Or possibly an older SUV with a goth theme..... I have an incredible sealed enclosure I built for a show car almost 10 years ago, been in my living room gathering dust about 7. For a pair of 15's, AND a pair of 8" mids, the 15" volume is right around 2 cu ft each, had a pait of DEI competition subs in there and they sounded superb.
Here's what's impressive. I was sponsored and called it a "dead box" and you could sit on it, a '79 eldorado (I believe, I know it was a '79) back seat dropped right in the frame I made, and the soundboard/face was built with 2 layers of 3/4marine birch with a layer of dynamat and contact adhesive glued and screwed in between. It gets better- the base was made 2.25" thick, again 2 sheets of 3/4 marine birch with a hollow cavity within 3/4" with about a 2" border, bolted, glued, and screwed together, with IIRC 57 lbs of silica (pure) sand jacket. I even used two different grits of sand to better mesh and rotated it perhaps 20 times as I poured and packed it to preclude it ever settling and leaving any void. The balance (sides, back) were THREE layers of 3/4 marine birch with a dynamat sandwich as well.
Concept was from home theatre applications where sand is jacketed between concrete and built into the foundation of new big $$$$ homes theatre rooms. By isolating (preventing) the mechanical energy almost completely from the vehicle, and the interference of buzzing and rattling cause and `leaving only almost pure air movement of the woofer cone, not only was the sound pure as hell but the BUF (bass up front) effect was incredibly easy.
Now it's BIG and HEAVY. (duh) I'm guessing 250+ lbs. unloaded. However it somewhat dismantles, I used T nuts and glued them in everywherem the seat top pops up with a piano hinge, no corners were cut and I took a lot of attention to detail, anal as hell even. If you have skills it could be somewhat easy to modify so the bench top part was not necessary. Covered in all black vinyl pebble grain, with some black carpet trim and lots of cool brass accents to make it look at home in a hearse. It's on casters now but you'd remove those upon install. 4 pairs of huge 10 or 12 guage scosche wiring go through the case with RTV to each of the 4 enclosures. The seal on the sub enclosures are tight as a drum, so tight it's difficult to even push the cone in manually- all 10-32 T nuts for speaker mounts. It's in pretty good shape, might have a little indent here and there in the vinyl that will raise when back in a warm car, no rips.
base is 29 5/8" x 55" and the back piece to hold the bench extends to 44" high. If you lost that part (that is easy, a bit more tricky but doable will be cutting the removable side panels and cleanly folding over the vinyl- imagine cutting the top half off of an "L") then you'd be left with a more standard rectangular sub box that was 16" high once you removed the ledges that retained the cadillac seat- which I no longer have as it was from a junkyard and deteriorating when I bought it and eventually the leather dried and cracked. I paid $25 for the whole seat at Ecology auto wrecking, Cadillac FRONT seats are always in demand and missing from salvage cars but rear bench seats are practically giveaways as they are rarely used by the blue haired decrepit old fart widows who owned the 70's cadillacs that weren't in the hands of Huggy Bear and Superfly wannabes.
I'll add some pictures shortly, feeling out interest. PICKUP ONLY san diego for obvious reasons. I can flat out say with full and arrogant confidence that this is one of the best sounding sub enclosures any extremist nut has ever built for a car, a sand jacketed enclosure being about the most exotic SQ intended experiment I could come up with at the time. It was a '65 Cadillac MM combo hearse limo, a pair of veritas aluminum waveguides and 8" mids in birch enclosures were 'glassed and rivited inside the vent openings in the kicks while the vent's sliding controls in the dash tilted the horns on piano hinges to adjust for listener height. I had intended to compete in Pro or Expert 601+ and on SQ would have done well with the huge and wide front cabin. The box was behind the driver's wall and the 8's were part of a second sytem in back, with the 15's selectable to be used by either system. Unfortunately I live at the beach and by the time I'd finished my wacky vampire pimp creation, the salt air had destroyed the near pure iron beast. Just so wacky is not mistaken for pointless, for perspective this was the car, which sported the most powerful engine detroit built in 1965 and took nerves of steel to stop its estimated 8000 lbs with drum brakes:
got more women wanting to walk away from their husbands and leave the poor bastard there with his jaw dropped than any ride I've seen outside of a Murcielago- better because they saw the neon sign that said "fantasy zone" and STILL got in. Got me head of the pack and waved around the whole limo line at Bellagio's and other hotels in Vegas when I went there, and drove Alma Gates around for the afternoon. Alas the car exists no more.
