Does a downfiring box create substantially more vibration than front/rear firing?

[teoulennon 10+ year member]

I'm working on a box for under the seat of a 2019 f250. I can go downfiring or front firing.
My concern is vibrations with a downfiring box - I want to "hear" my bass more than feel it in my seat and steering wheel.

Does a downfiring box create substantially more vibration in a vehicle? In other words, will it be obvious the box is downfiring?

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[1aespinoza 10+ year member]

Floors are usually well padded and reenforced so I would not worry about vibration. However, I have noticed that down firing subs sound mufflled. I've been told that it does not matter because bass notes are not supposed to be musical and that it also has to do with my preference for lower power subs.

 

[YourNameHere 10+ year member]

does not matter because bass notes are not supposed to be directional

fixed.....

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Floors are usually well padded and reenforced so I would not worry about vibration. However, I have noticed that down firing subs sound mufflled. I've been told that it does not matter because bass notes are not supposed to be musical and that it also has to do with my preference for lower power subs.

Its not a matter of directional, its more to do with phase cancellations. Downfiring is garbage in general. Best box for trucks under the seat is a few 6.5s or 8s front firing with ports side firing to a solid door/wall with ports being close to the rear wall as possible as well. This keeps phase in check which leads to extremely loud and accurate bass performance. Thats for space saving. Best performer is a b pillar wall. Phase is fully in check when done right, no issues with reflected waves causing trouble with incident waves most of the times.

 

[teoulennon 10+ year member]

Its not a matter of directional, its more to do with phase cancellations. Downfiring is garbage in general. Best box for trucks under the seat is a few 6.5s or 8s front firing with ports side firing to a solid door/wall with ports being close to the rear wall as possible as well. This keeps phase in check which leads to extremely loud and accurate bass performance. Thats for space saving. Best performer is a b pillar wall. Phase is fully in check when done right, no issues with reflected waves causing trouble with incident waves most of the times.

Thanks for this. I noticed a lot of front firing boxes for trucks under the seat (like Gately's for example) have the port front firing as well, any idea why they choose that instead of side firing?
My choices for front firing right now are 2 idmax 10's sealed or 2 DD 2000 series 8"s ported. I was also thinking about 2 sundown sd-4 10's (or 12's if I can fit them) downfiring sealed, but not sure if these would have enough output for me.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Thanks for this. I noticed a lot of front firing boxes for trucks under the seat (like Gately's for example) have the port front firing as well, any idea why they choose that instead of side firing?
My choices for front firing right now are 2 idmax 10's sealed or 2 DD 2000 series 8"s ported. I was also thinking about 2 sundown sd-4 10's (or 12's if I can fit them) downfiring sealed, but not sure if these would have enough output for me.

those gately boxes look cool but notice how steve already wanted to upgrade to 8s... the performance aint there because he's always fighting against phase cancellation in the front fire design. It looks cool but you are definitely fighting an uphill battle against your vehicle acoustics. Trucks you always want to do ported, sealed is a total waste of time most of the times in trucks you will be lucky to be louder than your door speakers with sealed in trucks. Side fire has always landed above a 140 db in the under the seat setups cscstang does and he's done a **** ton of under the seat builds. The ones where the customers went against his recommendations and want sealed, down firing or up firing were all flops in comparison like could not even hit 125 db bad.