I'm planning on getting rid of my two 12 inch kicker comps and replacing them with a single JL Audio 12WDV2 sub. Should i go sealed or ported with this sub? I am going to be powering it with a Kicker KX 600.1 which is 600 @ 2 Ohms. Any advice before I go ahead and do this. ALso I am going to probably buy the sub off of Ebay because these things aint cheap.

 

Ported is louder. If you are going from 2 12 to 1 12 it's worth considering, but are you gonna be able to tune a box or are you buying a box from someone? To tune a ported box properly you need a signal generator.

My procedure is calculate what SHOULD happen in freeair on the computer, then put it in the car in the final location and connect the sig gen to the amp. Other people test for the FS with the trunk open. Behavior of a woofer in a box is different in freeair than in a closed-up car, so I test in similar circumstances. Close the trunk, fold the seat down, climb in the back, close all the doors, and with low OP level move the sig gen signal up and down in the 20-60 range until you find the point where the woofer hardly moves but lots of air comes in and out the port. This is the resonant frequency of the box. If it's too high or too low, you need to change your port length slightly and retest. If your Fs is too high, the box can sound really loud, but it will have poor power handling about 1/2 octave below the resonant frequency and the woofer can blow. That's why it's important to test and it's also important to miss LOW if you miss: )

Lots of people don't tune, they design a box, they install it, they decide if it sounds good enough, and if it doesn't totally suck, they are fine. I've done plenty this way, but obviously it's your call. If you make one and listen to it and you don't like it, you can't really diagnose what's going on without the sig gen.

If you want to have a shop do it they probably want you to buy the sub from them... they have Xmas too, you know: )

If all that sounds like a pain then you should go sealed, cause it's easier and lower-risk.

Oh, and if you go ported, tune with the bass and the Kicker Bass Eq set to 0. If you miss high with your tuning F and the bass EQ is lower than the porting freq, you can blow that woof...

 

Thats what i am looking at getting

http://www.jlaudio.com/enclosures/HO112RW6v2.html

 

jigga, I'm wondering if that's going to have the output you are looking for(assuming I know what that is)? Have you heard that box/sub in a car yet?

 

i'm gonna try it out this weekend. have the shop throw it in my car.

 

Doesn't look that much smaller than a small sealed box for two 12"s, jigga... if that is a 12" in the pic, that box is like 4 cu ft! It would need a ton of output to beat 2 sealed 12" in 4 cu ft.

 

Yeah that box is pretty big huh. I think i might do something more custom then. I been checking these guys work and they are only a couple towns away from me. I wont be going as crazy as they do with someof those installs but I'd like to have them take a look at my car and see what they can come up with.

http://www.radcustomz.com/

 

Take your 2 12"s and split them - have one fiberglassed into each R corner firing into the center.

 

Do you think I could do a set up like that without losing access to the spare tire?

 

Yes, I do... but then where do your amps go?, is the question...

You could have a false floor with your amps and a spare underneath... but that's more money, is all. You could also build up the floor forward of the hinged spare floor, above the gas tank, and put the amps there.

 

where the amps go is a very good question. haha. i have alot to think about i guess.

hows about this bad boy http://www.jlaudio.com/enclosures/CLS112RGW7.html

then i would have to get a bigger amp for it but that thing sure looks like it doesn't take much space. maybe i should buy that and get a 1000 watt amp to power it? probably would be cheaper than going the custom route

 

It would most certainly be cheaper. I guess I wouldn't assume you need a bigger amp though... your 600W amp should be fine if it can handle the impedance. If it can't handle 3 ohms bridged, buy a 6 mH inductor coil and wire it in series with the woofer. That'll raise the impedance AND steepen the xover slightly ...: )

 

so i'll throw that sucker in my trunk and take a listen to it then. see if my 600 watt amp can do it justice. my gains are barely even turned up currently powering the 2 twelves. i think those line drivers help with that alot. before i had those in there my amps gains were turned up like 70% from max

 

Sweet. Let us know.

 

jigga, spend some time at shop, my Fung Shui is really saying you're searching down a path for a certain sound of woofers and spend some time researching....

 

Jigga, if you want my opinion go with a well designed ported box. if you want i have software that will model and tune the box in the car. it will predict the responce curve in the car and i can tune the box to your speciffic needs.
asl e-lectro i designed his box.

anyway i would stay away from the W7 line from JL for a lot of reasons. most the reasons may not mean anything to you from a technical discussion but from a cost and weight standpoint a well designed box using a less expensive W3 woofer will do the trick. and you wont need nearly as much power to run it.
if your interested i would be willing to ship a compleated box to you with subs.
i already have someone in NY asking for a similar setup.
since i already have a TSX i can make sure it fits my car like a glove before you get it.

 

Hey BM, so are you still selling your subs?
After reading other posts, I got the impression that you were tryin to kinda stop making too many of them because they were kind of a lot of work.

 

i am nopt selling my power mouse boxes anymore. the only way i would build one is if it were to be sold locally to avoid the hassle of packing the thing up and shipping a 100 lb monster across the US. and if i did one locally the buyer would probly have to pay the full regular price as well as pay me to install it. they would also have to wait probly about a month for me to stop pissing and moaning about building one.
however a dual 10 Mouse box without the amp rack would be a lot easier to whip up as it takes about 1/4 the time to build.

but honestly i would rather custom design a box speciffic to ones car because even though it is a one off box its still easier to make and carpet a semi rectangular box. just need 6 peices of wood cut to the right dementions and a port tube of the correct length. (although i prefer slot ports) slot ports take a little more work but i can tweek the design to get the optimal results whereas a round port from PVC comes in preset diameters. you always wind up with too much vent velocity or too long of a port.
so i usually do slots now because i can make the slot the same width as the box and vary the length and hight to get the tuning i need with the least amount of port velocity.

 

Jigga, what happened with this?

 

still debating musicbox. once xmas is over and i have some money saved up I will make my decision. tomorrow my progressive rear sway bar is going in though!! whoo hoo!

 

cool!

progressive? Do you mean Progress? what diameter is it?

edit: NM, I see, they make a 22mm adjustable, just fyi, you can adjust one link at a time to get finer tuning, you don't have to adjust left and right at the same time.