gonna be in a coupe, im not takin the spare tire out, so i want to know wut you guys would recommend, a sealed or ported box? I listen to mostly rap and dance music, and will 1 jl w7 fit in our trunk? please? i really need your guys help... for those of you here who have this setup, can you show me how the box fits in your trunk so that i can see how much space it takes?

 

sealed if the only way to go
you will loose some sound quality with a ported box

Daniel

5AT Coupe / DP / Premium / Aero / Clear Bra / 5% Tint - 30% Windshield / Ground Kit / Clear Corners / Shock Sensor / L.E.D. Hood Lights / Z - Tube / OEM Remote Window Up fixed and installed

 

I had my spare removed to hold all my amps but you could make it work with a sealed custom enclosure if you remove the plastic molding in the trunk. I posted some pics of the install I had done already if you wanted to check it out:

https://g35driver.com/forums/showfla...&part=all&vc=1

It is definatly possible to keep the spare and fit a JL 10W7 in the trunk. sealed is the way to go. The 10W7 is a great sub, going sealed will take up less space and its sound will be awesome! What do you plan to power the 10W7 with? Where would you locate the amp for your sub? (You could put it on the opposite side of the trunk from your sub.) If you varry the kinds of music you listen to I recommend getting a gain **** so you can control the sub individual if you want. Best of luck with your install!

 

Sealed will hit harder and sound like thats what you want with the music you are listening to. A ported box is more of a "musical" box that sounds great with notes like drum beats. There is no magical box that will give you everything you want so I suggest you listen to a couple in you car after the amp is installed. JL Audio make a H.O. Wedge box that is ported with a 10 or 12 W6-V2 that I think is the best sounding box out there. I know you want to go custom so if you like the sound of that box try ported.

Do you hear me?

 

appreciate all your replies in order to help me find the right decision and setup... scobic i have the same setup as you, i plan on getting the 10w7 with the 500/1, heard that is the best combination, and from the pictures of how you have it setup, thats how i want it, that way i get to keep my spare tire, and have trunk space... as to where to mount my 500/1, i dont know yet, maybe on the backseat, so that when i have it down i can adjust it.... can you tell me how it sounds in your car while you're driving? and are you running this off the factory bose? I don't have the premium package, just the regular bose stereo, so i am wondering how it will sound... can you actually feel the bass hit? I listen to mostly hiphip/rap/trance/freestyle music... So i think from what most of you are telling me here, that I am pretty much decided on going for the sealed setup, as in i wont lose SQ and that the music will sound cleaner and better.

Scobi, do you have any more pics of your trunk, i would like to use your setup to show the installer so he can get an idea of how i want it. How many cubic feet is your box? Awesome setup by the way

 

but will facing the sub that way make it not sound as good as if it were to fire towards the rear (trunk)? so that the bass frequency bounces back and goes into the cabin?

 

The sub sounds great! I can only compare it to the system that I started with since thats probably the closest example I can explain. I had the Bose system and thought that it sounded "ok". Nothing great but it certainly didnt "suck" either. The problem with the bose was it just didnt have the highs I wanted to hear nor could it handle it when i wanted to crank the bass. with the JL500/1 and Jl10W7 i can now CRANK the bass and it sounds awesome!!!! I had the gain **** installed so I coudl turn the gain on the bass up or down depending on what kind of music I was listening to. When its cranked you can feel it vibrate right through you. As far as having it aimed in the direction it is there isnt much loss at all... It can still shake your eye ***** till they tear if you want. I had the car dynomatted which I believe helped some.

I have more pictures posted here if you wanted to check it out. If you need/want me to take any certain pictures just send me a PM and I'll get to it for ya.

here's my pics...
Audio_Upgrade_Pics

 

Ported > Sealed IMO

I made the mistake of going sealed with my first system, boy did it restrict the subs.

