12s or 8s

[SlugButter]

That's exactly how I acquired mine and it was also in a kicker prefab box, or at least the box said kicker on it. I'm not 100% sure, honestly. But either way the tuning of the box was like 38-40 Hz for some crazy reason. I had some leftover MDF, so I made the port an L and extended it 11". It was a dual 4 ohm and wired to 8 ohm, so I wired it to 2 ohm and gave it 650 watts and it sounded WAY better. I should also add that the box was starting to come apart, so I put a bunch of 2" screws in it and resealed it with Tite Bond 2. The carpet was kinda wore out in the box and it was old, so I sold it for $120.

EDIT: even tho I mess with car audio all the time, I've never built a bandpass box of any kind. If someone is dead set on that (very rare), I send them up the street to a shop. I also don't personally enjoy box building. I'd say 70% of the time I use slot ported and 30% sealed.

I’ve always liked building boxes. I’m really into using aeroports right now. I make my own flares so I don’t have to pay ridiculous money every time I test a new sub. Aeroports bring down box size on the 6th and 4th order enclosures, since those can get quite large, especially when using 2 slot ports in a 6th order.

 

[TheBigPilferer]

I

I’ve always liked building boxes. I’m really into using aeroports right now. I make my own flares so I don’t have to pay ridiculous money every time I test a new sub. Aeroports bring down box size on the 6th and 4th order enclosures, since those can get quite large, especially when using 2 slot ports in a 6th order.

I was actually reading some on 8th order enclosures and some other less common types earlier. It's rare to see these style of boxes in car audio, but sure would be cool to see. I've seen t-lines a couple times and 4ths and 6ths, but that's all I've personally seen or heard in a vehicle. The acoustical interaction of the different 8th orders are interesting. You'd definitely be better off using aero ports for one of those so you can make adjustments if necessary. It would be really tricky to do everything with 100% accuracy.

I learned that the Bose Acoustimass was an 8th order bandpass.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

I

I was actually reading some on 8th order enclosures and some other less common types earlier. It's rare to see these style of boxes in car audio, but sure would be cool to see. I've seen t-lines a couple times and 4ths and 6ths, but that's all I've personally seen or heard in a vehicle. The acoustical interaction of the different 8th orders are interesting. You'd definitely be better off using aero ports for one of those so you can make adjustments if necessary. It would be really tricky to do everything with 100% accuracy.

I learned that the Bose Acoustimass was an 8th order bandpass.

I love theorizing about all the ways you can arrange the orders of the sound. I mean there's almost an infinite amount of ways to do sound, if you have the right calculations and understand the effect you want. There's also boxes like ABC boxes and there's all sorts of crazy line based enclosures and horns and tapped horns and basically all sorts of singular structures or layered structures along both the front and rear wave off a woofer that resonate different frequencies of sound. The relative impedance to the energy moving in and out of any resonance stage is a key to adjusting like the smoothness and bandwidth and reaction of the sound, like how some sub systems sound hollow or muddy or crisp or deep, etc. All those stages or "orders" or however you think of it, they all wind up tuning each other when stacked in series on a line path from the front or rear wave.

Bose does make some pretty neat enclosures, at least from my nerd perspective.

I think the key always comes down to knowing what you want. You can make a huge SQ box that plays nicely and is loud on low power, but maybe it's not like 150 db+ loud at 30 hz in the same space. Just gotta know what you want.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

I

I was actually reading some on 8th order enclosures and some other less common types earlier. It's rare to see these style of boxes in car audio, but sure would be cool to see. I've seen t-lines a couple times and 4ths and 6ths, but that's all I've personally seen or heard in a vehicle. The acoustical interaction of the different 8th orders are interesting. You'd definitely be better off using aero ports for one of those so you can make adjustments if necessary. It would be really tricky to do everything with 100% accuracy.

I learned that the Bose Acoustimass was an 8th order bandpass.

Imagine what it takes to design these enclosures:

The shape of those rooms would somewhat determine the electrical-impedance load on the amps as the speakers pressurized the room at any specific frequencies. Sound seems to be wild like that. That room design is part of acoustic coupling, controlling the way a wave spreads out, sort of like your port or cone/diagram shape.

 

[SlugButter]

I

I was actually reading some on 8th order enclosures and some other less common types earlier. It's rare to see these style of boxes in car audio, but sure would be cool to see. I've seen t-lines a couple times and 4ths and 6ths, but that's all I've personally seen or heard in a vehicle. The acoustical interaction of the different 8th orders are interesting. You'd definitely be better off using aero ports for one of those so you can make adjustments if necessary. It would be really tricky to do everything with 100% accuracy.

I learned that the Bose Acoustimass was an 8th order bandpass.

8th order enclosures work best in home theatre. They aren’t really necessary in car audio because of cabin gain, although who cares, Id try it just for fun. In a good home theatre setup, the enclosure will be tuned extremely low (low 20 HZ tunings), which can cause a bandwidth issue on the upper bass frequencies. In a 6th order for instance, you’ll only get around an octave of bandwidth coverage, so if you’re tuned ports are 25 HZ and 55 HZ, you’ll basically have no output above 60 HZ or so. An 8th order adds a 3rd air spring and tuned port so you can get output up to where your musical/high frequency speakers can take over, yet still tune extremely low to reproduce subsonic frequencies.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

8th order enclosures work best in home theatre. They aren’t really necessary in car audio because of cabin gain, although who cares, Id try it just for fun. In a good home theatre setup, the enclosure will be tuned extremely low (low 20 HZ tunings), which can cause a bandwidth issue on the upper bass frequencies. In a 6th order for instance, you’ll only get around an octave of bandwidth coverage, so if you’re tuned ports are 25 HZ and 55 HZ, you’ll basically have no output above 60 HZ or so. An 8th order adds a 3rd air spring and tuned port so you can get output up to where your musical/high frequency speakers can take over, yet still tune extremely low to reproduce subsonic frequencies.

