Has anyone tried home theater subs in their car?

[NightScreams 10+ year member]

Sorry if this question has been discussed before but I noticed how many home theater subs, often passive radiator designs seem to be so well engineered and ridiculously small but pretty expensive understandably. It seems that's where all the audio engineering goes to these days.

I'm unable to build my own anymore or at least for quite a while (handicapped from some texting driver) and of course the pre loaded enclosures for car audio is cheap junk. I'm seeing many HT subs that use other cone materials besides paper nowadays so I was wondering if anyone tried out any of those in their car by either bypassing the internal amp or using a passive one?

Designed for SQ movies and low extensions, wouldn't these be a much better alternative to all the run of the mill pre enclosures out there like Kickers n such? I listened to a $400 powered 10" at the store recently and it shook the store but wasn't much over a cubic foot...I thought to myself, man I want something like this in my car.

So for those that toyed with one in their car, do they work very well for such or are they that much worse?

Also, please remember don't text and drive, I'm lucky to be alive so just don't do it. thanks in advance.

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[NightScreams 10+ year member]

I see a Kilpsche ported 12" enclosure that says it's 116 db's efficiency but is like 14"x14"x16" ..wouldn't Hoffman's law require a larger box than that? Or maybe they are including it's 200 watt amp?

 

[fatboytyler]

I used to run Autotubas which are essentially home theater subs in a big complex folded horn design.

 

[C1500martin 10+ year member]

Dayton HO 12, running one in my truck off 800W and it SLAMS.

 

[blazian87 10+ year member]

Sorry if this question has been discussed before but I noticed how many home theater subs, often passive radiator designs seem to be so well engineered and ridiculously small but pretty expensive understandably. It seems that's where all the audio engineering goes to these days.
I'm unable to build my own anymore or at least for quite a while (handicapped from some texting driver) and of course the pre loaded enclosures for car audio is cheap junk. I'm seeing many HT subs that use other cone materials besides paper nowadays so I was wondering if anyone tried out any of those in their car by either bypassing the internal amp or using a passive one?

Designed for SQ movies and low extensions, wouldn't these be a much better alternative to all the run of the mill pre enclosures out there like Kickers n such? I listened to a $400 powered 10" at the store recently and it shook the store but wasn't much over a cubic foot...I thought to myself, man I want something like this in my car.

So for those that toyed with one in their car, do they work very well for such or are they that much worse?

Also, please remember don't text and drive, I'm lucky to be alive so just don't do it. thanks in advance.

I'm sorry to hear about your accident, I hope you get better in the near future. I'm a big fan of home theater subs.. Some of them require either huge enclosures or very minimal space. They usually have good bandwidth because they are meant to play down low for movies, which can still sound great in a car as well. Passive radiators are usually known to be in home theater but I have fiddled around with them long enough to know that they work great in cars as well. They are very costly but they do have their benefits. They have the ability to change tuning anytime you want with weights and you never have to worry about port noise. It can also can make the enclosure much smaller compared to a traditional ported box. The only downside I would say is it has a steeper slope from the tuning frequency but if you tune low enough, it doesn't really matter that much.

 

[blazian87 10+ year member]

I see a Kilpsche ported 12" enclosure that says it's 116 db's efficiency but is like 14"x14"x16" ..wouldn't Hoffman's law require a larger box than that? Or maybe they are including it's 200 watt amp?

Hoffman's law still applies but some subs are meant for smaller enclosures. The fact that it's very high sensitivity, that would make sense that it's in a small enclosure.. Not every 12" requires a big enclosure.. It varies from sub to sub..

 

[NightScreams 10+ year member]

Hoffman's law still applies but some subs are meant for smaller enclosures. The fact that it's very high sensitivity, that would make sense that it's in a small enclosure.. Not every 12" requires a big enclosure.. It varies from sub to sub..

I was on the understanding that the higher sensitivity a sub is, the larger it needed to be...that was practically a quote form a website. Maybe this is a dumb question but why don't they make subs like pictured below for car audio as well? That box is 13" x 13" x 13" and says 116 db @ 30 hz with 400 watts rms...I'm not sure how great that is but I am amazed at the size. Without the amp I doubt it would cost much to make. But seeing how many people buy pre enclosed subs from Crutchfield that want small, no hassle subs, designs like they have for HT would be a no brainer?

Why can't Kicker or some other mainstream maker do this for cars? Am I missing something, what's the tradeoff compared to the larger, cheaper made setups for cars?

