in speakers, bigger is better. You have more output, higher efficiency, lower distortion, more linear at a given output, lower resonant frequency and the old myth about smaller subs being quicker and tighter is just that, a myth.

The W3, W6, and W7 subs also sound extremely good in this infinite baffle configuration. I might be going back to a pair of 13W7s just for fun. Mine is a sound quality setup, it's not meant for high spl but I can have a little fun with it if I want. One last thing that is commonly mistaken, the W6 is not their best SQ sub, the W7 is. People have this belief that the W7 is for spl and the W6 for SQ. The W7 is their best sounding sub and superior in every way when put into an SQ enclosure and it has the most output. The W6 is for those that can't afford the W7 or don't need it's output.

 

I would be lying if I knew or understood what Infinite Baffle is.... You do have my attention though. Can you please explain further? As previously stated I am not looking to rattle the shit out of my car. I just want crisp, clean bass, nothing to crazy just something that can handle the lower frequencies with class . My experience with mobile audio is VERY limited. Home theater has always been my thing. Thanks again for the input thus far. Looking forward to the education.

 

Also can you post pictures of your setup??? Thanks!

 

My host went down and took all of my pictures with it but there is one guy with an almost identical setup as me and several others with different subs in an IB setup. I'll dig those pictures up as soon as I get out of my meeting.

Infinite baffle is where you mount the subs to a baffle, just like the front part of a traditional box, a board with a hole or two for the subs cut out. This baffle is mounted behind the rear seats. When you pop the trunk you see the back side of the subs. So there's no enclosure taking up room, the entire trunk sort of acts as an enclosure. My pair of 15s are 7" deep at their deepest so I lose 7" of room at the magnet but even less everywhere else. I just put two tires in my trunk and took them down to the store to get them mounted. I literally have almost all of my trunk left.

I hear you on not wanting to rattle the whole car. I'm 36 and I don't want to look like some teenager trying to be heard around the block either. My reasoning for the pair of 15s instead of a single is less distortion and with half the excursion required to produce a given SPL (volume) they will always be in a more linear range. Or said another way, the less excursion or movement, the less distortion the sub will have and running a pair cuts excursion demands in half. This is true with any other setup as well. That's why ported has the potential to have less distortion than sealed, the sub barely moves at all around tuning frequency.

The other reason for the pair of 15s is when mounted infinite baffle they become much more efficient in the lowest notes. To go from 40hz which is as low as most sytems go, down to 20hz it requires 4x the excursion to get the same output. Infinite baffle will let you exploit the 20hz range and you can run out of displacement (cone area*excursion).

What surprises most people is without the air spring of a sealed enclosure, you actually get BETTER cone control and better damping. The air spring of a traditional sealed box causes overshoot and ringing and it reduces efficiency. Removing the restrictive air spring results in a very crisp, tight bass but also allows it to dig deep effortlessly and with with little power.

If you don't go infinite baffle, I suggest ported if you have the room. Ported will sound just as good as sealed when tuned right, usually in the high 20hz range and you can get up to a 6db boost in output, free output that equals adding another sub and doubling up on power. As I said earlier, the sub will not have as muc excursion around the tuning frequency which will cut down on distortion. Ported boxes are easy to design. You can go by the manufacturer's recommended enclosure size and tune the port to whatever frequency you want. Lower tunes sound considerably better 99% of the time and get rid of that one note wonder-boomy bass that results from a high tune.

Wow, just found a few of mine that I thought were gone forever. This is my pair of 15s, my 9" Dynaudio MW182s in the doors and my 3.5" Dynaudio 430s in the kicks. Excuse the dirty car:






A single IDQ 12"




A pair of IDMax 12s:


A pair of Dynaudio Esotar 12s:


The ones below are the same subs I'm running.

 

You can see that a single 12" IB takes up less room than a side enclosure and it will sound better and be more efficient too since it has plenty of airspace.

