My last car was an F-150 ext cab where I had my sub box in the cab with me. The vehicle before that I had a hatch back, so I am fairly new to the whole "trunk" scene. I see all these cars with subs in the trunk with the speakers facing to the rear. It's bad enough having the rear seat between me and my speakers, why would you want to add another 3/4" of particle board and carpet, plus face the speakers away. It's gotta be for looks only, right? Is there a secret to it? Are there ports on the back (seat) side of the box or something? Or is there a secret contest to see who can rattle the license plate the most that I don't know about?

Someone show me the logic, because it doesn't work in general theory.

 

"Deeper bass has longer wavelengths. Since sound travels at 643m/s or 1125ft/s in a standard atmosphere, we divide one of the above by the frequency to get the wavelength. Standard atmosphere 20C, 1013mb pressure, 50% relative humidity. A 50Hz wave has a wavelength of 22.5 feet while a 100Hz wave is 11.25 feet.

In order to get the maximum of 50Hz you'd need to get that woofer 22.5 feet away from your head, while 100Hz, only 11.25 feet. This is why we 'hear' the 100Hz sound more prevalently when facing the woofer box towards the vehicle operator when the box is in the trunk. When we face the woofer box towards the trunk, we get the benefit of 3 feet each way via reflection of sound waves.

Since the 50Hz wave gets more time to approach maximum, it appears louder facing backwards than when facing the frontward. Add this with the cabin gain @ 50Hz, and it would appear to be substantially louder. The 100Hz wave is really not affected so dramatically. In fact, there might be some loss in longer vehicles (SUVs Vans, etc) since the wave may be past the 11.25 foot mark, and weakening.

In most cases, placing the woofer box to face the rear of the vehicle will improve frequency response below 60Hz compared to facing it frontward. As long as you have signal processing (EQ or head unit with bass controls) you can compensate for acoustic loss/gain. In most cases, cutting the strongest frequencies (usually 45Hz-55Hz) will balance out the freq resp and at the same time avoid additional distortion caused by over-boosting signal. "

 

wow thanks for the science lesson!

 

In sedans you should try it both ways but it usually works better facing the rear. With hatchbacks it definitely works better facing the rear or the corner, but this is more to do with the "horn loading" effect of free volume than the wavelength deal. Many anps have a "phase" switch (really a polarity switch) and some DLS amps have a 0-180 conitinuous phase adjustment to help create this front/rear/trunk effect without repositioning the box.

 

Whooooaaahhh! Uh... not sure to take him serious or what. but if he is right... badbadneil=bill nye the science guy

After reading that i can't help but think, not only does it have to travel through the extra 1" of particle board and carpet and the rear seat, before it does that it has t bounce off the rear of the trunk? Sounds like you need an a$$ load of power to get that bass to your ear.

Hmmmm....I know I can get those 8"s in the rear dash....

 

well u can always flip the seat down, assuming you have a TSX.

 

Lots-o-road noise with the seats down, but yes it would work. I wouldn't want to do that though. I wish I could just get a little bit more bass and keep it totally stock.

 

Haha, hardly bill nye, perhaps the guy that wrote the article was a bit closer to him. Was from a large article explaining various elements of car audio.

You should play with it a bit. If you have a box with a sub that is not screwed down try different placements in the trunk, you will notice the difference. You don't need a 1000watt rms sub to hear good bass. I personally just use a 12" IDQ sub with about 300watts going to it and it is very nice, very clear and clean bass.