That's why I was starting to experiment with series style enclosures where the rear was a hard loading chamber but the front was more line-like, lower pressure, to have it load hard on the lows and kinda aim for a softer and wider top end extension. There's an art form to bandwidth and pressure levels, and you have to match the box structure to what your ears want to hear lol. Most cars load so hard that ported boxes do most of what everyone wants most effectively. Home audio is a whole different animal, as well, IMO. The styles of subs and what enclosure type you plan to use makes a huge difference, too. If you combine the best t/s with an enclosure type you want to try, that can really be fun. Like, in an 8th order, maybe get a sub with stupid motor force to really wreck all 3 of those chambers, there's a lot of impedance to the woofer freely moving, so a big ass motor and good coil-motor relationship would hammer through all those ports and chambers with authority, vs a softer motor sub maybe more suited to ported or free air.

 

[TheBigPilferer]

I love theorizing about all the ways you can arrange the orders of the sound. I mean there's almost an infinite amount of ways to do sound, if you have the right calculations and understand the effect you want. There's also boxes like ABC boxes and there's all sorts of crazy line based enclosures and horns and tapped horns and basically all sorts of singular structures or layered structures along both the front and rear wave off a woofer that resonate different frequencies of sound. The relative impedance to the energy moving in and out of any resonance stage is a key to adjusting like the smoothness and bandwidth and reaction of the sound, like how some sub systems sound hollow or muddy or crisp or deep, etc. All those stages or "orders" or however you think of it, they all wind up tuning each other when stacked in series on a line path from the front or rear wave.

Bose does make some pretty neat enclosures, at least from my nerd perspective.

I think the key always comes down to knowing what you want. You can make a huge SQ box that plays nicely and is loud on low power, but maybe it's not like 150 db+ loud at 30 hz in the same space. Just gotta know what you want.

Well, I usually just try out whatever I so happen to get my hands on. Usually, this means a lot of just really common and basic gear... which is useful bc that's what the majority of average people buy... And I like being able to give a demo and show what can be accomplished with $1000 budget (as in, for all parts).

With that said, I'm thinking about trying a single 18" so I can get what I want for a change. I've been eyeing the stereo integrity ht18v3...

I would mainly like to improve my low end extension. I'm not really concerned about getting more overall output, as I usually keep my bass knob at about 1/3. In a vehicle, I shouldn't need near as large of a box as what stereo integrity recommends for home theater. Off the top of my head I'm estimating maybe 6 ft³ @ 26? I haven't tried to model it yet or anything, but their recommended box I believe is 8 ft³ @ 22.

It's a deal for $199 and it matches well with my current amp power. I've thought about upgrading for more power but I honestly don't feel like I need it.

I had a colleague suggest I use it in a sealed box to spec (3 ft³) but I'm not too keen on that. I've always liked ported.

 

[TheBigPilferer]

8th order enclosures work best in home theatre. They aren’t really necessary in car audio because of cabin gain, although who cares, Id try it just for fun. In a good home theatre setup, the enclosure will be tuned extremely low (low 20 HZ tunings), which can cause a bandwidth issue on the upper bass frequencies. In a 6th order for instance, you’ll only get around an octave of bandwidth coverage, so if you’re tuned ports are 25 HZ and 55 HZ, you’ll basically have no output above 60 HZ or so. An 8th order adds a 3rd air spring and tuned port so you can get output up to where your musical/high frequency speakers can take over, yet still tune extremely low to reproduce subsonic frequencies.

I did read about these interactions some, but I haven't found more info detailing the advantages between the different 8th order configurations. I gave up after a short while lol - it's not something I'm going to attempt, but interesting nonetheless.

Today on my day off I was researching HLCDs. Not that I plan on doing that either, but it's interesting how the waveguides work. Stevens Audio (the guy that started image dynamics) is the only person that sells an under dash horn.

 

[audiobaun 5,000+ posts]

Ok fellas I have 2016 mustang coup an I currently run two pioneer 12s an I was wanting to up grade to two kicker 12 Q series or maybe 3 DD 608f 8s. What do think will hit harder.

So how in the world are you fitting two 12s in that hatch space??You must have a sealed prefab made for that car?
I ask because,i helped my neighbor put three systems in his two cars, and one being a 15 or 16 GT. We could barely get a 2.0@32htz for a single A.Bass XFL 12" DVC2 ohm sub in there to get the hatch to close. we barely had room to put a PPI Phantom 1000.1d and a 900.4 in there. the dash kit alone for an aftermarket HU was like $600 bucks Or something like that alone? he put a Kenwood HU in, a set of Polk DB 6.5 components up front and DB 6.5 Coax with Bass blockers in the rear seating area. That Bich slammed for a single 12 and sounded really good. He sold that car and now has a 2021 GT, and thinking about a system in it already. one XFL or Hawk 12, in a tuned enclosure on a 1500-2k amp should serve well in that car. You running a stock HU? Stock front and rear speakers? how are you supplying your amp for your subs now? It might be cheaper to just get a properly tuned/ported enclosure built for those 12s for that car angled hatch space? an areo-port enclosure will save some space and get the tuning done even? Something to think about or look into?

 

[ThatChevyGuy 5,000+ posts]

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