Changing Enclosure Tuning

[OC*SS 10+ year member]

Haha, I thought I explained it pretty well. I was just saying that if the designer knew that the box had a physical tuning of 45Hz and he was able to tell the customer that the effective tuning would be closer to 35Hz because of it's partnership with the trunk, that might suggest the designer is not as incompetent as some think. That's all. I'm not saying he did what the customer asked or that the customer is happy with the result, simply commenting on one aspect of what was brought up. Maybe the failure was in the communication between the two parties and yielded this result. I've ordered a cheeseburger without ketchup before, only to find that they gave me extra. Doesn't mean that the cook didn't know what they were doing. Sometimes we don't see eye to eye and one person thinks he knows what the other person meant when he said what he said.

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The guy's name is Tuan from Advanced Car Creations in Garden Grove, CA. I believe his name on here is toxictuan, pretty well known builder I guess. The only problem was I never had any direct comunication with him. He sent his guys out to measure my trunk, and I came back when the enclosure was done and that was that. $300 later.

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

The guy's name is Tuan from Advanced Car Creations in Garden Grove, CA. I believe his name on here is toxictuan, pretty well known builder I guess. The only problem was I never had any direct comunication with him. He sent his guys out to measure my trunk, and I came back when the enclosure was done and that was that. $300 later.

Okay, now I definitely want to know what that means because Toxic Tuan is one of the best designers I've ever seen, and he doesn't make things up nor make mistakes.

 

[DNick454 10+ year member]

The guy's name is Tuan from Advanced Car Creations in Garden Grove, CA. I believe his name on here is toxictuan, pretty well known builder I guess. The only problem was I never had any direct comunication with him. He sent his guys out to measure my trunk, and I came back when the enclosure was done and that was that. $300 later.

300 bucks for an enclosure? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/eek.gif.771b7a90cf45cabdc554ff1121c21c4a.gif And you weren't even given exact specs and such. That's a little shady... I'm guessing this person thought they knew what they were doing and built a box according to the Kicker manual for "deep-bass" which is actually tuned in the 40's because they fail and try to lure kids in with some ridiculous peaks that make it seem much louder than it is in actuality. I doubt the enclosure is very musical. I'm sure it hits those high notes and makes your head buzz, but it just flops around like a fish-outta-water on those lows.

 

[OC*SS 10+ year member]

300 bucks for an enclosure? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/eek.gif.771b7a90cf45cabdc554ff1121c21c4a.gif And you weren't even given exact specs and such. That's a little shady... I'm guessing this person thought they knew what they were doing and built a box according to the Kicker manual for "deep-bass" which is actually tuned in the 40's because they fail and try to lure kids in with some ridiculous peaks that make it seem much louder than it is in actuality. I doubt the enclosure is very musical. I'm sure it hits those high notes and makes your head buzz, but it just flops around like a fish-outta-water on those lows.

My mistake, it was $350. I remember now, I paid him a total of $750, including $400 subs. This guy definitely knows what he's doing. He's won one or more DBDRAG world championships with his designs. I just don't understand all the terminology is all. I didn't mean to open up a can of worms with this post, just wanted to know if I could drop the tuning using the same box. Guess I'll just take it back over there one of these days.

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

300 bucks for an enclosure? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/eek.gif.771b7a90cf45cabdc554ff1121c21c4a.gif And you weren't even given exact specs and such. That's a little shady... I'm guessing this person thought they knew what they were doing and built a box according to the Kicker manual for "deep-bass" which is actually tuned in the 40's because they fail and try to lure kids in with some ridiculous peaks that make it seem much louder than it is in actuality. I doubt the enclosure is very musical. I'm sure it hits those high notes and makes your head buzz, but it just flops around like a fish-outta-water on those lows.

No, unfortunately, we were wrong. Tuan is one of the few people I'd hire to design an enclosure for me, and I trust his knowledge and ability more than most others, so I really want to hear what "relative to the car's trunk" means.

 

[Toxic Tuan 10+ year member]

I vaguely remember the vehicle but let me explain a few things if it's unclear since like "OC*SS" said, I didn't have "direct communications" with him. It was another installer that took care of the project. I know that when I worked at Advanced Car Creations, we always made sure that each and every single customer was happy before the vehicle left and there were no exceptions.

Now,

In regards to the tuning frequency, again I don't remember exactly, since this was a very long time ago, and I didn't have direct contact...I can still explain a few things. There are some designs that I've done where a box was tuned to 70 hz, but the end result was a linear flat response all the way down to 20 hz. The enclosure itself is only 1 element. The vehicle cabin is a significant part of the total enclosure system.

Let me give you 2 most simple examples: Well take an SUV for simplicity. Say we had an enclosure that was tuned to 35 hz firing towards the rear vs the same enclosure firing directly towards the front. The end response is completely different. The wavelength of the rear firing will be long and the overall tuning will be lower. Hence, the enclosure must be compensated for the "wave development." The second example is a ported enclosure in a trunk vehicle. This system actually replicates a 6th order series tuned bandpass and models as a quasi-8th order at the dash. Therefore the entire tuning of the actual enclosure must be designed different. This is an absolute advanced enclosure design that takes an entirely different method of calculations and not just your average winisd or bbp.