 

Anything you find here is good and you get more bang for your buck. JL is great just no longer price justifiable IMO.

http://store.soundsolutionsaudio.com/

Sundown and SSA maybe SA-10 or if your going ported check out the DCON. I run Skar audio which is basically Sundown re branded. 3 12's sealed in 09 TL and can still get to the spare tire no problem.

 

I disagree but to each their own. I happen to think JL is a great bang for the buck when you look at all of the features you get in one sub. Quality and reliability are second to none. I ran my 12Ws for 7 years and ran them hard and never a problem. The W7 in the correct enclosure will compete with the best SQ subs in the world and it happens to get loud enough to compete with the SPL subs as well. It IS first and foremost a SQ sub but it happens to have a ton of linear excursion and power handling which not only helps achieve the output it's capable of but it also helps with sound quality. With 32mm of one way linear excursion the 13W7 will be incredibly linear in any sort of normal listening level.

When you factor in the W7 series will get as loud or louder than a pair of "normal" subs of the same size the price doesn't sound so bad. It's unfortunate that people tend to take a SQ sub like the W7 and throw them in a SPL enclosure which makes them sound like crap when that's not what it's intended for.

The W7 definitely isn't worth the money if SPL is all you're after, there are others that will get as loud cheaper but there are very few that will combine the sound quality, reliability, and linear output and low distortion like the W7 does.

 

I hate Cars, so what would one need to setup a infinite baffle setup for a 4g TL? Is there anything I need to do to my trunk before mounting the faceplate that holds the subs to the back of the seats? Does the trunk need to be sealed air tight? If so what would be needed to do something like this. Are there IB kits per say for the TL? I would definitely like to stay with JL. I am kind of scared of internet direct brands especially after what happened with Elemental Designs Audio and Epik Subwoofers (supposedly Epik is still in business, but they haven't sold subs in a year) Would I be able to make this setup work with two JL 10w7AE's? What type of amp would needed to power something like this JL Audio Slash 1200 /1? (Overkill) Does JL make good amps? Thanks Again!

PS I see your are a GN Guy My bestfriend has a 8 second 86 GN.

 

That's cool about the GN. I've had mine since I was 17 in '94. I'll never get rid of it even if chicks think it's ugly lol.

You need to seal the trunk from the cabin so the backwave of the sub can not get into the cabin and cause cancellation. By seal I mean covering up the large holes and getting the trunk somewhat sealed from the cabin. It certainly does not have to be air tight, not even close. The trunk does not have to be sealed from the outside world. You can have a very large leak and you'll never be able to hear a difference.

The pair of 10W7s will work well. I did a single 10w7 in a co-workers 3-series and it was impressive. The W6 and W7 subs in particular sound so much better in this setup over a sealed box. If you have not purchased the subs yet, I suggest a single 13W7 (or a pair depending on your pockets). The 13.5" has a little more displacement, higher efficiency, lower Fs (Resonant frequency- this is where most of the distortion is so the lower it is out of the passband the better. It's debatable if this distortion is audible though).

JL makes some of the best amps. I personally run 3 HD amps. On a sub it's not as critical to use a super high end amp. I highly recommend the HD series because they're very efficient and will be easier on your charging system. You're using 70-90% of the input power into output power and only 10-30% into heat vs 50% or more energy being turned to heat in the traditional class A/B amps. The big advantage is at low/moderate volume. The class D amps are much more efficient where the usual class A/B amps pull a lot of power when they're just idling along. This is especially important if you go with a high output amp with lots of headroom.

JL's XD line is very good and very small. Both the HDs and XDs will fit under the seats in my 3G which has very little height under there. Stealth is very important to me so an amp that fits under the seats was a must. Their slash series are nice as well. The XD line offers the most crossover options and features.

There are several other good class D amps out there. Alpine, ARC, the list goes on. My suggestion is to buy one with the features and power you require and don't waste your money on a super high end amp especially for the subs. Even on my highs, I could not tell a difference in sound between my $2,000 McIntosh and my $600 JL HD amps so I chose the HDs for their efficiency, size, and power over the "superior" Mac.