 

[C1500martin 10+ year member]

They do sell them

Powered Subwoofers at Crutchfield.com

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

I was on the understanding that the higher sensitivity a sub is, the larger it needed to be...that was practically a quote form a website. Maybe this is a dumb question but why don't they make subs like pictured below for car audio as well? That box is 13" x 13" x 13" and says 116 db @ 30 hz with 400 watts rms...I'm not sure how great that is but I am amazed at the size. Without the amp I doubt it would cost much to make. But seeing how many people buy pre enclosed subs from Crutchfield that want small, no hassle subs, designs like they have for HT would be a no brainer?
Why can't Kicker or some other mainstream maker do this for cars? Am I missing something, what's the tradeoff compared to the larger, cheaper made setups for cars?

thats a passive radiator setup, it can sound good and was popular back then but efficiency wise, ported gives more output and car audio is all about the output nowadays to a majority of people.

Most of the times if you have a trunk, it blocks a lot of bass along with roadnoise, 116 db of bass is not much to satisfy anyone at all. People will complain "this is barely any louder than my door speakers! why the fff did i spend money on this sh*t".

 

[blazian87 10+ year member]

I was on the understanding that the higher sensitivity a sub is, the larger it needed to be...that was practically a quote form a website. Maybe this is a dumb question but why don't they make subs like pictured below for car audio as well? That box is 13" x 13" x 13" and says 116 db @ 30 hz with 400 watts rms...I'm not sure how great that is but I am amazed at the size. Without the amp I doubt it would cost much to make. But seeing how many people buy pre enclosed subs from Crutchfield that want small, no hassle subs, designs like they have for HT would be a no brainer?
Why can't Kicker or some other mainstream maker do this for cars? Am I missing something, what's the tradeoff compared to the larger, cheaper made setups for cars?

It doesn't take much for a room to get loud that's why most of the home theater stuff is low power.. It's much harder to get loud in a car if you have a trunk and there's alot of road noise when you drive also. You will be disappointed if you put that in your car. Kicker and other mainstream brands don't do stuff like this because that's not their territory. Completely different market. They do make the sub,box, and amp together for cars but it's pretty pathetic.. There's nothing wrong with using home theater subs, but please don't try to take shortcuts and buy an all-in-one product.

 

[T3mpest 10+ year member]

It's actually MUCH easier to get loud in a car than it is in any home. Cars are much smaller than any home and have cabin gain. Often a free 20db or more compared to the same setup in home, no amount of road noise makes up that difference. In a home, people rarely as loudly as they do in the car. They are watching movies which sound obnoxious played back as loudly as you'd play back a song. They are sitting with people in the home who are doing other things, they have neigbhors, etc. There simply isn't the need for playback to be as loud, even for music in MOST cases. (some people crank it up in the home on music tho lol)

Anyways home subs can work in a car. It really comes down to the sub in question, what it's response is like in a box that you can still fit in the car. It's a case by case thing so it's hard to make generalizations. One nice thing about many home audio subs is they tend to be for a more SQ oriented crowd and often have lower distortion.

As far as passive radiators go, they do work. My last setup in my SUV was a very powerful Pro audio 21inch woofer and 3 15inch passive radiators. In my old trunk setup, I had 2 15inch Acoustic Elegance subwoofers (a HT/music combo sub, works in either) and I used 4 passive radiators. Main advantage is you can get very low tuning out of a small box, since passives take up no space and the tuning is adjustable. I had a 5 cubic foot box tuned to 25hz in my trunk. If I were to do that with an adequately sized traditional port, by box would have been 7-8 cubes gross to be 5 cubes net and simply would never had fit in the trunk. Passives also don't have port resonance or noise to deal with, in a trunk setup that isn't important, but in something like a small truck, that can be great for SQ.

Anyways if you want to try passive radiators Parts express sells a couple different ones with variying levels of quality, depending how high power the speaker and build is. Creative sounds has 15inch passive radiators at a great value and those will keep up with very powerful car audio oriented woofers and output levels. Fixmyspeaker/PSI car audio also custom builds passives for car audio purposes, a bit more money than some, but those are nice passives a well.

 

[blazian87 10+ year member]

Thanks for clearing that up @T3mpest; I guess in my mind I think more space equals more opportunity. You can fit more cone area in a given space and potentially get louder but not everyone wants to fit huge enclosures though. It's always been said SUV's are hard to get loud in compared to cars with the same setup because of how far the music has to travel to get to you. Also the fact that when you're at home, you don't wanna disturb others so you tend to lower the volume. All things to consider for sure.. I've heard plenty of large rooms sound louder than a car so I guess my thinking is backwards.. lol

 

[NightScreams 10+ year member]

Sometimes you guys are conflicting if not occasionally confusing. Did anyone ever you tell you all that? lol.