However, if a person were to simply ask for an enclosure calculation, non a system design, then the enclosure must be exactly as modeled.

Tuan

 

[Toxic Tuan 10+ year member]

That makes no sense and you need to find a new designer. A loudspeaker is simply a system which regardless of its environment has certain qualities. Tuning frequency is one of the innate qualities. While the environment decides how the output is perceived, the tuning frequency itself is NOT environment dependent. It only depends on enclosure volume, port length and port area and if you want to be exact, a factor for end correction. Nothing else.

Actually, the tuning frequency is entire dependent on the environment. Slowly are people starting to realize this. Think about quarter wave, wave development and port resonance. There are peaks that must be considered when tuning.

Let me give you another example. If a vehicle's resonance frequency is at 40 hz, we can expect a gain at around 40 hz. If a customer asks to get bass that is around 40 hz but still retain a good reponse, then we must take the following action. Design a good overall linear response knowing that the actual output will have an environmental gain at 40 hz already. If we don't take that into consideration and continue to tune the enclosure at 40 hz, we will end up with an extremely peaky enclosure with an extreme peak. These 2 peaks are constructed by the port resonance and vehicle resonance. This would be a horrible design. That's not the end of the story. Now, if we were very unluck and the vehicle geometry were to be in alignment with a quarterwave gain, then we have a tripple spike at 40 hz. This would be just as bad as a single note gain bandpass design. I haven't even begun talking about other elements involved...but as you can see, this will create many problems.

In all honesty, many enclosure designers or as I call them calculators, do not understand, hear the different, or measure the actual response to know this. But that is where the true advanced designers separate themselves from the pack. Just take a look at Pete from PWK. His designs uses a particle collision derivative that accounts for even more aspects. As a matter of fact, by looking at some of his designs...many people would scratch their heads as in theory...it shouldn't work...but it does and there is a scientific explanation behind it that has not yet been revealed to the public. Let's just say that it make LEAP the thing in the past. It has even made DD, one of the best woofer company, a believer. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

I hope that makes sense.

Tuan

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

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[Toxic Tuan 10+ year member]

Oh, I forgot to mention about the pricing. When I worked at ACC, the shop's policy was 50% commission for the installer and the shop got the other 50% after the deduction of materials. I personally was paid on salary when I was there, no commision. Either way, yes it was expensive...but it's a part of business and overhead expense. I hope you guys understand that I didn't dictate those box pricings. When I personally build the box from home, I only charge half of the pricing compared to the shop's.

Tuan

 

[OC*SS 10+ year member]

Oh, I forgot to mention about the pricing. When I worked at ACC, the shop's policy was 50% commission for the installer and the shop got the other 50% after the deduction of materials. I personally was paid on salary when I was there, no commision. Either way, yes it was expensive...but it's a part of business and overhead expense. I hope you guys understand that I didn't dictate those box pricings. When I personally build the box from home, I only charge half of the pricing compared to the shop's.
Tuan

Great info Tuan. I wasn't at all slamming you in any way. Although the enclosure itself seemed a little expensive I never even questioned the price. I was referred to you and ACC by friends who have had work done by you. I think I did actually speak to you once when I bought my subs. I knew next to nothing about audio and walked in with a pair of 15" Orion H2's and wanted an enclosure built for them. You did some calculations and told me that they wouldn't work well in any type of enclosure, and you told me you could build something for 2 RE SX 12's that would sound way cleaner and louder than the 15's and I took your word, and they sure did.

Now back to my original question, can I do anything with this enclosure now or is it useless since it was designed for my car and I don't have the car anymore? I have an Avalanche now. Thanks //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/thumbsup.gif.3287b36ca96645a13a43aff531f37f02.gif

 

[Toxic Tuan 10+ year member]

Great info Tuan. I wasn't at all slamming you in any way. Although the enclosure itself seemed a little expensive I never even questioned the price. I was referred to you and ACC by friends who have had work done by you. I think I did actually speak to you once when I bought my subs. I knew next to nothing about audio and walked in with a pair of 15" Orion H2's and wanted an enclosure built for them. You did some calculations and told me that they wouldn't work well in any type of enclosure, and you told me you could build something for 2 RE SX 12's that would sound way cleaner and louder than the 15's and I took your word, and they sure did.
Now back to my original question, can I do anything with this enclosure now or is it useless since it was designed for my car and I don't have the car anymore? I have an Avalanche now. Thanks //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/thumbsup.gif.3287b36ca96645a13a43aff531f37f02.gif

The avalanche is a totally different car. That box wouldn't work at all. You're going to need to seal it off and fire into the cabin ported or bandpass. I you want, I can help build you a box for very very little. Or I can help you design it and you can build it yourself if you like.

Tuan

 

[TnT_Sounds 10+ year member]

The avalanche is a totally different car. That box wouldn't work at all. You're going to need to seal it off and fire into the cabin ported or bandpass. I you want, I can help build you a box for very very little. Or I can help you design it and you can build it yourself if you like.Tuan

You seem like a stand-up guy.

When are you coming to Colorado? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/veryhappy.gif.fec4fed33b4a1279cf10bdd45a039dae.gif