I'll dust off the sub box and post pix after I shoot them tonight. Asking $300, which is both a lot and a bargain for reasons a few of you prolly understand. I put all my spare time for a good 6 weeks in it, which of course is worth about $3.66 or so to anyone but me. However I'm a decent box builder, used all top quality birch plywood treated the day I lugged it home to prevent warping then again after I cut the parts on a good DeWalt table saw. Brackets where needed, liquid nails wherever wood touched wood, predrilled, screwed with drywall screws and coated every screw with liquid nails as they went in. Foam pad sprayglued to the wood, vinyl sprayglued to the foam before stapling with stainless steel staples.
Not many of you have a vehicle this is appropriate for both in size and style aesthetics themes. The config for the 8" mids is something you can use or might be useless, could be modified. It's in great shape and you could drive a monster truck over it with no damage I'd bet. Some might call it homely, but it matched the car.
However when I took it out of the car and retired it 7 years ago, I put it up on two movers dollies and put 100w on each side and cranked it, it was the most amazing thing. I had my hand under the elevated base and the vibration and movement were imperceptible- we've all tried to punch sand, it has amazing properties in its density. You could feel this strange "whoosh" in the whole house and the effect was that you could feel bass everywhere but not ascertain where from or hear the perversion of the bass by distorting buzzing walls and other mechanical interference caused by the moving mass of the driver coupled to the structure. One of the world's most expensive audiophile loudspeakers I believe at the time was constructed with a 500lb concrete enclosure (each) which had an inner shell floating inside a larger shell with sand in between, I was shooting at that. If you are in my area and show that you've got a ride that is appropriate (thus you're serious) and you have 15's you are in question if they'd work in the 2 cubes sealed, I'd entertain the idea of you bringing them in your hearse and popping them in and trying them. (kind of a LOL to indicate I'd accomodate a serious buyer who has understandable reservations but don't want to have it become a circus curiousity or people wanting to see a science project- I'd appreciate your interest but have a lot of irons in the fire now)
I still have the DEI competition 15's I built it for but they're in my Passport, a pain to remove and would be pointless to demo standing in for your drivers. Oh, and sorry about the wall of text.
John, San Diego- formerly "buttsweat" of teamROCS
Here's what's impressive. I was sponsored and called it a "dead box" and you could sit on it, a '79 eldorado (I believe, I know it was a '79) back seat dropped right in the frame I made, and the soundboard/face was built with 2 layers of 3/4marine birch with a layer of dynamat and contact adhesive glued and screwed in between. It gets better- the base was made 2.25" thick, again 2 sheets of 3/4 marine birch with a hollow cavity within 3/4" with about a 2" border, bolted, glued, and screwed together, with IIRC 57 lbs of silica (pure) sand jacket. I even used two different grits of sand to better mesh and rotated it perhaps 20 times as I poured and packed it to preclude it ever settling and leaving any void. The balance (sides, back) were THREE layers of 3/4 marine birch with a dynamat sandwich as well.
Concept was from home theatre applications where sand is jacketed between concrete and built into the foundation of new big $$$$ homes theatre rooms. By isolating (preventing) the mechanical energy almost completely from the vehicle, and the interference of buzzing and rattling cause and `leaving only almost pure air movement of the woofer cone, not only was the sound pure as hell but the BUF (bass up front) effect was incredibly easy.
Now it's BIG and HEAVY. (duh) I'm guessing 250+ lbs. unloaded. However it somewhat dismantles, I used T nuts and glued them in everywherem the seat top pops up with a piano hinge, no corners were cut and I took a lot of attention to detail, anal as hell even. If you have skills it could be somewhat easy to modify so the bench top part was not necessary. Covered in all black vinyl pebble grain, with some black carpet trim and lots of cool brass accents to make it look at home in a hearse. It's on casters now but you'd remove those upon install. 4 pairs of huge 10 or 12 guage scosche wiring go through the case with RTV to each of the 4 enclosures. The seal on the sub enclosures are tight as a drum, so tight it's difficult to even push the cone in manually- all 10-32 T nuts for speaker mounts. It's in pretty good shape, might have a little indent here and there in the vinyl that will raise when back in a warm car, no rips.