 

scobic thanks for the reply and the others too... but can you tell me how many cubic feet is your enclosure? mine is 1.56cf and with the sub in, it will be 1.46ft, and i know jl recommends 1.25cf, so i hope it will be okay... also what part of the car did you get dynamatted? the trunk? i wonder if i should do that in the future... also i heard that the remote gain control is not suppose to be use as a volume **** to increase/decrease bass... ? what is your gain on your jl 500/1 at? can you post the settings you have on that amp please...

on jl's website there's a pdf of what jl suggests you set the 500/1 too, so was wondering what you had yours set at...

 

Eurog35, having too much airspace in your sub is not a bad thing. Its better then having too little airspace. JL recommends the 1.25cf and since your around 1.46cf as you said all you need to do is use something as a filler to take up the extra volume. A small piece of wood will do fine.

as for dynamat I had the whole thing done... well as much as they could anyway. I found an extreme bulk pack for 150 shipped and they used the whole pack on the driver/passanger side doors... the back side walls, the trunk floor and walls, the trunk lid and as much of the floor that was uncovered.

I know that the 500/1 has that remote bass boost port but I didnt use it. I used an RCA level controller between the loc running off the rear channel of the head unit and the 500/1 rca inputs. it works great.

 

Ok guys, let me try to clear a few things up. What I am going to tell you is not based on opinion, but simple physics. Every subwoofer enclosure is a trade off. The most optimum enclosure is the one that does what YOU want it to do in YOUR vehicle's acoustics. Each vehicle has what is called "transfer function". Although common sense, it is the affect that the vehicle has on the woofer/enclosure combination. Everytime the vehicle changes, the transfer function changes. So when you hear a manufacturer say that a particular woofer works in a particular enclosure, that is just to give you a general idea of what will work in most applications. Without them knowing many variables such as your vehicle's acoustics, your amp's current capability, your amp's damping factor & slew rate, your midbass driver's bass harmonic reproduction capability, placement in the vehicle, crossover point, and many other things, THEY CANNOT RECOMMEND AN OPTIMUM ENCLOSURE. That is why Mercedes builds the engine, but Roger Penske, tells them how to build it. The same thing happens in the car audio world. True professional shops will use all of the appropriate equipment and knowledge to "fingerprint" your car's acoustics and then recommend the correct enclosure/woofer combination for your application.

There are over 20 basic enclosure types generally used such as sealed, ported, bandpass, transmission line, aperiodic, compound, iso, etc. Each type has a tradeoff and the one you choose to use is based on your setup.

You should choose your equipment the same way. It is much easier to see what wheels/tires work on your car then it is to have wheels/tires that you think are good and then try to make them work properly on your car. The same thing goes for subs. You should not go buy a woofer because it is good and then force it to work in your application and then complain that it doesn't work well. We have all heard a car that has very little inexpensive gear and sounds better than the car with the better gear.

This is because the differences in gear is minimum compared to the differences in how well it matches the application. For example, this is why one person will tell you the they heard a W7and it sounded awful and another person heard it sound great.

There used to be a time when everytime you heard a JL woofer it sounded great. The real reason for this is that when JL first began, it was only sold thru places who understood serious car audio. Nowadays that doesn't apply, so you may hear it done right and you may hear it done wrong.

I wrote an article about this for Car Audio Magazine, but can't seem to find it write now. I know there is a more recent article I wrote for Under 21 Magazine, maybe I can find it.

Make sense??

 

Oh yeah, I wanted to explain sealed versus ported a little(very little). I could go on for hours about the differences, but let me tell you why most people think what they think.

When a woofer is used in a sealed box, it takes less air to get a response that would be similar in a ported box. The ported box needs to be much bigger to have the same flat response. When a woofer is used in a ported box that is too small, the response curve of the woofer/enclosure combination gets a big hump in it. Fortunately, in most cases this big loud hump in the response is right at the frequency we want to be loud. We now hear our selected boom frequency very loud.

When this happens a boomer says "wow my ported box is louder than my sealed", and he is correct. It is louder at that one boom frequency. This is where the problem comes in for those of you who want it to "sound better". The other frequencies are so soft compared to the one loud one that all you hear is the boom frequency. Without the other frequencies being audible, we do not have music and instead we have one loud bass note.

Don't blame the enclosure type or woofer, blame the designer!!