For the pair of 10W7s 1200w will be overkill bit that's a good thing. You want enough power to push the sub to xmax (the amount of linear excursion it's capable of). If it's within its xmax limit, distortion will be very low. Xmech is the amount of excursion the sub can achieve before mechanical damage. The W7 series have a large difference between xmax and xmech which is more important with the IB setup since efficiency is much higher in the lower frequencies and it's easier to push the sub toward xmech. In my experience the W6 and W7s have an exceptionally quiet motor and suspension even after xmax and by the time you've surpassed xmax it's going to be so loud that you'll never hear any added distortion.

I really went off topic but I wanted to say some will point out that power handling is typically cut in half in IB and it's looked at as a negative but it's a good thing. Output is solely determined by cone area and excursion in a sealed and IB setup. It doesn't matter if it takes 100w or 1,500w to hit full excursion, output will be the same with two identical subs with the same excursion. 1200w is overkill for both the dual 10W7 setup and the 13.5" too. The 10" will hit xmax with roughly 300w each and the 13W7 will require about 400-500w to hit xmax. There's nothing wrong with pushing them a little past xmax. The 13" has 32mm of one way linear excursion (xmax) and over 100mm of peak to peak excursion before you damage it. I can't imagine what 4" of excursion would look like.

For the baffle I did 2 sheets of 3/4" MDF. One I did to the cutout diameter (14" in my case) and the other to the overall diameter (15.5"). The sub mounts to the 14" holes and the other sheet fits around the subs which makes them slightly recessed and the 2 sheets are screwed and glued together. My subs weigh only 17lbs each, it might be a good idea to go with 1.5" sheets or adding a 3rd one with the weight of the W7s. I've seen people use just two sheets with these subs with success but over the long run I would be more comfortable with more.
With the W7s unique mounting system it's a little harder to mount them recessed which isn't a big deal.

I hope I answered everything and I apologize for wandering off topic, I've gotten 6hrs of sleep in the past 3 days combined so I'm brain dead. I've literally fallen asleep 3 times writing this so it's probably all over the place. I'll clean it up on the morning, got to get my 3 hours of sleep lol.

 

Yout TL is top notch!!^^ Very nice build.

 

Wow, that's an amazing setup, IHC.

 

what y'all think about running 2 idmax 12 on a zapco 9.0 in rear deck

 

That will be bumping. Hard.

 

IB is starting to look good...

 

Do a pair of Max 15s. More cone area than any other 15, they're actualy 16" and tons of throw plus they sound good. That would be a lot of trunk space unless you went IB.

Another great sub that has slipped under the radar is the JBL W15GTI mkII. It has lower distortion than any sub I've seen. It can handle 5,000 peak watts. Inductance is very low, as low as a good midrange. It has a differential drive motor meaning it's impossible to bottom out and there's no other sub with this technology. It's pretty efficient and it might be discontinued soon. It does great ported and will get loud on 500w. It's great for IB as well since you can't bottom it out.

They're not cheap but not too expensive. The downside to the DDD technology is they are deep. I believe the 15" version is 10" or more deep. These were actually a JBL pro series sub, used for concerts and optimized for car use (more excursion, lower Qts) so they can truly take thousands of watts for hours on end with no damage. Combine that with the magnetic braking so you can't mechanically damage it, you can't thermally damage it unless you're crazy, with incredibly low distortion, it's an interesting sub.

Word is these are going to be discontinued so I may buy a pair for future use. If I don't use them in the car, I hear they work very well for home theatre.

 

Anyone know what TommyTom83 ended up doing? I'm struggling with my decision of what to do as well...I've gone from a JL Audio powered sub, to a fiberglass enclosure, to a sealed box and now to possibly IB. And honestly, I probably know about half of what I should know when it comes to car audio.

I'm new to the board, but have owned a couple Acura TL's in my time. Love the information available on this board. You guys are great!