base is 29 5/8" x 55" and the back piece to hold the bench extends to 44" high. If you lost that part (that is easy, a bit more tricky but doable will be cutting the removable side panels and cleanly folding over the vinyl- imagine cutting the top half off of an "L") then you'd be left with a more standard rectangular sub box that was 16" high once you removed the ledges that retained the cadillac seat- which I no longer have as it was from a junkyard and deteriorating when I bought it and eventually the leather dried and cracked. I paid $25 for the whole seat at Ecology auto wrecking, Cadillac FRONT seats are always in demand and missing from salvage cars but rear bench seats are practically giveaways as they are rarely used by the blue haired decrepit old fart widows who owned the 70's cadillacs that weren't in the hands of Huggy Bear and Superfly wannabes.
I'll add some pictures shortly, feeling out interest. PICKUP ONLY san diego for obvious reasons. I can flat out say with full and arrogant confidence that this is one of the best sounding sub enclosures any extremist nut has ever built for a car, a sand jacketed enclosure being about the most exotic SQ intended experiment I could come up with at the time. It was a '65 Cadillac MM combo hearse limo, a pair of veritas aluminum waveguides and 8" mids in birch enclosures were 'glassed and rivited inside the vent openings in the kicks while the vent's sliding controls in the dash tilted the horns on piano hinges to adjust for listener height. I had intended to compete in Pro or Expert 601+ and on SQ would have done well with the huge and wide front cabin. The box was behind the driver's wall and the 8's were part of a second sytem in back, with the 15's selectable to be used by either system. Unfortunately I live at the beach and by the time I'd finished my wacky vampire pimp creation, the salt air had destroyed the near pure iron beast. Just so wacky is not mistaken for pointless, for perspective this was the car, which sported the most powerful engine detroit built in 1965 and took nerves of steel to stop its estimated 8000 lbs with drum brakes:
got more women wanting to walk away from their husbands and leave the poor bastard there with his jaw dropped than any ride I've seen outside of a Murcielago- better because they saw the neon sign that said "fantasy zone" and STILL got in. Got me head of the pack and waved around the whole limo line at Bellagio's and other hotels in Vegas when I went there, and drove Alma Gates around for the afternoon. Alas the car exists no more.
I'll dust off the sub box and post pix after I shoot them tonight. Asking $300, which is both a lot and a bargain for reasons a few of you prolly understand. I put all my spare time for a good 6 weeks in it, which of course is worth about $3.66 or so to anyone but me. However I'm a decent box builder, used all top quality birch plywood treated the day I lugged it home to prevent warping then again after I cut the parts on a good DeWalt table saw. Brackets where needed, liquid nails wherever wood touched wood, predrilled, screwed with drywall screws and coated every screw with liquid nails as they went in. Foam pad sprayglued to the wood, vinyl sprayglued to the foam before stapling with stainless steel staples.
Not many of you have a vehicle this is appropriate for both in size and style aesthetics themes. The config for the 8" mids is something you can use or might be useless, could be modified. It's in great shape and you could drive a monster truck over it with no damage I'd bet. Some might call it homely, but it matched the car.
However when I took it out of the car and retired it 7 years ago, I put it up on two movers dollies and put 100w on each side and cranked it, it was the most amazing thing. I had my hand under the elevated base and the vibration and movement were imperceptible- we've all tried to punch sand, it has amazing properties in its density. You could feel this strange "whoosh" in the whole house and the effect was that you could feel bass everywhere but not ascertain where from or hear the perversion of the bass by distorting buzzing walls and other mechanical interference caused by the moving mass of the driver coupled to the structure. One of the world's most expensive audiophile loudspeakers I believe at the time was constructed with a 500lb concrete enclosure (each) which had an inner shell floating inside a larger shell with sand in between, I was shooting at that. If you are in my area and show that you've got a ride that is appropriate (thus you're serious) and you have 15's you are in question if they'd work in the 2 cubes sealed, I'd entertain the idea of you bringing them in your hearse and popping them in and trying them. (kind of a LOL to indicate I'd accomodate a serious buyer who has understandable reservations but don't want to have it become a circus curiousity or people wanting to see a science project- I'd appreciate your interest but have a lot of irons in the fire now)
I still have the DEI competition 15's I built it for but they're in my Passport, a pain to remove and would be pointless to demo standing in for your drivers. Oh, and sorry about the wall of text.
John, San Diego- formerly "buttsweat" of teamROCS