My car is hatchback btw. My experience has been that hatchbacks were always louder with the same setup. Anyway, my concern isn't about being loud, actually I'd rather anyone else not know I have a system. I'm considering ditching my 1200 watt amp for at least half that to save stress on my stock alternator plus I don't need that much bass, something punchy for rock music, fill out some low end. I was asking only because it seems a lot more engineering and quality goes into HT side of factory preloaded enclosures than in cars. Especially in the high end, I'm amazed at the size but curious if I can get decent performance in my car for the wattage compared to say Kicker's line.

I remember in the 90's, you used to see all kinds of crazy preloaded enclosures including various isobaric and passive radiator designs with a lot of thought into optimizing the enclosure with the sub. Now they just make ugly, basic stuff with sub specs that should be put in much larger enclosures.

thats a passive radiator setup, it can sound good and was popular back then but efficiency wise, ported gives more output and car audio is all about the output nowadays to a majority of people.
Most of the times if you have a trunk, it blocks a lot of bass along with roadnoise, 116 db of bass is not much to satisfy anyone at all. People will complain "this is barely any louder than my door speakers! why the fff did i spend money on this sh*t".

116 is supposedly as loud as a rock concert. I don't think my 3 sundown 8's will do near that at 30hz. I played a 30hz test tone before and it wasn't very loud at all, so if that's the case then for the size of that Klipsche 10 inch enclosure, it seems like it would be impressive but not hearing it for myself I'd never know unless I try. So some people say HT subs can slam, others say I won't hear it....not sure what to make of it

However I like being different. I never enjoyed having a setup that most people have plus it gives people something to talk about when you show them. I'm the type that would own something like a Pheonix Gold Cyclone or Polk Audio C4 back in the day...even if their not the most optimal, I enjoy owning something more unique with hopefully it's own unique sound as well

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Sometimes you guys are conflicting if not occasionally confusing. Did anyone ever you tell you all that? lol.My car is hatchback btw. My experience has been that hatchbacks were always louder with the same setup. Anyway, my concern isn't about being loud, actually I'd rather anyone else not know I have a system. I'm considering ditching my 1200 watt amp for at least half that to save stress on my stock alternator plus I don't need that much bass, something punchy for rock music, fill out some low end. I was asking only because it seems a lot more engineering and quality goes into HT side of factory preloaded enclosures than in cars. Especially in the high end, I'm amazed at the size but curious if I can get decent performance in my car for the wattage compared to say Kicker's line.

I remember in the 90's, you used to see all kinds of crazy preloaded enclosures including various isobaric and passive radiator designs with a lot of thought into optimizing the enclosure with the sub. Now they just make ugly, basic stuff with sub specs that should be put in much larger enclosures.

116 is supposedly as loud as a rock concert. I don't think my 3 sundown 8's will do near that at 30hz. I played a 30hz test tone before and it wasn't very loud at all, so if that's the case then for the size of that Klipsche 10 inch enclosure, it seems like it would be impressive but not hearing it for myself I'd never know unless I try. So some people say HT subs can slam, others say I won't hear it....not sure what to make of it

However I like being different. I never enjoyed having a setup that most people have plus it gives people something to talk about when you show them. I'm the type that would own something like a Pheonix Gold Cyclone or Polk Audio C4 back in the day...even if their not the most optimal, I enjoy owning something more unique with hopefully it's own unique sound as well

You need to hit up some spl competitions. You can easily hit past 125db with that sundown 8 in a high output box. Bass db feels different from midrange loudspeaker dbs.

 

[T3mpest 10+ year member]

[quote name='blazian87']Thanks for clearing that up @T3mpest; I guess in my mind I think more space equals more opportunity. You can fit more cone area in a given space and potentially get louder but not everyone wants to fit huge enclosures though. It's always been said SUV's are hard to get loud in compared to cars with the same setup because of how far the music has to travel to get to you. Also the fact that when you're at home, you don't wanna disturb others so you tend to lower the volume. All things to consider for sure.. I've heard plenty of large rooms sound louder than a car so I guess my thinking is backwards.. lol[/QUOTE]

Rooms tend to sound different than cars. There is no rattling car panels so the bass is cleaner and tends to sound deeper as a result. The response is also more linear which can sometimes change your subjective impressions of it. Try and imagine sitting in the house and having your eyeballs shake, nose itch and clothes blowing around like in a loud car, it just seems ridiculous because expectations are totally different. There is plenty of room in a home for impressive setups, but the gain just isnt' there in a large room. AVS forum has a member by the name of NOTNYT anyways he has 8 LMS ultra 18's on 2-4kw a piece. IIRC the setup does well under 150db full tilt, IIRC it's more like 135-145 range. However, he does that score within a db or so anywhere between 5hz and where he crosses them over... He has a buddy with 8 Sundown zv4 sealed in a smaller room, similar score, a couple db's quiter, but in the same ballaprk of 135-145.